Nigeria- a product of external encounters, is a victim of cultural collision with very devastating consequences, capable of keeping it (the country) in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. Therefore, good quality education across the board is very sacrosanct. Without this awareness including practical steps, Nigeria (an amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates in 1914 by the British colonial government) will not be able to critically participate in the global community. University education is tied to the apron strings of training, research, and development among other things. It is ontologically holistic and/or multi-scalar. The raid and rape of Nigeria by the super powers will continue unabated, so long as there is no appropriate education.
Nigeria is a rich storehouse of a wide range of natural resources as well as human capital of enviable character. But despite all these things, the country remains the world capital of material poverty. The country lacks the capacity to add value to the locally available resources. We are just a mere raw material economy after more than 60 years of political independence. In addition, Nigeria is incontestably one of the most unstable geo-polities in the world. Superstitions and religions with a special emphasis on Islam and Christianity (introduced by foreign invaders) are always wreaking havoc on our common sense and scientific powers. In other words, primordial impulses as opposed to rational thought still reign supreme even among the “educated” ones.
Not surprisingly, Nigeria is on the bottom rung of the global development ladder. It is a pity, that the government has not been paying sufficient attention to education as if development matters.
This reactionary mind-set of the government is responsible for the abysmally low budgetary allocations to education. Thus, for example, only 6.7 percent of N6.06 trillion was allocated to public education in 2016. In 2019, it was 7.05 percent out of a total budget of N8.92 trillion. Some 7.9 percent was allocated to education in 2022. This was out of an annual budget of N16.39 trillion. On the other hand, Ghana and South Africa have been allocating between 23 and 17 percent respectively to education. However, the Buhari administration in the last five years, had budgeted more than N37 billion to the refurbishment of the State House. During this period, over N25 billion was said to have been spent on electric power supply and plumbing. In contemporary Nigeria, education is not a top priority. This is not peculiar to this regime.
The political class members do not care a hoot about education, largely because their children are studying abroad. Therefore, ASUU’s vision of the dynamics of university education must be utterly transformed and expanded. In other words, the traditional criteria of authenticity have to be revisited as quickly as possible. Continuing strikes are capable of playing havoc with national development. As an insider (in the last 40 years) in the Nigerian university system, I’m of the opinion that the time has come for ASUU to cut its losses. This is a cautionary tale that must not be misconstrued. Government and ASUU’s egos are stumbling blocks in our paths to sustainable peace and progress. While it is a truism, that strikes are global in nature, the Nigerian case is extra-ordinarily devastating. Therefore, we should not unintentionally join the unwilling rulership class to rock the boat. Our academic calendar is intolerably epileptic. No more international students, let alone visiting scholars. Nigeria is now an underground cave system.
Certainly, ASUU has a good case. For instance, the refusal of the government to implement the 2009 agreement and the blatant disregard for the re-negotiated agreement of 2020 were deliberately provocative. The usual government’s empty plea to suspend the strike is a vivid illustration of moral blackmailing. However, ASUU has to do a rethink in the interest of the common good. According to a popular Yoruba adage, “if we leave the corpse of the mother of an insane man to him, he can easily roast and eat it”. That is the reality of today’s Nigeria, where serious political leadership has taken flight. ASUU should streamline its demands. Greater emphasis has to be placed on staff welfare-salaries and allowances. Staff motivation is of the essence. Minimum school fees should be charged, while indigent students benefit to some degree, from loans, bursaries, and scholarship schemes among other possibilities. Internally generated revenues, donations, and endowments should be judiciously used. But first and foremost, maximum corruption has to be wrestled to the ground. The thorny, filthy town has torn the contemporary gown into shreds.
ASUU leadership at the branch level has to be a watchdog as opposed to an unofficial arm of university management. It is no longer news, that temptation is often put in the way of most union leaders by undue overseas trips, appointments, and contracts. Expenses on overseas trips often with mouth-watering allowances (locally called “estacodes”) by the management team members and their cohorts must be drastically reduced. Again, dotting each campus with all kinds of buildings for reasons too well known to be recounted here, has to stop. Creation of vanity positions is at variance with prudent management of scarce resources. More attention should be paid to the refinement of the content of the grammar of scholarship than just the morphology. The attitude of most university managers today, is a reflection of a gross lack of patriotism and by extension, servant-hood. This is because Nigeria has poor punishment systems. Consequently, almost every leader wants to loot the public treasury like his predecessors. University governing councils should not allow themselves to be turned into rubber stamps by the emperors (vice-chancellors) just because of their bellies. The Nigerian education sector will remain in the woods, so long as ASUU leadership looks the other way, in the face of economic and financial infractions of huge proportions.
The so-called Vice-Chancellors’ Wives Association of Nigeria (VC-WAN), is one of the greatest absurdities of our times. Thumbs up for Professor Tunde Adeniran (a former Minister of Education) for his personal, fine-grained intervention. He wrote to the current chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors to allow sanity to reign supreme. The attitude of the above ladies showed a callous disregard for the feelings of Nigerians, via the lens of mundane local and international conferences, they were planning to have. Meanwhile, innocent students are idling away at home or roaming the streets due to the on-going ASUU strike. If care is not taken, we shall soon hear of the formation of the Vice-Chancellors’ Children Association of Nigeria (VC-CAN). We should not forget the wives of deans of faculties, for being the pillars of strength for their husbands. For the sake of equity, wives and children of our heads of departments must also be factored in, as we do the stone age arithmetic of power. I submit here, that fellow feeling/love is the central principle in the unseen but real world. Certainly, all these years of rancour and ethical disorientation, will necessarily burst into flower in the face of open-mindedness and unalloyed patriotism.
- Prof. Ogundele is of University of Ibadan.