Colonial mentality, Nigeria’s bane – Utomi

 

 

Political economist, Prof. Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, has said Nigeria, nay Africa, is grossly underdeveloped today because they are yet to wriggle out of years of colonial domination.
Utomi, who was a guest lecturer at the first excellence lecture series organised by the student affairs department of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) with a theme: “Excellence in Character and Learning as a Tool for Restoring the Dignity of Man” said if Nigeria must rise from the ashes of colonialism and even neocolonialism, they must think out of the box.
“No country makes progress without thinkers – philosophers,” Utomi said, stressing the importance of thinking ahead of time to make projections for the future.
He said prosperous nations make projections for thirty to fifty years of how things should be done and follow it up.
Utomi pointed out that the colonialists did not give Africans adequate education that would prepare them for development but only gave out what would benefit them.
For a change of status quo, Utomi suggested that the psyche of colonialism has to be changed for the future to be better.
“We have to change our psyche to make the future better and come out of colonial mentality,” he said.
Speaking on character molding, Utomi pointed out that money is not everything but character is.

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