How COVID-19 humbled the world – Segun Adeleye

Wed, Nov 11, 2020
By editor
2 MIN READ

Politics

By Anayo Ezugwu

IN spite of advancement in science and technology, Segun Adeleye, chief executive officer, WorldStage Limited, has said that the Coronavirus pandemic has humbled the world and exposed the vulnerability of the human species.

In his welcome address at the 2020 Worldstage Economic Summit, on Tuesday, November 10, Adeleye noted that there are question marks about what should be the priorities of mankind and that there is a striking lesson about how the least things could be the most important.

Adeleye said the recent #EndSARS protest in Nigeria might go down in history as the loudest wakeup call since the civil war, for the country to be restructured. He said that the youth agitation was subdued and should not be construed as being a failure. “It was a success, it was a wakeup call that things cannot continue as usual with no job, poor infrastructure and insensitivity on the part of the political leaders, who are portrayed to be living in opulence with the lion share of the national cake.

“Like every change, the end cannot be envisaged. The #EndSARS protest could have gone far, upstage the status quo and destroy all what we have built over the years, for us to start all over again in pains to the unknown. That the EFCC is victoriously announcing the arrest of hundreds of young internet fraudsters popularly called Yahoo-Yahoo boys almost every day could only underline the ingenuity of the youngsters to explore opportunities thrown up by new technologies, though in a negative way.

“What this points at is that if these energies are positively channeled, the nation will be on the path of technological advancement. For a dream comes through multitude of business, the wisdom should be for government in collaboration with the private sector to set up innovation hubs in all the 774 local government areas and lure these youngsters there to make decent living.

“What we have now after the #EndSARS is a fair deal. It’s a clear signal that the current structure of economic exclusion is unsustainable and dangerous. There may never be a second chance. The only sustainable way to pacify the youths and other stakeholders is to extend the boundary of opportunities to all,” he said.

– Nov. 11, 2020 @ 13:35 GMT |

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