Nigeria was FORTY-SEVEN on 1st October, 2007. A symposium in commemoration of this event was organized at the university. The event which was well attended was held at the University's Students' Chapel.

The symposium entitled "President Yar Adua Seven-Point Agenda: The Way Forward" had both Staff and students as discussants. The three Colleges were represented by six speakers made up of three lecturers and three students.

The speakers all agreed that:
Forty seven years after political independence, Nigeria, more that ever before requires an urgent interventionist approach to confront its multifaceted malaise;

The Eldora do envisaged at independence in 1960 had become at best an illusion;

The challenges facing the nation cannot be divorced from the nature of the political leadership at the different tiers of government;

A major tragedy of successive administrations in the country is the absence of a clear cut ideology to guide the conduct of government;

Where such development paradigms existed, there were no fundamental differences between the different regimes that have governed the country

Governments that have enunciated such programme at different times were not committed to the implementation of such ideas;

Consequently, the Panel agreed that:

The citizenry deserve a better deal in the existing social contract with leadership at all levels of government;

For the Yar Adua government to positively impact the society, critical areas of economy, such as energy and power, education, transportation, job creation and security must be urgently addressed;

The omission of health in the administration's agenda is a fundamental flaw that must be redressed, given the centrality of a healthy populace to a productive enterprise, the poor state of the country's health facilities, and the endemic nature of diseases ravaging the society;

Government functionaries must demonstrate genuine commitment to the pursuit of the general good of the society;
The sincerity of the government towards its programme would be measured by the level of its commitment to the anti-corruption campaign, and the degree of fairness, integrity and accountability demonstrated in running the affairs of the country;

The government must quickly address the pervasive negative influence of the ruling party on its conduct, especially in area of political appointment and share of the spoils of office;

To achieve the realization of its set objectives, competence and merit in choosing political office holders must not be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency;

Education, as the bedrock of any genuine development, must occupy a central place in the agenda of government. The educational policy must be total and should incorporate a crusade for moral rebirth;

Civil society organizations must intensify their peculiar role in the task of social reengineering by serving as societal watchdogs against the excesses of government;

Poem Composed and delivered by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Aize Obayan at the Occassion