Don’t rest until Nigeria changes for better, Ajimobi charges women
Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has charged the womenfolk not to rest on their oars until the change needed for the growth and development of Nigeria is achieved.
He gave the charge while speaking at the 2014 National Women Conference organized by the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO) in Lagos on Wednesday.
The governor also attributed the country’s underdevelopment to what he called the paucity of positive intellectual engagements of the several issues calling for the attention of the society.
“Permit me to state that we must seek and manage change, rather than avoid it. The danger that lies ahead of us if we do not is too enormous to contemplate. By avoiding change, we are condemning our children and the ones unborn to social stagnation and a bleak future in a changing world.
“Change and its management are very fundamental to our contemporary society. The truth is that a society that is satisfied with its yesterday and today, that does not seek to reinvent a better tomorrow, will soon rot out of stagnation and become archaic,’’ he said.
The governor said that the task of seeking and managing information was a major issue that everyone must seek in the desire for change.
“As we all know, we live in an information age that is also referred to as the digital age. This is a point in human history which is characterized by a paradigm shift from traditional industry of the industrial revolution to an economy that is founded on information computerization.
“What this means is that any people that do not seek and manage change would soon become an antiquated piece fit only for the museum. The challenge of a digital world is how we can continue to sustain the creation of a knowledge-based society given strength to by a high-tech global economy.
“No matter how glowing and exciting our today may be, the bitter truth is that our future will be manifestly better,’’ he said, stressing “have you ever wondered what the quality of life we lived some decades ago was without the telecommunication revolution currently ongoing in the world?
“It goes a long way to confirm the saying by that Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, which says that no man ever steps into the same river twice. Change is the only constant in the world’’.
He saluted the wives of his Lagos State counterpart, Dame Abimbola Fashola and her team at the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), stating that it (the conference) was a refreshing departure from the past.
“This conference speaks volume of the engagement of minds that our womenfolk are pursuing. The theme of the conference, Enhancing and Managing Change, is also instructive. It can only be indicative of the fact that our women are anticipatory of change in its broadest sense.
“They have chosen not to allow the change that we advocate in all strata of society catch them napping. A multi-perspective dimension to perceiving change, the type that this conference has given, is not only inspirational but ennobling,’’ the governor said.
He expressed happiness that women had shown themselves as capable of bringing the change that the information age required, saying this was a step in the right direction and that the larger society should take a cue from the women, notwithstanding its patriarchal ego.
