President Muhammadu Buhari has told the management of Nigerian universities to put a stop to the practice of wasteful spending.
The President urged them to channel available resources into teaching, research and other productive ventures.
The President, represented by Chiedu Mafiana, Executive Director at the National University Commission, spoke in Ilorin at the 32nd convocation of the University of Ilorin on Saturday.
President Buhari said his administration expects universities to be self-reliant and be able to fund themselves.
“Government is uncomfortable that our citadels of learning which should be training grounds for probity, social justice and decorum have become havens for gross indiscipline, cultism, sexual harassment, immorality, indecency, violence, unnecessary demonstrations and all forms of anti-social behaviours,” he said.
The President called for proper communication between students and management to enable both parties interact, dialogue and consult freely.
“This will help to engender peace, tolerance, orderliness, self-discipline, sobriety and attitudinal change in our institutions of higher learning,” he said.
He warned managers of universities that they would be held responsible for every positive and negative actions in their respective institutions.
He told the graduands that the country did not have the means to provide jobs for every graduate.
He therefore appealed to them to strive to engage in one form of productive activity or the other, adding that the present economic recession is not peculiar to Nigeria.
He said the socio-economic situation has been brought about by our collective failure as a people, dependency on oil exports to the exclusion of other products.
The president said the administration was doing everything possible to restructure the economy and change our ways of doings things.
The Vice Chancellor, Prof Abdul Ganiyu Ambali, said the university would inaugurate 20 projects, 12 of them executed with Internally Generated Revenue.
He appealed to the graduands to be hard working and be active in the university alumni activities.
He also urged to be good ambassadors of the university.
8,038 graduands were conferred with degrees and diplomas.
