Expert Tasks FG On Insecurity, Unemployment

The Federal Government has been urged to employ the services of Nigerian social scientists to tackle the problems of insecurity, unemployment, and poverty in the country. The Executive Director, Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) Professor Tade Aina advised the government to employ social scientists in developing solutions to poverty, unemployment, and insecurity in his second term. He explained that the social scientists were the most prepared for studying and understanding problems of unemployment, population crisis, security and human rights challenges and other problems facing the country to formulate public policy that can address them. Speaking while delivering the Postgraduate College, University of Ibadan Interdisciplinary discourse lecture entitled: “The social sciences and the public policy in Nigeria in the era of the fourth Industrial revolution: Relevance and potential for social transformation”, he lamented that knowledge was no longer an important factor in policy formulation in Nigeria.

Aina recalled the roles played by social scientists like Professor Akin Mabogunje, Pius Okigbo, Bolaji Akinyemi, and Ibrahim Gambari in developing the first three national development plans for the country in the 60s. “The social sciences are perhaps the most prepared for studying and understanding these problems and reconfiguration of public policy, individual and collective wellbeing.

“An active, alert and adaptive social science community is key to providing valid evidence, understanding and making sense of policy options and political directions in such contexts. Policies emerge from the mobilisation of vested interest particularly policies about setting agendas to determine the direction of society, political system and the direction of political economies. They serve ends”, he said In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Professor Idowu Olayinka stated that the Nigerian society needs to invest in knowledge generation, research, and knowledge transmission to solve her problems. He lamented that Nigeria’s universities face more problems that make them not to effectively compete as world-class universities adding that the Nigerian society seems to prefer mediocrity to meritocracy.

This has been re-posted from:  https://leadership.ng/2019/05/27/expert-tasks-fg-on-insecurity-unemployment/