Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Saturday received the Cheetah Award at an award night organised by the Old Boys Association of the Government College, Keffi, his alma mater.
Speaking at the event, Mohammed urged Nigerians to imbibe the culture of discipline, which he described as a key factor for success.
According to him, the great emphasis placed on discipline by the college played a significant role in shaping the lives of the students who passed through the institution, including himself.
“Keffi taught me one thing, which is that with discipline, there is nothing you cannot achieve. Those who came out to be good citizens in Keffi were not necessarily the most brilliant, but they were the most disciplined.
“What Nigeria needs to do is to rebuild the minds of its citizens. It is because Keffi inculcated discipline and other high moral values that we turned out to be what we are today. This is what this government has embarked upon through its ‘Change Begins With Me’ campaign. The campaign is nothing but a return to the old values of honesty, integrity, punctuality and industry, which were very cardinal in Keffi. So what we are asking Nigerians to do is to go back and emulate what Keffi stood for,” he said.
Mohammed recounted the good old days in Keffi, when the son of a prime minister and those of peasants cohabited in the same class without any bias or preferential treatment, even though the children of the rich paid higher tuition fees than those of the poor.
“We took the same lecture, were served the same food and we were subjected to the same discipline. We sat for the same exams and by the time we spent a few months together we forgot who was the son of a Prime Minister and the son of a peasant,” he recalled.
Other awardees were Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung; Secretary to the Government of Nasarawa State, Suleiman Azores, and former Federal Permanent Secretary, Ibrahim Talba, among other distinguished personalities.
