Our research in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, showed that the Great Leader (Mr. GL), the man with the magic wand is hard to find, he or she is an elusive person. So, wise people do not wait to find him/her before confronting the common problems that must be solved in building a modern nation. Great minds build great nations. Building the modern nation rapidly depends more on the sum of the small leadership qualities in all the citizens than on finding Mr. GL.
Learning – education and training, reveals the leadership qualities of the individual. Education equips the individual with theoretical knowledge and the ability to think and develop the mind and character. Education equips the individual with the skills for finding theoretical solutions to present and future problems. Consequently, education can be a way around the problem of poor leadership. It follows that the higher the level of education and training or the more knowledgeable and skilled are the citizens of a nation, the more they would be able to contribute to the development of their nation through building the necessary leadership team. This article argues that setting increasingly higher levels of education and training qualifications for voters in Nigeria would force leaders to emphasize education and training and promote the rapid development of our nation, Nigeria.
It would seem that the 1979 and 1999 constitutions prepared by our lawyers and military leaders were never meant to promote national development. Otherwise, how could the constitutions in section 18 (3) state that: Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy; and so to this end government shall as and when practicable provide – (a) free, compulsory and universal primary education; (b) free secondary education; (c) free university education; and (d) free adult literacy programme. The lawyers say that this promise is not justiciable. The language of the constitutions is very clear – the owners of Nigeria (those in government) shall provide education for those who do not ‘own’ it when practicable. Why and how can the powerless (non-owners) call the powerful owners to fulfil their promises? This section of the constitutions shows that there has never been any plan to build the geographical space called Nigeria into a viable nation. This is because it is through learning (education and training) that nations achieve capability-building growth and industrialization and transform poverty-stricken artisan/agricultural nations into scientific and wealthy nations.
European and Asian nations neglected organized learning (education and training) for 2000-3000 years because the nations did not have wise leadership and governments to promote education and training. Our quantitative analyses showed that the five variables for planning for capability-building growth and industrialization are: 1) N – the number of people involved in productive work or employment in a nation; 2) M – the level of education/training of those involved in productive activities in the economy and of the people of the nation; 3) L – the linkages among the knowledge, skills, competences and sectors of an economy; 4) R – the learning rates or intensity in the economy and especially among the workforce; and N – the experience of the workforce and the learning history of the society.
All the variables are related to the learning-man and learning-woman and the higher are the values of the variables, the better is the economy. The purpose of establishing any private enterprise is to make profit. Early European and Asian nations promoted private sector-led development where the purpose of any action was for the immediate benefit. Education does not promote immediate benefit or profit. That is why the private sector cannot promote rapid national development.
The United States of America is the aftermath of the entrepreneurial activities of British public and private sectors. Businessmen and the kings in England began to establish colonies in the New World in 1606 (Baldwin, 1969). The colonies revolted against the king in 1775, declared independence in 1776 and fought the War of Independence 1775-1783. By 1800, more than 90 per cent of Americans lived on farms or tiny villages which formed rather thousands of different economies rather than one economy (Bartlett, et al., 1969). Americans displayed fully the versatility of an educated people. The New England States and Pennsylvania were the first to establish public school systems to educate all young people. It was also in these states where sound and systematic education and training for acquisition of skills had been practiced longest and where knowledge, skills and competences were most developed that the greatest manufacturing occurred first. The nation fought a civil war 1861-1865. At the end of the 19th century, Americans looked back on the 35 years since the civil war with amazement. The entire nation seemed to have been transformed in their life time. All around them were huge new cities, large population, bewildering array of new machinery, a vast railroad network and thousands of new factories, mills and mechanized farms. In just about 300 years, from 1606 when the first colony was established in the New World till 1910 when it was clear that the USA had achieved the modern industrial revolution, the nation achieved more than European nations achieved in 2000 years.
Our analysis also revealed that for a nation, no economic growth, no political growth (democratization). Through education, an ethnic society is converted into an educated society. An illiterate society cannot promote rapid industrialization and democratization. So, the first variable a young nation like Nigeria ought to emphasize is education. The second variable for promoting industrialization and democratization is training. A wise leadership trains the educated people to acquire complementary practical skills so as to create an educated and skilled society. A young nation which merely educates people without training them to acquire complementary practical skills experiences mass unemployment, high crime wave, poverty, corruption, do or die elections and other evils. This is the situation in Nigeria today.
The third thing Nigeria ought to emphasize to promote rapid industrialization and democratization is full (optimum) employment policy. Full employment policy is also critical to the institutionalization of a society. Institutionalization of society is the fourth factor Nigeria must emphasize to be saved. There is a general agreement that the existence of some institutions is indispensable to promoting democracy. However, many authors of democracy do not know how the institutions are developed and sustained. Human beings and the groups they form, their activities over time, are the fundamental promoters of institutions. Building skyscrapers, roads and bridges, electricity generating plants and transmission lines and other structures, do not constitute institutionalizing a society. When knowledgeable and skilled people become employed, they form knowledge-based groups which later become institutions while the nation becomes institutionalized. It is the knowledge-based institutions that regulate the behaviour of citizens in functioning federations and democracies by preventing the citizens from doing what they ought not to do. The institutions are built rapidly when educated and skilled citizens are employed in a nation. Mass unemployment frustrates the development of institutions and institutionalization.
Chapter VI (131) of the 1999 Constitution stipulates the qualifications, specifying that the president of Nigeria should have a minimum educational qualification of School Certificate or its equivalent. Nigeria’s constitution says nothing about the educational qualification of the voters in election. This is a very serious defect which must be rectified to link Nigeria’s economic and political development efforts. High levels of education, training, employment of voters and institutionalization of society are central to addressing the problems of ‘do or die’ elections, buying of votes and poor performance of governments, and promoting industrialization, democratization and viability of our nation. Adopting JSS III as a minimum educational qualification for voters in all elections now and higher qualifications in future is demonstrating wisdom.
- Prof Ogbimi writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.