GOODWILL MESSAGE
Delivered on behalf of
His Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, GCON
Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
by
The Honourable Professor Suwaiba Ahmad Said
Minister of State for Education
Federal Republic of Nigeria
17th Commencement Ceremony
American University of Nigeria
Yola, Adamawa State
Saturday, 9 May 2026
PROTOCOL
The Executive Governor of Adamawa State; the Chairman and distinguished Members of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Nigeria; the President and Vice Chancellor; the Provost; distinguished Deans, Faculty, and Staff; proud parents, guardians, and families; honoured guests; and most importantly — the Graduating Class of 2026:
I bring you the warmest felicitations of His Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, who deeply regrets that the demands of state prevent his being here in person today, but who asked me to assure this institution, and this graduating class in particular, of his personal pride in this moment. It is a genuine honour to stand before you on his behalf.
ON THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
There is a form of excellence that is performative — that announces itself constantly and loudly. And then there is the kind of excellence that simply produces outcomes, year after year, with consistency and without apology. The American University of Nigeria has always belonged to the second category.
This institution has established itself not merely as Nigeria's premier private university, but as a genuine continental reference point — a living demonstration that a world-class, values-driven institution can be rooted in African soil, responsive to African realities, and wholly committed to African futures. The Federal Government salutes the enduring vision of the founders, the stewardship of this Board, the dedication of the Vice Chancellor and his team, and every member of faculty who has refused to let that founding vision become routine.
THE CHIBOK MILESTONE
But I want to speak now to what makes this particular commencement something more than a celebration.
Today, the American University of Nigeria graduates twelve more young women from Chibok.
Over a decade ago, the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls became a wound on the conscience of this nation and of the world. “Bring Back Our Girls” was not a slogan. It was anguish made public.
But healing, when it genuinely arrives, does not always come with fanfare. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in a graduation gown, with a degree earned through years of work that no one could have predicted would be possible.
What AUN has done — opening its community to these young women, surrounding them with academic rigour and human care, holding them to exactly the same standards it holds every student, and presenting them to the world today with credentials and with futures — is not charity. Let us be precise about that. It is an act of institutional faith. A declaration that no young woman’s life should be permanently defined by the violence done to her past.
To these twelve graduates, I speak directly, on behalf of Vice President Shettima and the Federal Government of Nigeria: Your country sees you. Your country is proud of you. And your country has not finished its obligations to you.
To AUN — we say thank you, and we issue a challenge. Every university in Nigeria, public and private, should study this programme. Because that is what it is: a proof of concept for education as restoration, as security strategy, and as the most durable, most human response available to us in the face of extremism.
WHAT GOVERNMENT IS DOING
This moment does not exist in a vacuum. It sits within a national conversation — and a national effort — to fundamentally reimagine what education in Nigeria must become.
Under President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, we have launched the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative — NESRI — a comprehensive reform agenda to align our educational system with 21st century demands: sharpening learning outcomes, strengthening institutional accountability, expanding equitable access, and building the human capital foundation that Nigeria’s economic future requires.
Complementing this, the National EdTech Strategy — developed in partnership between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy — positions technology not as an educational accessory but as core architecture.
The Federal Government is fully aware that artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the world of work and the landscape of higher education — not as a future concern, but as a present and accelerating reality. Our policy frameworks, including NESRI and the National EdTech Strategy, are being built with that reality at their centre, to ensure that what Nigeria’s universities teach, and how they teach it, keeps pace with a world that will not wait.
These are not declarations in documents. They are commitments with implementation timelines, and we need institutions of AUN’s quality not merely as beneficiaries of this agenda, but as co-architects of it.
ON THE TECHNICAL TALENT CHALLENGE
Let me now raise something that deserves to be said plainly in a gathering of this kind, because universities have a responsibility to hear it.
Nigeria faces a technology talent deficit. And it is growing. Admittedly, we have had structural problems that have not allowed us to adequately keep pace with the velocity of industry transformation.
Recently, this deficit became the subject of very public national debate. A prominent Nigerian technology executive stated publicly that his globally competitive fintech company has struggled to fill hundreds of positions with local talent, attributing part of that difficulty to gaps in how our graduates are prepared for industry. The debate that followed was fierce, and some of the pushback was legitimate: compensation structures, currency pressures, and the reality that skilled Nigerian engineers now command global options must be part of any honest reckoning. The talent is not absent — in many cases, it is simply responding rationally to the market signals it receives.
But here is what is also true, and what a government committed to honest diagnosis cannot ignore: the structural gap is real. Universities are producing graduates in volume, but not always in the configurations that industry needs. The feedback loop between academia and the private sector in Nigeria is too weak, too slow, and too infrequent. Some companies have begun building their own graduate development programmes — intensive bootcamps and direct employment pathways — precisely because our institutions have not moved quickly enough to bridge the divide.
We call on the American University of Nigeria to formalise and scale its industry partnership model — to build structured, sustained pipelines with Nigerian technology companies, fintech institutions, and emerging industries; to allow industry needs to shape curriculum iteration in real time; and to anchor the kind of intensive, employment-linked graduate development that the market urgently demands. The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, stands ready to be a partner in building that architecture. This is not a task government can accomplish alone, and it is not one the private sector can accomplish without universities. It requires us to build together.
A WORD TO THE GRADUATING CLASS
Graduating from a university of this calibre, in this country, at this particular inflection point in Nigeria’s history, is a serious thing. It is also a privilege with a cost attached. Your families sacrificed for this day in ways many of you may not fully know. This institution invested in you — in time, in resources, in belief. And your country — with all its contradictions and all its extraordinary, magnificent potential — needs you to return that investment with interest.
There is an easy path available to your generation: maximise personal opportunity, extract what you can, and rationalise it as survival. Many will take that path. It is understandable. But it is insufficient for what Nigeria needs.
The graduates this country most desperately needs are those who bring their full capabilities to bear on Nigerian problems — in public service, in technology, in research, in agriculture and healthcare, in policy, in the arts — not in spite of the difficulty, but because of it. Because the problems are real, and because you are among the few with the tools to engage them honestly.
Be that kind of Nigerian. Your education demands it. Your country needs it.
CLOSING
I join His Excellency Vice President Kashim Shettima in extending heartfelt congratulations to the leadership, faculty, staff, and students of the American University of Nigeria — for an unbroken commitment to academic excellence, for the moral seriousness of the Chibok Scholarship Programme, and for the institutional courage to hold itself to global standards in a challenging environment.
To the Class of 2026: you leave this campus today not merely as AUN alumni, but as partners of the Federal Government in building the Nigeria we know — we all know — is possible. We are watching, with expectation and with genuine confidence in what you will do.
May God bless you.
May God bless the American University of Nigeria.
May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria