International lubricant manufacturing giant, LUBCON, has again scored a first by bankrolling a textbook on entrepreneurship and distributing it for free to students in secondary schools in the state.

The book, aptly titled Entrepreneurship for Senior Secondary, is authored by Dr. Muritala Awodun of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Kwara State University and Chairman Kwara State Inland Revenue Services.

At the public unveiling and distribution of the book held in the premises of the Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development on Wednesday, the Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Eng. Musa Yeketi, on behalf of the state governor, commended the company for impacting positively in the lives of students in the state.

The commissioner who noted that the inclusion of entrepreneurship in its curriculum by the Kwara State government confirmed that it is a bold attempt towards human capital development as government "strongly believes that the future of our youth lies in entrepreneurship training which will enable them set up their own enterprises (businesses) rather than relying on white collar jobs."

He therefore urged "school principals and all those in charge of libraries to jealously safe guard the books with a view to ensuring their effective usage as a way of encouraging other corporate bodies and other public spirited individuals to donate to our schools."

Earlier in his speech on the occasion, the acting Group Managing Director of LUBCON Group, Kalu Onwunta, revealed that, as a way of celebrating its 25years of existence, the company decided as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to commission a book on the subject of entrepreneurship seeing that it is not only new in the curriculum but also compulsory and without much resources to aid teaching and learning of the subject.

Recounting the different areas the company has been impacting the society; Onwunta said Lubcon is the sponsor of the Kwara State All Secondary Schools Football Competition also known as LUBCON Principal Cup for the past 10years. The company also has an empowerment scheme for mechanics in the state under Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association (NATA)

Going down memory lane, Onwunta told the gathering that the company had in March 2014 embarked on the provision of awareness campaign manual to the public and government establishments to sensitize the general public on the Ebola scourge long before it entered the country.

While urging the end user of the books donated to make judicious use of the books, Onwunta pledged the commitment of his company to continue to add value not only to its shareholders but also to the community. He stated that LUBCON is distributing about 8000 copies of the book to all the 556 public senior secondary schools in the 16 local governments of the state. The company has also presented copies of the book to local government chairmen in the state, some federal government institutions in the state and private secondary schools in the state.

Speaking on the relevance of entrepreneur in secondary school, the author of the book, Dr. Muritala Awodun who was represented on the occasion by Dr. Gbenle noted that "Writing a book is not an easy task… this book is relevant to our economy today because we have massive unemployment and poverty across Africa. As we familiarize with this book, I think it is a welcoming initiative for our secondary school because it promotes not only the training, innovation, foresight, self-employment but also the economic growth. Entrepreneurship to me is using scares resources to size opportunity to create innovation or product."

In their separate goodwill messages on the occasion, the Secretary of All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools in the state, Saliu Umar Balogun and the President of Proprietors of Private Secondary Schools in the state, Dr. Adetunji Abdulrahman, agreed that the book is coming at the right time and lauded the efforts of the lubricant company for coming to the aid of both students and teachers of Nigerian secondary schools by providing a text book to assist in the teaching and learning of entrepreneurship in secondary schools.

The event was graced by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Hajia Mariam Garba, directors and staff in the ministry, top management staff of LUBCON Group, students and stakeholders in the education sector.

With headquarter in the ancient city of Ilorin, LUBCON is a worldwide operating lubricant manufacturer developing, producing and distributing high-grade greases, oils, pastes, maintenance sprays and lubrication systems for nearly all industrial applications and manufacturing sectors.