By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin 

Former Director, Kenya Anti-corruption Commission and  international mediator, Prof. Patrick Lumumba has said that African universities must be respected and adequately funded if true and effective development must be achieved on the continent.

He, however, condemned the current developments whereby  “Africa remains the only continent where academics are undervalued while politicians become multimillionaires.”

Lumumba said this in Ilorin, Kwara State capital while speaking as guest lecturer at the 50th anniversary celebration of the University of Ilorin.

He stated that, “Africa remains the only continent where academics are undervalued while politicians become multimillionaires.

He said this situation must change for the continent to progress educationally.

Lumumba noted that Nigeria’s vast human resource potential continues to shine globally, as evidenced by the countless Nigerian engineers, professors, and doctors excelling in Europe, America, and across Africa. 

The Pan-Africanist emphasized that the rise of Africa depends on giving the continent’s scholars and institutions their rightful place, welfare,  beginning with universities such as the University of Ilorin. 

Reflecting on Africa’s past commitments, he recalled the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, where leaders pledged to strengthen education and intra-African trade but failed to follow through. 

He also cited the 1991 Abuja Declaration, in which African nations promised to allocate 15 per cent of their national budgets to health, a target still unmet decades later. 

According to him, these unfulfilled promises illustrate the gap between aspiration and action on the continent. 

The Kenyan intellectual, therefore, called on the management of the University of Ilorin to take it upon itself to act towards the achievement of policies that will be of benefit to its immediate community, Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

Lumumba critiqued the nation’s current state of food dependency, lamenting that despite the ongoing cultural debate over Jollof Rice between Nigeria and Ghana, the country continues to heavily import rice, beef, and poultry.

“Today, Africa cannot feed itself. This must stop,” he declared.

He also emphasized that the solution to the challenges of Africa lies within a reformed, indigenous educational framework.

He charged Nigerian universities

to focus on creating a new generation of graduates equipped to solve local problems, expressing a vision for a time when “the minds of young Nigerians and the minds of young Africans will be decolonised.”

According to Lumumba, the pathway to self-reliance, is a revolution in agriculture led by academia and practical engagement in areas like aquaculture, poultry farming, sugarcane farming among others.

“I’m looking forward to the day when the engineers produced at the University of Ilorin will solace the problems of the continent of Africa.

“I look forward to to the University of Ilorin producing a different graduates of agriculture; so that when we talk of aquaculture in Nigeria, when we talked about poultry farming in Nigeria, when we talked about sugar cane farming in Nigeria, Africa will be able to feed ourselves,” he stated.

He, however, opined that Unilorin is already beginning to engage in the necessary large-scale agricultural projects to shift the national narrative from dependency to self-sufficiency.

“I see the 15,000-hectare area, and I see Jatropha farms and Teak farms,” he said.