By
Ola Olateju
The Urgent Lessons from Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s Achievers University Convocation Lecture
A National Moment at Achievers University
The 15th Convocation Lecture delivered by Alhaji Lai Mohammed at Achievers University, Owo, on December 12, 2025, was more than a ceremonial address. It became a defining national reflection – an unusually frank, deeply personal, and intellectually provocative message that spoke to students, universities, policymakers, and the Nigerian government with equal force. In his lecture titled “Don’t Just Graduate, Innovate,” he did not offer praise for its own sake. Instead, he provided a compelling call for reinvention, innovation, courage, and national introspection.
It was a message full of lived experience, compelling narrative power, and national urgency, a combination rarely achieved in convocation speeches in Nigeria.
The Strength of the Message to Graduating Students
What made Lai Mohammed’s lecture remarkable is the honesty with which he dismantled the myth of a straight, predictable life path. By detailing his own journey filled with zigzags, disappointments, reinventions, and moments of unexpected elevation, he revealed to students that success is not a straight-line narrative but a dynamic process that bends, breaks, and reshapes itself over time.
He did not speak theoretically. He spoke from the ground of his own life: how he moved from an articled clerk to an academic hopeful; how he became a Public Relations Officer at the Nigerian Airports Authority; how he simultaneously pursued a law degree while working full-time; how he resigned abruptly from a powerful position; how he co-founded a law firm; how he suffered a political defeat; and how he ultimately rose to national prominence as opposition spokesperson before being appointed Nigeria’s longest-serving Minister of Information.
This intimate recounting was meant to arm graduates with psychological resilience. His stories illustrated that setbacks do not invalidate destiny; instead, they often initiate reinvention. His insistence that boldness is a strategic form of intelligence, that innovation is a survival strategy, and that humility opens doors that pride closes, offered graduates a practical philosophy for navigating the uncertainty of today’s job market.
For a generation that faces technological disruption, AI-driven job misplacement, and an economy unable to absorb its growing youth population, his message became not just inspiring but very essential.
Why the Message Matters for All Nigerian Students
What makes his lecture relevant beyond Achievers University is that it directly addresses the existential crisis confronting the Nigerian student nationwide. Many graduates cling to outdated assumptions: that degrees guarantee employment, that hard work automatically produces secure careers, or that the job market will remain stable and familiar. However, Lai Mohammed paints a newer, harsher picture, one in which industries evolve rapidly, jobs vanish, and new fields emerge faster than universities can redesign their curriculum
He urges students across Nigeria to adopt a new mindset. A mindset that embraces continuous learning, accepts failure as part of progress, encourages creativity, and rewards calculated risk-taking. His life, presented in raw detail, becomes proof that rigid career expectations often collapse under the pressures of reality, and that reinvention becomes the winning response. His message, therefore, becomes a national message and not just an academic one.
The Urgent Call for Nigeria’s Government to Take Education Seriously
Beyond the anecdotes and personal lessons, Lai Mohammed’s lecture makes a deeper statement: that Nigeria cannot achieve national transformation without drastically elevating the priority and quality of its education sector. The consistency of his reflections reveals a truth that innovation thrives in environments where education is well-funded, where research is supported, where academic development is encouraged, and where institutions have access to modern facilities.
Nigeria, unfortunately, has not created such an environment.
For decades, the country has underfunded its universities, allowed research infrastructure to decay, neglected curriculum modernization, and watched its brightest students migrate abroad in search of intellectual nourishment. Lai Mohammed’s lecture implicitly challenges the government to rethink this posture. If Nigeria wants innovators and not just certificate holders, then funding must align with its ambitions. It must invest in laboratories, digital infrastructure, AI literacy programs, research centers, and entrepreneurial incubation.
Education cannot remain an afterthought if the country hopes to compete globally.
Why TETFUND Must End Its Discrimination Against Private Universities
One of the most pressing policy issues that Lai Mohammed’s lecture highlights is the exclusion of private universities from benefiting from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND). This policy, established years ago, has become increasingly outdated and counterproductive. Private universities now carry a significant share of the national educational workload. They:
- accommodate students who public university disruptions would otherwise strand,
- operate uninterrupted academic calendars,
- produce some of the nation’s most employable graduates,
- contribute significantly to technological and research development, and
- relieve pressure from overstretched public universities.
Yet despite this, they receive zero government support through TETFUND.
This exclusion contradicts national interest. Education is a public good, regardless of whether the provider is public or private. Every student enrolled in a private institution is still a Nigerian citizen, still part of the nation’s future workforce, and still deserving of access to modern educational infrastructure.
A review of TETFUND is long overdue. By integrating private universities, Nigeria would:
- strengthen its overall research capacity,
- promote healthy academic competition,
- expand national access to quality education, and
- build a more equitable and progressive knowledge economy.
His lecture underscores that innovation cannot flourish under discriminatory policy frameworks.
Other National Messages Embedded in the Lecture
There is a larger philosophical message embedded in Lai Mohammed’s narrative. He suggests that Nigeria cannot become a great nation unless it rewards merit, encourages knowledge creation, and invests in the intellectual potential of its youth. Innovation will not come from certificates alone, but from the courage to think differently, the discipline to prepare, the humility to learn, and the boldness to seize opportunities—even when those opportunities appear disguised as problems, crisis moments, or unexpected detours.
He calls for a Nigeria where:
- courage is rewarded,
- competence is recognized,
- educational institutions are empowered,
- students are trained for the global economy, and
- government policies stimulate creativity rather than suffocate it.
This holistic message transforms the lecture from a graduation speech into a national mirror.
The Symbolism of Delivering the Message at Achievers University
The setting of the lecture – Achievers University is itself symbolic. As a fast-growing private university that continues to push boundaries despite limited access to national funding, Achievers University represents the emerging future of Nigerian higher education. It demonstrates what private initiative, disciplined governance, and creative academic management can build even in an unfriendly policy environment. Supporting such institutions would significantly strengthen Nigeria’s educational landscape.
That is why the call for equitable funding, especially through TETFUND reform, becomes even more critical.
Conclusion: A National Blueprint Disguised as a Convocation Lecture
In its entirety, Lai Mohammed’s lecture was not just addressed to the Class of 2025. It was a message to Nigeria. It was a challenge to the nation to embrace innovation, to empower its youth, to reform educational policy, and to build a system where success is defined not by certificates but by creativity, resilience, and reinvention.
For students, it was a reminder that the future rewards those who innovate, who dare to speak, who take risks, who learn continuously, and who have the humility to reinvent themselves.
For universities, it was a call to modernise.
For the government, it was an urgent demand to take education seriously and eliminate discriminatory policies such as the exclusion of private universities from TETFUND.
And for Nigeria, it was a wake-up call that the future will not wait. The country’s destiny will be shaped not by the quantity of its graduates but by the quality of its innovators.
Lai Mohammed’s Achievers University lecture, therefore, stands as one of the most important educational reflections of our time – a national blueprint presented in the gentle clothing of a convocation speech.
OLA OLATEJU FROM ACHIEVERS UNIVERSITY, OWO, ONDO STATE
