-Cummings tells graduates
The Political Leader of the opposition Alternative National Congress or ANC, and a founding member of the four Collaborating Political Parties or CPP, Mr. Alexander B. Cummings has urged graduating students of the United Methodist University not to allow any situation to fail them even if the government does.
“You do not have to fail yourself, because our leaders are failing us, each of you today, and always can choose to be different,” Cummings said as he delivered his commencement speech at the 17th convocation ceremony of the United Methodist University.
The ANC political leader further told the graduates saying “a struggling nation is not as yet ready to receive you with the opportunities you truly deserve, as a failing administration has lost its way, and many of our people are still suffering for the want of opportunity.”
The former Coca-Cola Executive urged the graduates to adapt a set of values and principles that may seem uncommon, “Today I urge each of you to do so and hold it so dear to yourself that you will not allow yourself to compromise it. He also told the graduates to include being honest to yourself, and demand northing less of others with whom you are to interact.
“Hold yourself in high regard and to as high a standard as possible, respect all persons but by no means must you put yourself down for anyone in demanding respect for yourself”
According to Mr. Cummings, graduates must never forget that their souls are priceless and therefore must also be a value of which they must cherish their thoughts, decision and expression, noting that they must guard those jealously so that they do not fall to the cheapness of manipulations and deceptions.
He admonished the graduates that in their undertakings, they must not settle for anything other than giving only the best of themselves.
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He cautioned them to be truthful, especially to yourself about what you can, and can’t do and whatever you know you are capable of doing, do it to convince that no one can and will do it better.
“We must stop this foolish deception trafficked to some of our people that education is irrelevant in the growth and development of our nation,” he opined
He warned that where the human capacities of any nation is weak, a nation is doomed to be poor, adding that the wealth of a nation is not measure in the heights of building, but in the capacities of its citizens he adds.
He said “the harsh truth is that those on whose shoulders we have assigned the responsibility to guarantee equality in opportunity have not governed well enough to do so for all our citizens.”
By Lewis S. Teh
