FUK Faculty holds conference to advance sustainable development in Nigeria
The Faculty of Social Sciences of Federal University of Kashere (FUK) in Gombe State has organised a two-day national conference to advance sustainable development in Nigeria.
The theme of the conference is: “Poverty, Insecurity and Environmental Challenges in Nigeria.”
Speaking during the opening session of the conference held at FUK’s Entrepreneurship Centre on Monday, some stakeholders in academia called for stronger government synergy to tackle poverty, insecurity and environmental challenges as a pathway to the development of the country.
Prof Mohammed Ja’afar, the Vice Chancellor of FUK represented by Prof Umar Gurama, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration said that the conference was key to bridging gap between researchers and policy makers towards fast tracking Nigeria’s development.
Ja’afar commended the organisers while urging that recommendations from the two-day conference be made available to relevant stakeholders towards achieving sustainable development in the country.
Prof Bibi Muhammad, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, FUK said that such synergy was essential for sustainable development of the country, stressing that poverty, insecurity and environmental challenges were major issues hindering Nigeria’s development.
Muhammad said if the country were to fast track its development, there must be a holistic approach by all stakeholders in the country.
He said that the interconnected nature of poverty, insecurity and environmental challenges in Nigeria underscores the need for a holistic approach to addressing these challenges.
“There is a disconnect between the policy formulators, policy implementers at all levels of governments and research institutions such as the university systems.
“Governments at all levels must synergise and also work with researchers with a view to bridging the gap and providing sustainable solutions to these issues,” he said.
On his part, Prof Mohammed Baba, from the Faculty of Technology Education, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi who was the keynote speaker urged collective efforts to tackle the challenges.
Baba said that with the multidimensional and multifaceted nature of the challenges, “we cannot adopt a single approach to finding solutions and achieving sustainable development.”
Prof Abbas Bashir, one of the lead paper presenters, from the Department of Geography, Modibbo Adama University, Yola, Adamawa State said that the government and other stakeholders have done a lot in addressing poverty and environmental challenges.
Bashir said: “what we haven’t done right is to harmonise the interlinks between these dimensions of our developmental trajectory so that we can bring them together in an interactive sense.
“Duplication of authorities by the government must be avoided and all functions harmonised from Federal, state and LG levels so that the culture of doing things differently without synergy can be avoided.”
