Lagos – The Chancellor of Covenant University, Ota, Ogun, Dr David Oyedepo, has advised doctoral students in the institution to evolve ideas that could address societal problems.
This is contained in a statement signed by the Head, Media and Information unit of the institution, Mr Emmanuel Igban, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
According to the statement, Oyedepo gave the advice during a meeting with doctoral students of the university in Ota.
He promised to make funds available to them for research “to identify problems to which they will proffer solutions.’’
Attributing current challenges to lack of capacity to get jobs done, Oyedepo lamented a situation whereby doctoral degree holders, who should be finding solutions to problems, seemed to lack capacity to think.
“I have come to provoke your potentials as there is more inside you than the earned certificate.
“If you cannot think out solutions to problems, your PhD is a complete waste,’’ he was quoted as saying.
He noted that when people were conferred with such degree as Doctor of Philosophy, they were literally saying that such persons were ‘master thinkers’.
“Such persons are those committed to finding solutions to life’s problems.
“Until learning translates to thinking, our PhD is zero. There is no make-up PhD at Covenant University.
“The first PhD student of the institution, who won a Microsoft award, is one out of six in the entire world.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
“All that we have done by going through the rigour of PhD is to ignite our thinking capacity,’’ he said.
“It is so important that we have what it takes to recreate our country and the world; what it takes is to make thinking our career.
“Africa has unusual potential, with Nigeria having more PhDs than four European countries put together.
“One, however, wonders why Nigeria is not getting similar result as the Europeans,’’ he added.
The statement said that Oyedepo insisted that there was nothing extraordinary on its own rather, it was man’s extraordinary input that made things extraordinary.
It noted that there was nothing mystical about excellence other than that it was a product of man’s tireless commitment to it.
“To make global impact in any field is at the cost of high level discipline just like continuous training is the only way to sustain impact in the field of sport.
“In the same vein, continuous training is a vital requirement both to generate impact and sustain relevance,’’ the statement quoted Oyedepo as adding. (NAN)