Yilwatda urges Nigerian graduates to seize global digital frontier

National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has challenged Nigerian university graduates to shatter the “geographical ceiling” of local employment and reposition themselves as elite contenders in the global labour market.

Delivering the Convocation Lecture at the combined 6th, 7th and 8th Convocation Ceremony of Akwa Ibom State University, Professor Yilwatda warned that the era of graduates competing solely within domestic frameworks is over.

Speaking on the theme “Leveraging Emerging Technology to Enhance University Education and National Development,” he asserted that the digital revolution has rendered traditional borders irrelevant.

Addressing a packed audience on Thursday, the APC Chairman made a provocative assessment of Nigeria’s future wealth.

Despite the vast maritime and hydrocarbon assets of states like Akwa Ibom, Yilwatda maintained that human capital has overtaken natural resources as the ultimate currency of the 21st century.

He noted that in the modern era, oil will matter less than algorithms and land will matter less than innovation, as the true wealth of nations now lies in the quality of their human capital.

Professor Yilwatda noted that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, defined by Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and data analytics, has fundamentally decoupled work from physical location.

He urged the graduating class to stop viewing themselves as job seekers confined by geography and start seeing themselves as “global talents” capable of solving problems for organisations anywhere in the world.

Yilwatda emphasised that the world has become a single, borderless labour market where global jobs are increasingly more available than local options, especially for young people equipped with the right digital skills.

He also issued a direct challenge to the nation’s academic institutions, arguing that universities must deliberately overhaul their curricula and research priorities to align with global realities.

To achieve this, he identified graduate employability, impactful research, an international outlook, and quality teaching as the four critical pillars for a modern, world-class university system.

Yilwatda described the convocation not as a mere celebration, but as a “commissioning into global relevance and responsibility”.

He further emphasised that technology is no longer an optional add-on but a powerful multiplier essential for strengthening each of these pillars and enhancing national competitiveness.

He encouraged the youth to leverage digital platforms to access remote jobs, international collaborations, and entrepreneurial opportunities, adding that the graduates are not victims of global disruption but rather the designers of the response. He urged them to innovate fearlessly and lead ethically as the world watches.

Culled from vanguard