News & Events

Pat Utomi

FORMER presidential aspirant and Director of Lagos Business School, Prof. Pat Utomi, is optimistic about the Nigeria’s economy despite the odds, stating: “There is no question about the fact that ours is a significant economy, it does not mean that everything is well with it, but it has a great prospect.”

Utomi, who spoke on Monday in Calabar after chairing an economic summit organized by the University of Calabar Students’ Union, emphasized the need for managers of the nation’s economy to have a clear national approach towards this growth phase, as doing otherwise might foreclose an opportunity to grow it further.

He noted: “We are in a growth phase, it is important to be able to have a clear national strategy to approach this growth phase, otherwise we would find that the windows of opportunity might close before us.”

Utomi advised undergraduates to always think outside the box, noting that education is not all about certification but rather an opportunity to broaden the human mind. To that end, he charged students to be “creative, passionate and committed while doing the right things at all times.”

Meanwhile, in his keynote address at the summit tagged, “Cross River Beyond Oil: New Economic Realities and Youth Inclusion,” a governorship aspirant in the state, Mr. Emmanuel Ibeshi, advocated job creation policy in the state.

This, he said, would not only check the growing rate of unemployment among graduates but as well encourage skills acquisition. The former member of the House of Representatives, who tied the alarming rate of unemployment among graduates to non-professional courses, also called for a policy focusing on professional retraining.

He implored graduates to take advantage of several opportunities that abound in agriculture and tourism, among others, and canvassed scholarship programmes that would help develop graduates in other profitable fields of specialization.

The summit, according to the SUG President, Comrade Bassey Eka, advocates a shift of paradigm from oil as the nation’s most critical economic resource to setting agenda for creative alternatives.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN NEWS