By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, challenged governments at all levels, corporate organisations, and philanthropists to invest more meaningfully in education to produce global billionaires and brands.
Bamidele, who currently represents Ekiti Central, highlighted how developed and emerging nations in Asia, Europe, and North America leveraged education as a veritable tool of socio-economic transformation to attain their national aspirations.
He made these calls after Ekiti State University conferred a Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa) on him at its 29th convocation, held on its main campus in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, at the weekend.
According to a statement by his Media Office, Bamidele received the honour yesterday alongside the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr Zacch Adedeji, and Chairman of the Governing Board of the Bank of Industry, Dr Mansur Muhtar.
The award is the third honorary doctorate he received between January 2003 and March 2025.
In his address at the convocation, Bamidele emphasised the significance of education for the socio-economic transformation of nations worldwide, which, according to him, had deployed to attain their development goals and conquer their heinous challenges.
He observed, “When I talk about quality education, I mean the kind that liberates minds, meaningfully transforms generations, and unlocks doors to limitless opportunities across all sectors.
“In this sense, education is a veritable tool that all developed and emerging countries worldwide have leveraged to get to where they are today. This tool is equally available to us as people pursuing our national aspiration.”
However, Bamidele noted that to realise significant socio-economic development across all sectors required “providing not only an enabling environment but also a highly competitive one for our nation to be globally competitive.
“It also entails purposeful public investments in our younger generations, and we act now. It demands sustained and strategic support from private interests across all sectors that produce global brands and billionaires.
“This is the credible template that produced Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla; Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon Inc.; Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder of Facebook and Instagram; Larry Page, CEO of Google; Warren Buffet, the proud owner of Berkshire Hathaway Inc and many more.
“It is now time for us all to leverage the tool of quality education to produce our global billionaires and brands. However, we cannot achieve it by accident or chance; we can achieve it by strategic planning and aggressively pursuing those plans.
“We may not achieve it without redefining our national priority and investing meaningfully in people. Essentially, education that liberates minds is the only answer to our desired ends. And the earlier we start investing more strategically in our people, the better for us as a federation,” he said.
Bamidele, therefore, challenged public and private actors to return to the drawing board, reflect on this message, and recommit themselves to investing more meaningfully in people. This message should be a significant part of our takeaways from this historic convocation.
In his address, the university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Joseph Ayodele, enumerated projects Bamidele facilitated for the institution, including constructing male and female hostels for medical students, a mini stadium, and an FM Radio Station.
Ayoadele further mentioned some notable efforts of the university alums through strategic connection and intervention within the last year, citing different projects that the senate leader facilitated for the university community.
He reeled in Bamidele’s interventions, which included facilitating the construction of male and female hostels for medical students, a mini stadium located in the university, and an FM Radio station to be donated by Senator Bamidele.
The vice chancellor also noted that the institution’s success could be linked to improving the university’s monthly subvention from N260m to N410m.
