Greatest challenge facing black man is laziness – Oyedepo

Published October 18, 2017

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Bishop David Oyedepo

Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, 
Dr. David Oyedepo, has challenged academicians to ‘stop being
 merely bookish and start grooming thinkers’.

Oyedepo, who delivered the keynote address at the 54th meeting
 of the Committee of Deans of Post Graduate Schools in 
Nigerian Universities at Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State,
 also declared that the greatest challenge facing the black
 man is not intellectual bankruptcy, but laziness and inability to 
task his thinking faculty towards realising assets that will 
benefit his immediate environment.

The Chancellor of Covenant University said his experiences with 
those in the academia shows that many of them are simply so proud
 of having become an authority in their chosen fields.

He however noted that that is not enough as they need to
 go a step further by indoctrinating in young scholars the art of thinking
 out ideas which would address some of the challenges plaguing the 
black continent.

The four-day event which
 began on Monday would 
end today, The Nation reports.

Oyedepo said global solution
 providers such as Albert Einstein,
 Isaac Newton, and The Wright 
Brothers among others, once had
 a brainwave in their time which led to great revolutions in their respective 
fields.

He warned Nigerians that repeated complaints would not work; but that
 they should battle their challenges headlong.

He said, “Everywhere I go in Nigeria today, everybody continues to 
complain that things are not working; but who will start how things
 will work and when? That person is you and that time is now,
 and postgraduate education should serve as a platform for 
inciting our students into thinking solutions. Today, it is thinkers
 that rule the world and we should be development-oriented in
 things we do.”

To make that difference, Oyedepo challenged the deans to start 
thinking out of the box, saying that is what would propel them to
 imbibe the same culture into their students.

“Leadership is not being in the driver seat, but adding values. 
As a dean, you must start thinking what difference you are going 
to make in that position; what contributions in terms of innovations
 and feat. You have no business being in that position if you cannot 
make that difference that will be a reference point to your successors 
years after you have left.”

Further, Oyedepo suggested the ‘read thinking’; a concept 
which according to him, combines research alongside critical
 thinking of solutions. Man’s biological configuration remains
 the same regardless of colour or height, Oyedepo argued.

He said Africa has a lot to tap from Covenant University which 
was birthed through indigenous thinking and currently ranks as the
 second-best university in Nigeria just within 15 years of existence.

Earlier, Chairman of the association, Professor Bamidele Sanni,
 said the theme of the event: ‘Repositioning postgraduate 
education for sustainable national development: the leadership 
dimension’ threw a challenge in their path as academic leaders
 who must groom better successors.

“As deans of post-graduate schools, our colleagues often refer to 
us as ‘deans of deans’. We are leaders in our capacity who are 
also training tomorrow’s leaders. We, therefore, have a responsibility
 to lead others aright before handing over so they can sustain standard.

“Those who groomed and made us who we are today are proud of us; 
so we also want to be proud of others by saying ‘that man or lady
 graduated from this university and I supervised his research.”

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