Tony Osauzo and Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin

A former Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Prof. Olufemi Baniro, has called on African leaders to invest in research to end hunger, unemployment and underdevelopment in the continent rather than depending on foreign aids.

He made the call, on Thursday, at the University of Benin during the inauguration of Centre of Excellence in Reproductive Health ( CERHI)‎.

Delivering a lecture titled, ‘Sustainable Development Goal and the Nigeria University System’, Prof. Baniro said the problems could be solved through adequate and sustained research in our in universities.

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“Our universities will have to deploy their education, training, research, innovation and extension capability to tackle the problems. If we build the capacity of existing institutions, we will have the capacity to solve existing problem and new ones”, he said.

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He lamented that the nation  universities’ curriculum is disconnect from industries in terms of skill for employment, and advised that the curriculum should be run in such a way that it will build the right skills for the industries.

According to him, Nigeria has not taken the advantage of its youthful population to advance the technological advancement and unemployment in the country.

On his part, Prof. Friday Okonofua , said the lecture was to create public awareness about CERHI and its services in order to ensure that the general public and the university community benefit from the work of the centre in the provision of reproductive health education and related social services.

He said CERHI is one of 22 African Centres of excellence projects established by the World Bank in universities in the West and Central African regions in 2014 for the purpose of rejigging the universities to deliver effective and innovative postgraduate educational systems that will improve the ranking of the universities and also proffer solutions to regional developmental challenges.