The outgoing rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Ile Oluji, Ondo State, Prof. Emmanuel Fasakin, says that Nigeria cannot develop without polytechnic education.
Fasakin stated that if polytechnic education was scrapped the country would be doomed, pointing out that the bedrock of industrialisation was polytechnic.
The outgoing rector, who spoke on Sunday in Akure at the launching of his memoir to mark the end of a successful two-term tenure as the pioneer rector of the polytechnic, explained that it was polytechnic education that would produce manpower needed in factories.
The book is entitled: “Beyond the Ordinary: The Journey of My Life and Experience at Federal Polytechnic, Ile Oluji.”
Fasakin said that Nigeria should not rely on manpower from outside the country for its industries to survive.
According to him, abolishing polytechnic education is tantamount to suicide.
He, therefore, asked the Nigerian government to provide conducive and enabling environment for Nigerian citizens to work and thrive in their respective academic endeavours.
Fasakin noted that Nigerian scholars were leaving the shores of the country to where their potential would be harnessed and well remunerated.
On his memoir, he said that he documented the book to tell his life story so that people that wanted to be transformational leaders and pioneers of institutions could know challenges and proffer solutions to them.
Fasakin said that he had laid a good foundation in the institution in terms of infrastructure, human development through team work and provided transformational leadership.
The outgoing rector stated that the institution, which took off in 2015, was ranked among the best in Nigeria, running the Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes.
