Professor Ezekoye made a lot of good points about the relationship between technological education and rate of development or lack thereof. This discussion is indeed healthy for all societies especially the African countries. However, the point of my earlier comment on this topic is that President Obasanjo was not making that point. If he was, he did not come across that way to many readers (an example of the importance of the use of language).
On a broader note, who should take the lead in changing the educational policy of the country? A lot of people would argue that the (political and economic) leadership has the primary responsibility for doing this. The current result that we have is definitely the result of policies and incentives that have been put in place by several governments in Nigeria since independence. Governments that the major players in the current government in the country were also major players. A basic premise in Economics is the law of supply and demand. Suppliers will devote more resources to those products with the highest price. In this case a system that does not reward technological/scientific education cannot expect its youth to invest their educational time in these fields. that is why the best trained Nigerians in science and technology in particular are taking their services to societies that reward and appreciate those skills more including all the Nigerian professors, professionals (engineers, nurses, IT folks and medical doctors) in the Diaspora. For the society to expect otherwise would be a classic case of believing in voodoo economics.
Bottom line is while the ball is in everyone's court, the baton is definitely in the current government's hand.

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Sisay Asefa

Technical education does little in a institutionally deficient and corrupt environment of African economies and polities. Unless we clean up that through serious thinking and acting based on social science and economics knowledge, we get know where. The value added benefits of technical education and engineering to Africa is far reduced because of that, unlike in the United States. Why are so many African scientists including doctors and engineers work in this country instead of Africa where they are needed more? Africa today experiences the severest brain drain problem of all developing regions of the world.