By Obike Ukoh
Unarguably, globally, alumni associations play critical roles in the overall development of their alma maters.
Indeed, stakeholders are in agreement that alumni associations are important to the continued development of their alma maters, and that carefully cultivated alumni relationships can bring many long-term benefits.
Heads of educational institutions in Nigeria, on their own have not relented in fostering cordial relationships between their schools and members of the alumni associations.
One of the annual harvests used by educational institutions, especially universities to bring their old students together, is the Alumni Lecture Series.
The lecture is usually delivered by a Distinguished Alumnus.
When Prof. Francis Igbasan, Vice-Chancellor of MCPHERSON University, delivered the 2024 Alumni Lecture of Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), stressed the strategic importance of alumni associations.
Igbasan, an alumnus of FUTA, said that one cannot expect government at the federal and state levels to attend to the ever-growing needs of the university, and the alumni association must be ready to contribute to the development of their alma mater.’’
The choice of the lecturer is also important, as most of the time the Distinguish Lecturer shared his experiences with the attendees, especially the students in order to serve as a role model.
The Ebonyi State University (EBSU) Abakaliki, followed this known path, as it picked 45-year old Dr Chima Anyaso, a 2003 graduate of English and Literature as the lecturer of its Alumni Lecture Series.
The Igbere, Bende LGA, born businessman and politician spoke on the theme: From Classroom to Boardroom:The Power of Education in Shaping Destiny.’’
Anyaso is the Chief Executive Officer of Caades Group, a multi-sector conglomerate with investments in real estate, oil and gas, healthcare, hospitality and more.
Anyaso used his pathway experiences to elucidate his points, during the lecture, stressing that leadership training via entrepreneurship, is essential to national development and good fiscal governance.
He stressed that leadership recruitment should lay emphasis on entrepreneurial experience.
He decried ascension of people without business experience to public office as a costly apprenticeship, that Nigeria cannot afford, adding that governance is about managing collective wealth for collective progress.
According to Anyaso public office should not be a reward for loyalty, but rather earned through problem solving and value creation.
“You have to learn to build and prepare for leadership. If a person who has never engaged in enterprise or managed a business is elected to public office, public funds inevitably become their first business experience.
And Nigeria cannot afford such a costly apprenticeship,” he stated. He said that from which ever angle you look at it, sound financial management is critical to national development.
“To secure the nation, you need funding. To close a budget deficit, you need fiscal discipline, and to build infrastructure, you need capital allocation. The trade that ties all these together is one word: Money.
How it is raised, how it is spent and how it is accounted for. Governance is ultimately the management of collective wealth for collective progress.
“Now ask yourself, will you hand over the operating theatre to a man who has never held a scalpel simply because he claims to care about health?Of course not.
Yet many are quick to hand over public coffers to individuals who have never even balanced a small ledger or navigated the discipline of payroll in business.
“You don’t learn financial management with public money because when you fail, the people will bleed.”
Anyaso asserted that all in all,Private enterprise becomes the ideal training ground and the proving ground where ideas are tested, discipline is built, and failure teaches faster than theory.”
Anyaso also told the students that they don’t need to graduate before they engage in entrepreneurship.
He said inter alia: “Build something, manage risk, solve problems, and create value.
“When you have mastered that in the marketplace, then you can competently scale those principles to national challenges.”
The guest lecturer also stressed that education should not be seen as an ornamental achievement but as a functional instrument for personal growth and societal change.
Anyaso, who humorously said that he was not an exceptionally brilliant students, urged the students not to study to pass exams, but study to understand, to build,and to lead.
Anyaso, who said that he was actually in the university to grab the certificate and run away,’’ charged the students to start where they are and should not wait for ideal conditions, as they can add value from where they stand.
He said that as a student, he engaged in trading and other sundry activities.
According to him, other nuggets for success in a classroom include, “Turn knowledge into value, solve problems. Never stop learning, formally or informally, keep growing.
Build people not just for profits. Your lead is your real asset. Give back as you grow. If your success doesn’t lift others, it’s incomplete. Lead with purpose not just position.’’
The guest lecturer who also emphasized the importance of grace in whatever we do, made a case for the redesigning of EBSU curriculum, to emphasize leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Let’s establish innovation laboratories and student venture funds. Let’s make it mandatory for final year students to pitch real-world projects before graduating.’’
Though Anyaso told the students to be serious with their academic studies, however noted that: “Your future is not written in your grade. It is written in your grit.
“Some of the most successful people on earth started from failure, from rejection, from nothing, see your setbacks as stepping stones. Turn your delays into discoveries.”
Anyaso did what he advocated for, as he laid the foundation for the construction of a N250 million Study Pavilion in the university for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.
He put the completion date of the project at 12 months, adding the project was to further upgrade the infrastructure in the university, which he described a pathetic during his undergraduate days.
The position of Anyaso was in agreement with that of Prof. Ifeoma Nwoye’s 2018 Inaugural Lecture at Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger.
The title of the lecture is: “That Evil Called Poverty: Entrepreneurship as Escape to Comfort Zone.’’
In the lecture, like Anyaso, she underscored the importance of entrepreneurship and urged government at all levels to implement poverty alleviation solutions, that can foster and stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in poverty stricken areas of Nigeria.
She said that if the government wanted to offer resource-assistance to the poor, “ the leaders should do so not through handouts.’’
“Nwoye said instead of handouts, the poor should be empowered through boosting of programmes to be “handled by the poor themselves and non-governmental organisations and through programmes with features of sustainability.’’
She said charity and almsgiving played good roles in efforts to help the poor,“ but the goal for every charitable organisation should be to help the poor move beyond dependency.
“No person ever became wealthy or self-sufficient through handouts,’’ Nwoye pointed out.
She stressed that “ only entrepreneurial intervention, with its scalable nature can pull the poor from the war zone unto the voyage to COMFORT ZONE and ensure sustainable quality life.’’
Many of the students in separate interviews, said that the lecture was an eye-opener, especially the advice that they should not wait after graduating before venturing into enterprise of their dream.
They also noted the assertion by the guest lecturer that the grade of pass does not determine success or failure after leaving school.
Anyaso boldly told the audience his grade of pass: Third Class Honours.
They also said that, as suggested by Anyaso, the curriculum should be redesigned to incorporate entrepreneurship education.
Dr Joseph Chukwu, an alumnus of the school, who spoke on the lecture series, said the initiative would greatly reposition the university in terms of learning and infrastructure development.
Chukwu, who is the Head of Department of Mass Communication , Alex Ekwueme, Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, said the initiative was commendable.
He said that successful alumni should be celebrated, while they should in turn uplift their alma mater and their teachers.
Indeed the guest lecture has uplifted his alma mater, via the proposed study centre, and the students and other attendees, through widening their views on the potential of entrepreneurship on all human endeavours.
Obike Ukoh, ex-Deputy Editor-In-Chief, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
