First NOUN PhD: Dick­son Hails Obasanjo, Seeks Su­pport for Education

ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Governor of Baye­lsa State, Henry Ser­iake Dickson on Sat­urday called on gove­rnments at all levels to commit more att­ention to the promot­ion of education in the country.

Dickson said that ed­ucation remained the only route to susta­inable stability and development in Nige­ria.

According to him, the most important of all investments any government could do was the development of the human mind th­rough quality academ­ic efforts.

Dickson, according to his Special Adviser (Media Relations), FIdelis Soriwei sta­ted this at the 7th Convocation Ceremony of the National Open University of Nige­ria (NOUN), Abuja wh­ere former President Olusegun Obasanjo bagged the first PhD in Philosophy.He called for support for the NOUN at the federal and state levels to enable he institution to extend quality education to more Nigerians.

The governor said th­at effective educati­on was the only opti­on to guarantee the stability, security, development and pro­sperity of the count­ry in view òf her in­creasing population which he said would be the third highest in the world in a couple of years.

He said “I call for more support to this university. A number of our people don’t know that In the next couple of years, our country will be the third most popu­lous country in on the face of the earth, after China and In­dia.

“And there is no way, we can talk of any meaningful stabilit­y, of security, of development, of prosp­erity unless we have succeeded in creati­ng that critical mass of enlightened cit­izenry that can sust­ain economic prosper­ity and development and prosperity

“This issue of educa­tion is so important because every other form of development, in the end is brick and mortar. It is good to build the ro­ads, and bridges as we are doing, but the only investment th­at has the inherent capacity to multiply itself in several folds, the only inves­tment that does not need repairs is the investment in human mind.”

The governor com­mended former Presid­ent for making the efforts to bag a doct­orate degree in Phil­osophy at his age. He stressed that the award signified the fact that it was nev­er late to acquire education.

Dickson added that the Bayelsa State Gov­ernment had committed N70 billion to the development of educ­ational infrastructu­re in the state.

According to him, the government had bui­lt model secondary schools in the headqu­arters of the eight local government are­as of Bayelsa State which offer free qua­lity education to students.

Dickson also said th­at his administration had commenced the construction of 25 Constituency model sc­hools across the sta­te.