Former Governor Babatunde Fashola has charged fresh graduates and other youths to shun drugs and embrace the future with skills, technology.

Mr Fashola said on Tuesday that the youth would need to prepare for enormous possibilities of prosperity that would elevate the human race.

He gave the charge at the 27th convocation lecture of Lagos State University (LASU).

“After all the celebrations, you need to reflect and remember this part; self-discipline. It will show you the way away from drugs, crime, belief in wealth without work, and search for miracles of wealth.

“Only hard work provides sustainable wealth; not rituals, not fake pastors or imams, and not trafficking in illicit drugs. Self-discipline will be the element that completes all the work your parents and guardians have done and what your lecturers have done.

“It will concretise your character and define your reputation. It will be the compass for your integrity and determine whether you are worthy of trust,” Mr Fashola said.

The former works minister added that the students were graduating into a world of technology at a time when talent was been rewarded at an unprecedented level.

“One generation ago, there was no internet as we know it today. Google Maps today was a story I read in the Newsweek or Time Magazine… in 1985 to 1986, of a plan to digitally map the surface of the earth.

“Today, I use the platform to find locations and it is now helping to predict travel time because something new has been added to it – artificial intelligence – based on extensive supercomputing powers.

“The world that awaits you is a world where human beings have developed enormous machine learning capacities,” Mr Fashola explained.

He told the graduating students that education they received at LASU would take them somewhere in their journey of life but would not be enough.

“You will require many more things, including continuing education in the formal and informal way. Life becomes meaningless the day we stop learning.

“Some things, as you know it today, will not exist in a few years’ time. Some jobs that you aspire to, may be gone before you know it.

“Whatever the losses, the gains will surpass them. Your world and the future it promises will be more exciting and more prosperous. The early foretaste of the impact of artificial intelligence is that it is positive for mankind,” Mr Fashola said.

He added that determination and hard work, collective belief in new and innovative ideas would lead to greater success and innovation.

“Let this serve as a reminder that fostering and investing in the potential of the next generation can lead to extraordinary achievements,” Mr Fashola stressed.

(NAN)