- Dr. Yumkella tells students
September 4, 2015 By Alusine Sesay & Victoria Saffa
While delivering a lecture on globalisation yesterday at the Miatta Conference Hall in Freetown, former United Nations diplomat and flag-bearer hopeful for the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella, told students that they should be ambitious and innovative in order to move the country from a donor driven country to a resilient nation with a strong economy.
“No nation has been developed because of charity and aid. Aid is good to build structures and institutions, but the vision and ambition [of the country] belongs to the people,” he said.
Dr. Yumkella underscored the importance of entrepreneurship and urged students to be job creators and not job seekers.
“The future is in your hands and you have to work for it. You have to create a different future for your kids. You have to think of value addition and make more money,” he admonished.
He told the hundreds of students at the jam-packed hall that Africa had lagged behind in the process of globalisation while Asian countries took advantage of the trend and moved forward.
He underlined the importance of industrialisation, trade liberalisation, innovation, and information and communication technology as key factors of globalisation.
He narrowed the lecture to Sierra Leone, a country he said is blessed with all what it takes to develop but still lags behind other African countries, thus calling on the students to take advantage of what is available and prepare for the future.
“Take comparative advantage and transform it to a competitive advantage. I want you, the next generation, to hold your leaders accountable and make the future better,” he urged.
Dr. Yumkella was lecturing a mammoth crowd of students from all tertiary institutions in Freetown, almost two weeks after he returned to the country to commence his bid to lead the SLPP in the next presidential election in 2018.