President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday in Jos assured that the Federal Government would leave no stone unturned to ensure normalcy returned to all parts of the country soon.
He gave the assurance at the 25th convocation ceremony of the University of Jos, saying government was fully conscious of its responsibility of securing lives and property of Nigerians.
The President who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, added that his administration would stop at nothing to achieve the objective.
“It is a fact that every nation faces different obstacles at different stages of their evolution. Nevertheless, the nations that prosper are those that embrace their diversity and turn it into a source of strength.
“It is my belief that the forces of positive change are at work and we can no more resist it than resist the gift of life itself.
“The progress of this nation will not yield to obsolete and destructive dogmas,’’ he said.
The president, who is the Visitor to the university, said some people have unfortunately found it easier to hold on to the allure of divisiveness.
He said the federal government was however not unmindful of the difficulties staff and students of the university have had to endure.
Jonathan assured the university community and Nigerians of better days ahead, and commended Unijos for repositioning itself to be part of the solution to the protracted social conflicts in Plateau.
He said the university had done this by using its Centre for Conflict Management and Peace Studies to embark on peace advocacy to different communities.
“I want to assure you that government is fully committed to uplifting the standard of our universities through the injection of funds and other critical resources,’’ the president said.
He held that education occupied a strategic place in the matrix of societal demands and that it accounted for why government had risen to the challenges of the sector through increased funding.
“The Transformation Agenda can only achieve the articulated goals when remarkable improvement in the existing quality of education, and access to university in particular, is widened,’’ Jonathan said.
The university’s Chancellor, Oba Rufus Aladesanmi III, the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, called on the federal government to strengthen security and provide special grants to university campuses.
He said this special grant would help in coping with the increasing security challenges.
The chancellor commiserated with the families of those who lost their lives at Gombe State University and Bayero University Kano in the recent attacks on their campuses.
He also prayed for speedy recovery for the injured in the attacks.
Aladesanmi commended Jonathan for approving the setting up of the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities to assess specific needs of universities.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee was set up with the intent of determining priority areas to deploy resources.
The Vice Chancellor of University of Jos, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai, had earlier said 10,658 students were graduating.
“Of these, 5,652 of them are in the first degrees category, 707 in Masters and 55 in Doctoral (PhD) degrees, while 4,039 and 205 are for diplomas and postgraduate diplomas respectively,’’ he said.(NAN)
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