Why Government Officials Don’t Know The Need Of The Nation-Aduralere Oluwagbohunmi

Aduralere Oluwagbohunmi is the Founder and President of Ekiti State based EduLink Concepts, a Non-Governmental Organization that is working towards the restoration of lost values and virtues in our society. It is also a life coaching organization with a deep commitment to the development of the young generation, especially secondary school students.

The Ekiti State-born author, church evangelist, and educator who will turn 40 later this month had a First Degree in Sociology from the University of Ado- Ekiti and a Second Degree in Criminology at the University of Ibadan.

He spoke about the education development in Nigeria, the dearth of reading culture as well as his passion and initiatives.

What inspires your initiatives and books?

I was working in Lagos in 2014 when I met a senior colleague, Mr. Adesina Adetola, who graciously gave me a copy of his book titled, ” Ekiti Kete; The Values, The Virtues, and The Vision. Published in 2008.

Reading through the pages of that book, I saw the need to reinvent and restore some of the lost values that once announced Ekiti to the world as the home of erudite scholars.

The record of greatness set by the older generation of Ekiti set me on fire for my generation with the hope and assurances that if the older generation can succeed under such a stringent condition, we can do better. It is the desire to make Ekiti great again that propelled me to invest the better part of my last 6 years to community service.

Are Nigerians still reading books?

I have written and published two books on Ekiti. I plan to present my third title on Ekiti to the public during my birthday. The title of my first book is ” Ekiti Kete: One People, Two-Generation. My second title is the official biography of the first African professor of Geo Physics and the first Ekiti man to be appointed as a professor, Professor Daniel Funmilayo Ojo, aka Ojo Ugbole. The one I just finished is titled, Ekiti Spirit; Reinventing and Restoring Lost Values.

Evidently Nigerians are not reading books like before but that doesn’t mean people are not reading. Our generation are actually reading irrelevant materials that add no value to our lives. Many young people spend quality time on social media reading junks and the more they read the more they fail. Consequently, we know so much about the things that do not matter and know so little about the things that matter. We comment and react to social fallacies and ignore contents that can affect our socioeconomic development.

And as a result of the poor reading culture among the youth and their parents as well, society at large is now producing miscreants, misfits, and misdemeanors as future leaders. There is no gainsaying the fact that the quality of your life depends on the quality of the books that you read.

What are your efforts so far?

At EduLink Concepts, in the last six years, we have organized life-changing seminars for about 40 secondary schools across the three senatorial districts of Ekiti state.

Some of the programs that we do for secondary schools include; Educational Link Forum; Sensitisation Lecture on the Use of Time; Ekiti Book Picnic; Inter-School competition on the History of Ekiti and Reorientation programs on Television stations.

At EduLink Concepts, we discovered that time management is key to success in life. So we have been organizing lecture for students on Effective Time Management. Time management should be in the school curriculum and since it is not there presently, we have committed ourselves to teach students during our various seminars on how to invest their time wisely and make the most of their time.

Time is central to life. In fact, time is life. If you misuse your time, you have misused your opportunity to be relevant in life. There is no future for time wasters. The greatest wisdom on earth is to know what to do with your daily provision of 24hours.

In my research of Ekiti history and the academic giants that announced Ekiti to the world as the home of learning, I have found out that the major difference between the present generation of Ekiti people and the older generation is the way we use our time. The likes of Ojo Ugbole, Olubumo, Osuntokun, Afe Babalola and other erudite scholars that we are celebrating today invested between 6 and 18 hours in the library while we spent between 6 and 18 hours on social media surfing the net and charting and building unproductive relationships.

What are your experience in this regard?

The academic revival that Ekiti requires cannot be handled by the government alone. We all need to be involved in order to witness a new and prosperous Ekiti. While few people have supported our vision, it is quite unfortunate that a lot of people prefer to invest in building physical facilities than to invest in human capital. Many politicians prefer to buy Okadas for the youth than to give scholarship to the less privileged.

Most of the people who are doing one NGO or the other today are doing so for political reasons. We need more people to key into the vision of restoring the lost values on a sustainable basis. We need men who can give without any political inclination.

What are your challenges?

I plan to visit all the secondary schools in Ekiti and conduct seminars for all Ekiti students on effective time management. Over the years, it has been very difficult to achieve that objective because of the financial limitation. I have been to over 40 schools with one program or the other in the last six years and I have donated more than 2000 textbooks to Ekiti students.

However, we still need more support from those who genuinely believe that Ekiti can be great again. We need money to print lecture materials so that the students can take them home and read them again and again. This will make our seminars more effective.

Are the governments at all levels doing enough in promoting reading culture, setting the right education policy and ensuring education development generally?

Many of the government officials in many states of the federation do not know the need of the nation. One central problem that is confronting Nigeria is that we have people who do not know what to do about the challenges in positions of authority. Those who are in positions of authority do not have an idea of what to do and those who have an idea of what to do are not in positions of authority. Until our politics is right our policy will never be right.

What is life to you at 40?

Looking back at my life, I have realized that only a life lived for others is worthwhile. I lived the first 34 years of my life pursuing what I called “self-worth goals”- those things that will make me reach the pinnacle of my career. In fact, in those years, I lived for “me”, “I” and “myself”.

However, about six years ago, I found a new passion. I started living for others by helping those in need, especially those that cannot pay me back. Looking back at my life, I can say categorically that those years that I invested in helping others are the best years of my life.

Any lifestyle that needs to stop or begins at 40?

I find pleasure in writing. I want to spend quality time in writing so that I can produce more books that will help others reach their goals. I need to create more platforms to help the youth, especially, those at the tertiary institutions.
The quality of life is not in duration but in the donation. Always ask yourself this question: What am I doing to make life better for others? I want to encourage all the readers to live for others so that our society can be a better place.

Finally, don’t live your life without Christ. Time is just a fraction of eternity. Live every day of your life with the knowledge that one day you will be held accountable on how you spend the time given to you. What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Live your life to please Jesus Christ so that you can have eternal rest with him. Thanks!