By Olisa Godson Muojama
In Nigeria (a country seeking to be
included among the Security Council of the United Nations, and a country
masquerading to be the giant of Africa), academic activities (which have been the
live wire of all the developed nations of the world) have been suspended in
virtually all government-owned universities. This is due to the strike action
declared by the country’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since 1
July 2013. ASUU has accused the government of Nigeria of non-performance,
lackadaisical attitude, and a lukewarm posture on matters pertaining to
education. The direct evidence of this non performance is the inability of the Nigerian
government to meet the benchmark of UNESCO on education. The UNESCO bench mark
is that countries should allocate 26% of their annual budget to education.
So many reasons have been proffered
over the years to explain this inability of the Nigerian government, and the
underdeveloped condition of the country in the midst of abundant resources. The
majority of the studies have shown that leadership problem is the ultimate. In
terms of resources, Nigeria is much more endowed than the countries we refer to
as developed. This manifested itself in the 1960s and 70s, when Nigerian
currency was higher in value than the American dollar and the British pound
sterling; when the Nigerian economy was far much more viable and diversified
than it is today; and when the Nigerian education system was one of the best in
the world. However, all these have become history. Nigeria is now categorised
among the poorest countries in the world, among the countries at the bottom,
and among the countries far below the standard of living of America.
To be sure, on 03 April 2006, the
former World Bank chief, Joseph Stiglitz, presented before the world economic
thought leaders at the Carnegie Council, New York, the USA, a book he
co-authored with Andrew Charton entitled, Fair
Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development. In his analysis he noted
that Europe subsidized its cows to the tune of 2 dollar per day, thus beating
the World Bank’s benchmark for poverty. According to the World Bank, anybody
who does not earn 2 dollar per day is poor. Stiglitz shocked the whole world
when he concluded that “it is better to be a cow in Europe than to be a person
in the Third World”, since over 70% of human beings in the Third World (Nigeria
inclusive) live below 2 dollar per day.
Similarly, an Oxford Professor, Paul
Collier wrote in his book The Bottom
Billion (2007: 1) that about five billion out of the six billion of world’s
population live at the bottom. The countries at the bottom coexist with the
twenty-first century, but their reality is the fourteenth century. What this
means is that the societies at the bottom among which Nigeria is listed are
living in the condition of 1300s, about 700 years behind the present civilization.
In his book, Moral Consequences of economic growth, Benjamin Friedman (2005)
identifies the indices of economic growth which he maintains will lead to high
standard of living and moral values. These indices include people living longer,
suffering from fewer diseases, having roof over their heads, having indoor
plumbing (good sanitation), and greater population being able to read and
write. Put differently, the basic necessities of life are in play for the
majority of the country’s population, and these play out by the time a society
achieves standard of living half of America’s. The meaning of this conclusion
is that the standard of living in Nigeria is less than half of that of America,
even when the salaries and allowances of members of the Nigerian legislature
are two times more than the salaries of the president of the United States of
America as demonstrated by the Economics of Magazine, cited in the Punch
Newspaper of Tuesday, July 23, 2013.
The major drawback of Nigeria, in terms
of its backwardness in all sectors of human existence, is its ‘degraded’
education capacities: ‘degraded’ because, as has been said, in the 1960s and
70s, Nigeria’s education system was one of the best in the world. For instance,
in Ibadan at 50, B. A Mojuetan (2000:
438) writes that “The University of Ibadan inherited a great intellectual
tradition, the stock available to mankind, and for the first twenty-five years
of its existence, it was the proud exponent of this tradition, sharing in and
contributing to the mainstream of ideas in academia—a process of enrichment in
dialectic. The expression of this ‘symbioses’ was the cosmopolitanism of
Ibadan, a microcosm of the global academic community; its reputation as a
centre of excellence attracted outstanding scholars of diverse provenance, thus
providing a window to the wider world.”
Today, no university in Nigeria can be
listed among the best 1000 in the world. This is because a succession of
governments in Nigeria pushed matters of education to the background,
relegating education to the lowest level of consideration among the development
indices. The Nigerian universities are no longer fashionable enough to attract
international scholars as before. The result of this, according to Mojuetan, is
that “its degrees are no longer international currency”.
This situation might be understandable
during the dark years of military dictatorship in Nigeria, between 1966 and
1999. With the return of democracy to Nigeria in May 1999, many were of the
opinion that some of these anomalies, characteristic of military rule in
Nigeria, would go with the collapse of military system of government.
Unfortunately, the first democratic experiment became dominated by the rank and
files of the military oligarchy in plain uniform.
However, in 2007, the experiment threw
up, for the first time, after 30 years, degree holders to the driving seats of
the Nigerian government. Not only did the late President Yar'Adua hold a
degree, his Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan, was also said to hold a PhD and
to have lectured in a University. In this case the world expected that time had
come for Nige'Aian education system to bounce back in more robust and vigorous
way than ever before. This expectation was on the supposition that the Pharaohs
who knew Joseph had come to the throne. Unfortunately, under the administration
of President Yaradua and Goodluck Jonathan, academic activities were suspended
between July and October 2009, due to the strike action by ASUU aimed at
getting the government to sign the agreement it reached with the Union on how
to bring the Nigerian education back to track. After about three months
stand-off, and as part of his Independence celebration package of October 2009,
President Yaradua signed the Agreement with the Union, agreeing to move the
Nigerian education sector forward until it gets back to its original glory.
Unfortunately, in February 2010,
President Yar'Adua died and power automatically, and in line with the Nigeria’s
Constitution, devolved on Goodluck Jonathan as the Vice-President. Expectation
was much higher. It was believed that now that someone who is said to hold a
PhD is in power, education system of Nigeria will again become one of the best
in the world. Unfortunately, this expectation has not been realised as academic
activities have been in a quagmire since Dr Jonathan’s accession to the
Presidency. For instance, between November 2011 and February 2012, Academic activities
in Nigerian government-owned universities were suspended. And presently,
academic activities have again been suspended under his direct administration
since July 2013, due to the inability of Goodluck Jonathan’s government to
implement the agreement the previous government (under which he served as the
Vice President) signed willingly with the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU), aimed at bringing education system in Nigeria back to track. This has
raised questions about the calibre of people bestriding the corridors of power
in Nigeria. It has also cast aspersion on the quality of education acquired by
the President who is said to hold a PhD as well as his Ministers, most
especially, the so-called co-ordinating minister who is said to have trained in
Harvard.
This inability of the government of
Goodluck Jonathan to implement the agreement which included adequate funding of
education in Nigeria and to bring the education sector back to track is simply aimed
at perpetuating the political economy of education in Nigeria. The governing
principle and the inner workings of the political economy of education in
Nigeria is that “children of the poor should be mis-educated, that the public
institutions should be underfunded and thus, be destroyed”.
This politics of education evolved in
Nigeria because of the paucity of employment opportunities, due to successive bad
economic policies, and due to the fact that government had over the years been
the highest employer of labour. Being educated became a gateway to the corridors
of the government and a free ticket to share in the national cake. There has
not been social security for those who are not employed as is the case in the
USA and other countries whose leaders think properly. Those already in the
corridor of government, who want to build empire in the Nigerian government and
bureaucracy want the Nigerian education system to crumble. They do not have
their children here in Nigeria. Their children go to Harvard, University of Massachusetts,
Oxford, Birmingham among others and come back to take over from their parents.
Even if a free playing ground was provided their children have the tendency to
beat the children of the poor due to the disparity in education system.
Again, according to Nelson Mandella,
“education is a tool we can use to transform the world.” It will enable the
citizens to understand and stand up to their rights. In order to reduce the
ability of the populace to challenge the authorities of the ruling class, the
education system should be destroyed.
Thirdly, as part of the implementation
of Washington Consensus, education sector in Nigeria (including higher
education) has been liberalised. In this way, private sectors have been allowed
to establish universities, in accordance with the benchmark set by the National
University Commission (NUC). In the developed world, this programme has
succeeded because it created more platforms for academic activities, for
research and the ventilation of patent for national developmental, as well as
grounds for employment opportunities. But in Nigeria, the reverse is the case.
It has provided opportunities for politicians and missionaries who have
established universities using the money either stolen from the public coffers
or derived from tithes and offerings of the poor congregation to thrive below
the minimum standard expected of a university. To be sure, since ASUU strike
began, most privately owned universities have increased their fees to levels
unprecedented and unaffordable by ordinary Nigerian, yet without providing good
quality of education. This is a result of the inability of NUC to regulate the
standard of university education in Nigeria, due to the political economy of
education in Nigeria and due to the corruption inherent in NUC’s accreditation
exercises. It is this that informed the editorial of Tribune Newspaper of
Tuesday, 10 September 2013 entitled “Time to Regulate the Regulators”.
Therefore, it is not enough to say that
those who know the importance of education are in power, it is pertinent to
know whether they are committed to changing the game on ground, to
restructuring and redirecting the political economy of education in Nigeria.
For instance in the case of Yaradua, he included in his Independence Broadcast
the state of education sector and announced his commitment to bringing
education back on track. In the case of Jonathan, education did not matter to
him and his coordinating Minister not only as a part of his Independence
Broadcast, but as part of the so-called centenary celebration. This is a
pointer to the fact that the present government is striving to maintain the
equation on ground concerning the political economy of education in Nigeria.
Should Nigerians allow this to happen?
Should Nigerians fold their arms and suffer in the midst of plenty? Should the
traditional leaders watch their subjects dehumanised by the government without
raisin a voice? Should the religious leaders watch their congregations denied
of basic rights, the divine rights, without speaking out against the
government? Nigerians must do something,
most especially as part of marking the Independence celebration. Nigerians
should hold their leaders to account. Nigerians should insist that social
security should be introduced for the unemployed as is the case in other countries.
Nigerians should insist that cows in Europe should no longer be richer than
ordinary Nigerian citizen. Nigerians should insist that Education system must
be brought back to track immediately. Nigerians should give ultimatum to its
government to put structure in place to achieve the millennium development goal
to which their government is signatory, namely, reducing poverty, hunger,
disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against
women by 2015. In order to achieve these, education must lead the way.
Editor: Kay Bello.
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