Text of the Address of the Vice Chancellor of African School of Economics (The Pan-African University of Excellence), Abuja, Prof. Mahfouz A. Adedimeji, Delivered on the Occasion of the 2nd Matriculation Ceremony of the University at the Main Hall, ASE, on Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Your Present Is Your Present
First of All
It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this important occasion and the ambience of our African School of Economics, the Pan-African University of Excellence, Abuja. I acknowledge our distinguished guests and parents as well as our matriculating students that we are celebrating today.
I heartily welcome the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Emeritus Is-haq Oloyede, a pillar of support to our institution and a gift of God to Nigeria. I also acknowledge our Matriculation Lecturer, who is also the Kwara State Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development and Chairman of the Committee of State Commissioners of Education in Nigeria, my brother, Dr Lawal O. Olohungbebe.
I celebrate the visioner and founder of our great university, Prof. Leonard Wantchekon, who is with us virtually and I recognise our resourceful Country Director and Chairman of our Board of Directors, Mr Obinna Obiwulu, for all his support and commitment to our collective success as an institution and for being an amiable personality.
First of all, I want to begin by congratulating our matriculating students on this occasion because today is their day. This occasion lays a bridge between their immediate past and their desired future as they officially become bonafide members of the academic community and undergraduates of the Nigerian university system. It is indeed a turning point that cannot be taken for granted.
Though hundreds of thousands of Nigerians desire the opportunity they have, the fact remains that not everyone is ultimately fortunate to gain admission to the university and thereby take this definitive step towards attaining their life goals. It is even one thing to gain admission to a university at all, it is another matter entirely to be considered worthy of being a member of the African School of Economics global community. To the matriculating students, I congratulate you once again and I’ll soon return to you!
ASE as a Game Changer
Having welcomed you to the African School of Economics, it is appropriate, even if apposite, to say that our university has a recent history in Nigeria. The university began operations after its approval by the Federal Government of Nigeria just two years ago and between then and now, it has made many significant impacts, one of which is the recent appointment of one of our faculty members as Pro-Chancellor of a foremost federal university in Nigeria.
The university was conceived to be a game changer with its pan-African approach to transforming the continent through high quality education that priotises total education and complete human capacity development through intensive training in academic, technical, professional and entrepreneurial skills. The university is also open to all who are qualified regardless of backgrounds and our lecturers are sourced from within and outside Nigeria.
ASE offers blended and transnational educational opportunities with its network of partners in North America, Europe, Asia and a number of countries in Africa especially Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire and Zanzibar. The university currently has three Faculties, which are Arts, Management and Social Sciences, Science and Computing as well as Allied Health Sciences in which 20 academic programmes are domiciled. These programmes are English Language and Literature, History and Diplomatic Studies, Economics, Political Science, International Relations, Criminology and Security Studies, Accounting, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Microbiology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Medical Laboratory Science and Public Health.
Apart from centres that support our philosophy of bridging the gap between theory and practice, there is also a Postgraduate School that offers Postgraduate Diploma, Master and PhD in Accounting, Finance, Economics, Econometrics, Public Administration and Business Administration, including MBA. Ours is the university of tomorrow that is operating today. Therefore, I encourage secondary school leavers, admission candidates, parents and even professionals to secure their futures and advance their careers by joining our fledgling University of Excellence.
Poverty in Diversity
The Chairman, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it is obvious that today, part of the crisis confronting higher education in Nigeria and Africa at large is a mismatch between our institutions and the labour market. More often than not, statistics suggest that graduates are not market ready and this has led to a large number of unemployed youth in our society. This is due to the real or perceived limited skills among graduates. According to the State of the Youth Report 2025, as reported by Premium Times on September 5, 2025, some 80 million Nigerian youth are unemployed while about 1.7 million Nigerian graduates are produced every year by our tertiary institutions.
In a situation where unemployment and underemployment keep millions of people webbed in unstable jobs that offer little or no income security, poverty level remains high. The National Bureau of Statistics reveals that 82.9 million Nigerians live in poverty and this poverty is in diversity across our regional and geographical divides, though it is more pervasive in some areas than the others. This scenario creates additional problems that are not hard to discern in the state of the country and this is why it is crucial that universities prepare students for financial independence after graduation.
It is in the light of this compelling background that our matriculation lecture of today is on the theme, “University Education as a Catalyst for Poverty Eradication”. In other words, how does university education equip students with skills and competencies that make them have no business with poverty upon graduation?
It is agreeable that university education in itself should be an empowerment mechanism against the ravages of poverty and this can be achieved when we do more right things and do things right more across board in the system, just as we strive to do here in ASE through our operational blueprint of providing Total Education.
Our Guest Speaker
As everyone shall know when his citation is read, our Guest Speaker is one of the most qualified personalities to address this topic and inspire our students and the society at large. A product of the Nigerian university system, Dr Olohungbebe is a cerebral scholar and administrator that continues to make impact in Nigeria as the Commissioner for Education in Kwara State and Chairman of the Committee of State Commissioners of Education in Nigeria. His versatility is a veritable source of inspiration and his engagement with community development demonstrates the relevance of the spirit of service to creating change and adding value to the society. He has never been poor since he graduated from the university.
A lecturer himself in the university system before his current assignment, our Guest Lecturer is a proof that competence, character, creativity and consistency are essential to making a difference. I am very sure we shall find his lecture valuable as we all navigate the terrain of banishing poverty from our society and make our education more functional. Honourable Commissioner, we are delighted to have you as our Matriculation Lecturer today and we look forward to collaborating with you and your network in advancing the cause of education in our beloved country. ASE has an international pool of excellent human resources and we are always ready. Are you not ready?
From the Present to the Future
To my dear matriculating students, I started by congratulating you on this occasion and I still do because it is customary. Nevertheless, you need to understand that you will deserve being congratulated in the real sense after making a success out of the amazing journey ahead of you and coming out in flying colours. You are just starting and before you are terrains to be explored, depths to be reached and treasures to be discovered. The opportunities are vast and your responsibility is to utilise them by maximising the use of your time. All you have is the present of the present to guarantee your future.
When I say ‘your present is your present’ as the title of this address is, I am not just being repetitive; I am only using the semantic relation of homography, referring to the sameness of spelling but different meanings. While the first ‘present’ refers to a period of time, the moment we are in, the second refers to a gift. In other words, the moment you have now or the opportunity of life you enjoy is your gift or present to transform your world. Your present or presence here is a gift that has been denied other people like you. Use it well on your studies and preparation before your present becomes past. Commit yourselves fully to your primary assignment in the university as that is the key to your success and avoid distractors or distractions.
A Formula for Life
While maintaining focus, dear students, you can still align yourselves with what Christopher Morley once said that is regarded as a formula for a good life: “there are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning”. Thus, beyond the classroom, you should try to learn everyday from others both vertically and horizontally so that you won’t have to learn from your own mistakes. A fool, they say, learns from his own mistakes while a wise person learns from the mistakes of others.
You should acquire relevant skills as part of your learning process that would make you earn income and provide bread for you and others. You should also yearn or be eager to achieve what you have not achieved by setting goals for yourselves. Yearning involves not being contented with being in your comfort zone; it involves being desirous to know more of the unknown and to do better than you did yesterday. This is why your slogan at the university is to strive to be better than the best.
Without any doubt, the quest to being better is continuous. It is your responsibility to identify and harmonise what you love and what you are good at with what the world needs and what you can be paid for. You are welcome to the university and I encourage you to never rest until you always become better than the best elsewhere.
The Mother of all Virtues
I started this address on a note of recognitions and I want to conclude it on a note of gratitude as it is said that gratitude is the mother of all virtues. I appreciate the Founder of the University, Prof. Wantchekon, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr Obiwulu, for all their efforts. I am grateful to my mentor and Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Emeritus Oloyede, for all the institutional support he has given to this great university and for his phenomenal power of personal example. I thank my colleagues, the Registrar, Mrs Emilomo Ogunboye; the Bursar, Mr Stephen Adegbite; and the Deans, faculty members and staff.
It is part of the greatness of the University that our Dean of Postgraduate School, Prof. Adegboyega Karim, is appointed Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a point I foreshadowed earlier. I thank the Federal Government of Nigeria for the honour. I am, indeed, grateful to everyone of us here present, especially our invited guests and members of the press. I look forward to receiving you all once again in a not-too-distant future.
Thank you very much for your attention and once again, congratulations to all of us!