CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK
Speech delivered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo as Federal Commissioner for Finance to the Conference of Finance Commissioners of the Federation in Kano on 23rd February, 1970.
IT is my advocacy, therefore, that we should embark on these schemes in every state without further delay. If we do, I am convinced that in a matter of fifteen years from now illiteracy and mass ignorance, as well as preventible diseases, would have become a thing of the past; and in twenty years from now, the present yawning, dangerous, and explosive educational gap between one part of the country and another would have been totally closed, putting all ethnic groups in Nigeria on equal footing with one another in educational and intellectual attainments. I would like to remark, however, that if education and health are not free at all levels, it will be difficult to devise a generally accepted formula for allocating revenue for these vital purposes, and to ensure equal…