Political Panorama - Special Edition - Dec 13, 2025
Lessons from Achievers University’s Convocation for Nigeria’s Youth, Universities, and the State
Professor Bode Ayorinde
The 15th Convocation and 18th Foundation Anniversary of Achievers University, Owo, was not merely a celebration of academic milestones; it was an intellectual convergence - a moment when personal life lessons, institutional accountability, and national policy failures met in one space. Taken together, the Convocation Address of the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, and the Pro-Chancellor’s Address by Professor Bode Ayorinde formed a compelling national dialogue on what education means, what it costs, and what Nigeria risks losing if it continues on its present path.
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| Professor Oyesoji Aremu |
Like Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s convocation lecture, which was delivered a day earlier, both speeches rejected complacency. They addressed not only graduating students but also parents, policymakers, regulators, and the Nigerian government. They emphasized, each from a different viewpoint, that education is not an ornament of society but its driving force; not a commodity to be exploited but a public good to be safeguarded.
Professor
Aremu framed the convocation moment as both an end and a beginning, a pause
between achievement and responsibility. He reminded graduands that they are not
mere statistics but testimonies, products of perseverance in a system that
often tests resilience more than intellect. Yet, like Lai Mohammed, he warned
against the illusion that a degree is a destination. It is, at best, a
passport, useful only if character, emotional intelligence, and social
competence accompany it.
Invoking
Daniel Goleman’s insight that career success depends far more on emotional and
social intelligence than on raw IQ, the Acting Vice-Chancellor reinforced a
central lesson Nigeria desperately needs to relearn: intelligence without
character is fragile capital. Degrees may secure appointments, but it is
integrity, discipline, and relational intelligence that sustain relevance. In a
country where leadership failure often stems from moral bankruptcy rather than
intellectual deficiency, this emphasis is both timely and unsettling.
The
institutional philosophy of Achievers University, as articulated by Professor
Aremu, reflects this understanding. The university’s insistence that no
graduate should leave with “only a degree” is not a marketing slogan; it is a
strategic response to a volatile labour market and a rapidly changing global
economy. The introduction of additional certificate and diploma programmes, the
establishment of the Institute of Diplomatic Practice, Culture and Language
Development, and the deliberate focus on employability skills all mirror the
core message of Lai Mohammed’s lecture: survival in the modern world depends on
adaptability and continuous reinvention.
The
university’s scorecard further demonstrates what disciplined leadership can
achieve even within Nigeria’s hostile higher education environment. The
graduation of 705 students across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes,
the strong showing of First Class and Second Class Upper Division graduates,
the global recognition earned by a final-year engineering student through
cutting-edge research in machine-learning–based medical diagnostics, and the
stellar performance of pioneer Law graduates at the Nigerian Law School all
speak to a culture of seriousness. These are outcomes of investment, vision,
and insistence on standards and not luck.
Equally
significant is the steady development of the College of Medicine, in partnership
with the Federal Medical Centre, Owo. At a time when Nigeria is bleeding
medical professionals to emigration, Achievers University’s focus on producing
competent and compassionate doctors represents a quiet but critical
intervention in the national health crisis. Modern laboratories, teaching
hospitals, ICT-enabled learning facilities, and compliance with regulatory
standards show that private universities can be strategic partners in national
development, only if policy allows them.
It
is at this point that Professor Bode Ayorinde’s address enters the conversation
with moral clarity and policy urgency. While the Acting Vice-Chancellor
presented what universities are doing right, the Pro-Chancellor confronted what
the government is doing wrong. His speech, titled “Rethinking Taxation in
the Education Sector: Why Educational Institutions Should Not Be Taxed,”
was a direct challenge to Nigeria’s fiscal logic.
Professor
Ayorinde reminded the audience that Achievers University itself was born out of
vision and sacrifice, rising from a virgin forest in 2003 to a fully accredited
institution with 35 programmes and over 5,000 students. Yet, despite this
contribution, private universities are treated as commercial enterprises,
burdened with multiple layers of taxation that consume a significant portion of
tuition fees. From local government levies to VAT, company income tax,
development levies, and personal taxes on proprietors, education is being taxed
as though it were a luxury consumption.
Most
troubling is the irony embedded in the new development levy under Nigeria’s
2025 tax reforms, whereby private universities are compelled to contribute to
TETFUND, a fund from which they are categorically excluded. In effect, students
in private institutions are taxed to fund public institutions alone. As the
Pro-Chancellor bluntly puts it, this is not policy coherence; it is policy
injustice.
Professor
Ayorinde’s argument is fundamentally philosophical: education should never be
taxed. It should be supported, subsidised, and incentivised. Taxing education
is equivalent to taxing knowledge, opportunity, and the future. Universities,
even when privately owned, are non-profit in nature; surplus is reinvested into
infrastructure, research, scholarships, and staff development. Burdening them with
taxes inevitably leads to higher tuition fees, reduced access, curtailed
scholarships, and discouraged investment in education.
Drawing
from global best practices, he demonstrated that Nigeria is out of step with
the world. In the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and South
Africa, universities enjoy tax exemptions and fiscal incentives because
education is recognised as a public good. These societies understand that the
long-term economic and social returns of education far outweigh any short-term
tax revenue. Nigeria, by contrast, taxes the very engine it expects to drive
industrialisation and innovation.
The
Pro-Chancellor’s warning is stark: no nation industrialises by weakening its
universities. No knowledge economy emerges by taxing research, innovation, and
learning. Every tax imposed on universities ultimately becomes a tax on
students, parents, and society at large. The contradiction is painful; we
demand world-class universities, yet deny them world-class support.
Together,
the speeches of Professors Aremu and Ayorinde form two halves of a single
truth. One shows what is possible when institutions are guided by vision,
character, and discipline. The other exposes how misguided policy can undermine
those very efforts. Both converge on the same conclusion: Nigeria must urgently
rethink its relationship with education.
For
the graduating students, the lesson is personal and moral. Go forth with
courage. Shun social vices. Build character alongside competence. Be prepared
to reinvent yourself repeatedly. Achievers University has given you tools;
history will judge what you build with them.
For
the government, the lesson is structural and urgent. Education must be removed
from the tax net. Private universities must be treated as partners, not revenue
sources. TETFUND must be reformed to include all institutions contributing to
national human capital development. Anything less is discriminatory and
self-defeating.
For
Nigeria, the message is existential. You cannot tax the engine of progress and
expect the nation to move forward. Education is the heart of development, the
backbone of innovation, and the seedbed of leadership. To weaken it through
policy incoherence is to mortgage the future.
Achievers
University’s convocation thus becomes more than a ceremony. It becomes a mirror
reflecting what Nigeria can achieve when vision is matched with integrity, and
warning what it stands to lose when policy forgets purpose
Until next week, this is Political Panorama with Ola Olateju watching the horizon,
one controversy at a time
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