By Aminu Garko
Kano, The Vice-Chancellor of Baba-Ahmed University Kano, Prof Idris Tanko, on Thursday called on Nigerian students to be critical in thinking as a tool that encourages development, invention and progress.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Tanko spoke in Kano in commemoration of the UNESCO-declared World Philosophy Day.
He urged that trivial thoughts should not dominate the students’ minds, adding. ”but should rather accept that nothing is impossible in order to give way for critical thinking.
”This will pave the way for new inventions as well as enhancement of already existing inventions.
“Today is the day marked out to celebrate World Philosophy Day. It is a UNESCO pronouncement that people celebrate Philosophy on every last Thursday of November.
”This year they are asking the world to celebrate it within these three days, from 14th to 17th of the month. This celebration is concurrently going on all over the world.
“In our own case we are also celebrating it with the intention of opening the minds of the young ones to understand what the world is in to.”
According to Tamko, many of the things that have happened are because of the lack of understanding of why they happened.
He said, ”How it happens, what it will cost, but if you get to have that critical thinking, people will get to appreciate things that are happening, the way they are happening.”
Tanko said that there was a need to develop the minds of the young ones to be critical and to be very objective in many of the things they see.
The V-C added, “We have a traditional way of thinking, sometimes people even put them as beliefs.
“Based on your circumstance based on your experiences, like the Hausa man will say, ‘what the elderly sees, the young man will not have a glimpse of it even if he climbs the tallest hill’ has to do with experience.
” Local people get to believe that this is it. But in reality, you can see what positive thinking has done to the world.
“It is through critical thinking that things that people see as not possible are now seen as possible.
” Ordinarily, without critical thinking, people would see all these as impossible. But when you come to say everything is possible, that is when you beginning to think and invent and develop.”.
