The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Gyrations in the education sector (I)

    Gyrations in the education sector (I)

    More than ten years ago, at the height of his not inconsiderate power as governor of Osun State, Mr? Engr? Ogbeni Aregbesola decided to renovate, rebuild or even build from scratch, much needed infrastructure in public educational institutions all over the state. Such a massive building project had never been seen in the state since her Inception and this laudable project attracted a great deal of favourable attention, so much so that the governor easily won a second term in office from an impressed electorate. On a personal note, the governor won my support especially when this effort was put side by side with what had passed for service before Aregbesola took up the reins of office. However this article is not about the politics of Osun State at that point in time. It is only a convenient starting point for public sector education, not just in Osun State but in Nigeria.

    The sad point about those schools which were built with so much care and effort, not to talk of expenditure is that many of them are lying unused so many years after they were built. Although, I seldom stray from the well beaten path, I know of three different primary schools, one of them only a stone throw from where I live which have stood empty since they were rebuilt. This, coupled with the observation that no new public primary school has been built anywhere to my knowledge in the last forty years or so, convinces me of the collapse, the irredeemable collapse of the public primary school system in Osun State. The situation is worse, much worse in other parts of the country where no governor has bothered to do anything about the collapsed structures within which our children are required to receive some form of education at the primary school level. This brings us back to JAMB and the ongoing admissions exercise to the nation’s tertiary institutions.

    There was a time, albeit quite a long time ago when the NCE certificate was a badge of honour and accomplishment. The qualification carried a great deal of weight as it opened many doors and many of those who later in their careers became professors of education started out with this qualification. Before the NCE became the prerequisite qualification, the required qualification for primary school teachers was the Grade II teachers certificate. And this could be obtained from one of the many teacher training colleges which dotted the landscape. Many successful professionals started their careers from this humble beginning and this alone speaks to the excellence of these institutions. The system did appear to be  broken but the powers that be decided to fix it all the same but ended up not fixing it but scrapping it. One by one these fine colleges were closed down and governments began to build what they called Advanced Colleges of Education dedicated to minting NCE certificates. The rest as the saying goes is history.

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    Anyone desirous of becoming a primary school teacher these days needs the much coveted NCE certificate after a course of study at one  college of Education or the other but before then, there is the matter of securing admission to a College of Education by ‘passing’ the entrance examination conducted by JAMB. It is the business of JAMB to conduct this examination but admission is left to the Colleges to admit their students and this year the required pass mark is 25%. I am not good with figures but by my reckoning this figure is not much lower than what can be obtained by a candidate who knows nothing about his subject but just goes through the paper choosing any one of the answers which tickled his fancy. In other words, a totally ignorant student can score 25% of the marks on offer by guessing the correct answer to every question unless you lost marks for every wrong answer. Whatever the marking scheme, anyone who cannot score more than 25% is simply not blessed with the mental acuity to cope with the demands of any course at the tertiary level. This means that we are stocking our Colleges of Education with abject failures who have very little chance of understanding the basic principles of whatever is their chosen course of study.

    That those who teach our children at the primary level of our education system have little grasp of the subject matter which they intend to pass on to their pupils is an unmitigated disaster. It is one from which there is little or no hope of escape. Some of these hapless NCE graduates are even saddled with teaching secondary school students some of who know more about the subject matter they are dealing with than their teachers in a case of the blind charting a course through a mine field for the partially blind. The word ridiculous does not quite cover this situation.

    Teachers at whatever level of our education system they are operating, determine the quality of education available at every level of that system. No matter how gifted you are as a scholar, you must start your education in the primary school and your performance at that level is the foundation on which your education is built. Your personal level of achievement is critically dependent on who put you through your ABCs and I daresay, people who can only manage a mark of 25% are simply not qualified to pass on any useful quantum of education to their charges who are embarking on their own education Odyssey.

    Of the nearly two million souls who turned up to take the JAMB examination earlier this year, as many as 8,400 of them scored more than 300 marks but you can bet that none of them chose Education as their preferred course of study. By now, JAMB statisticians should have crunched all the figures generated by this examination but even in the absence of that, I bet that each of those 8,000 and more students who rose to the top in that examination chose one of Law, Engineering and Medicine as their first choice of study. These are the so called lucrative courses guaranteed to lead to financial comfort if not abundance later on. I am intrigued to know how many of nearly two million JAMB candidates this year chose Education  as their preferred course of study. Maybe it is too ambitious to expect to find prospective students of Education among those high scoring students. Well then, how many of them scored above 200? I am not a betting man but if I were, I would bet that no more than a few thousand of them would be in this category. In other words, we are not recruiting our better brains to oversee our education sector and have abandoned our primary schools to the far from tender mercies of those who choose to teach in our primary schools simply because they are not good enough to be competitive in other fields. Finland is now the world acclaimed leader in the field of education and the news coming out of that country is that the best brains are attracted to work in the field of education, probably because they are also the best paid whilst in Nigeria, the converse is true. Our best brains are enticed into prostituting their talents working at high paying jobs which at best can only be described as cosmetic employment, all glitter and little substance.

    As for teachers in our public schools especially at the primary school level, what they earn can be described as slave wages and what more, those wages are seldom, if ever paid on time. His worshipful excellency of our story paid a healthy sum of money to contractors putting up all those beautiful school buildings. What he could not afford to do was pay the teachers on time. The teacher was entitled to be paid only a little but what they were paid collectively was a very tidy of money, too heavy for the governor to come up with on a regular monthly basis. How unpaid workers are supposed to live on the nothingness of air is well beyond my capacity to comprehend.

    Judging from where I live, there is little or no problem with out of school children. There are not many children roaming around town during school hours suggesting that schools are being healthily patronised. It is just that the public institutions are being shunned. The slack generated by this is being taken up by private schools which appear to be sprouting out of the ground as if by magic. Virtually every empty house around where I live has been converted into a primary school of questionable quality. All the pupils do is learn by rote as they chant their lessons in the wake of their teacher. The language of instruction is supposed to be English but so mangled as to be barely recognisable as such. Yoruba is anathema in those schools so that the children are being brought up without fluency in any language. My takeaway from this is two fold. Parents are willing to pay for what they consider to be good education and our government are stuck with the expedience of providing free education. This equation can never be balanced which is why Aregbesola’s expensive primary school buildings are lying unused whilst children are pretending to learn in the hostile environment of hastily converted school premises.

    It is pertinent to wonder at what the competence of the average primary school graduate is these days. Many years ago, long before my time, the primary school certificate qualified the holder to get a responsible job with government or some commercial enterprise. Those days are long gone and now the only thing that that qualification is good for is entry to the secondary school so as to be rendered even more incompetent to contribute in any significant way to societal development. It is as if you are required to climb a high mountain only because it exists and all you find at the top of the mountain is another mountain taller than the one you have just climbed. Your future is all about climbing mountains simply because they are there. There is no better description for the current state of our education system.

    To be continued.

  • From Benin to Minna: Obasanjo back to his usual meddlesomeness

    From Benin to Minna: Obasanjo back to his usual meddlesomeness

    Forever believing he is still in the office he kissed bye as far back as 2007 – some 17 years ago – and always seeing himself as the Father of the Nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo this past week carried his bag of tricks all the way to Minna, the Niger state capital, to  felicitate, as his spokesperson said , with a man he never ceased to traduce in, and out, of office. President Obasanjo never ceases to amaze; poignantly reminding one of ‘Ajala Travel All Over The World’ -to reference the scintillating travels of the late  Olabisi Ajala (1934 -1999).

    As is now very obvious to Nigerians,  President Obasanjo apparently has never had enough peace of mind, post office, not to be tempted into wanting to remind us all that nobody loves Nigeria as much as he does.

    All that in spite of his many sins against Nigeria: his do or die election of 2007, his ‘Fehin gbe pon’ intrusion into the Ekiti governorship election of the same year,

    as well as in what horrible shape he left the country at his exit after the National Assembly put paid to his Life presidency gambit.

    Here is a man whose eldest daughter, the cerebral Dr Iyabo Obasanjo, wrote to as follows in her letter of December 16, 2013 which was later made public:”This is my last communication with you, for life. I pray Nigeria survives your continual intervention in its affairs”.

    If that is not a complete repudiation of a father by a daughter, I’d like to be told what it is.

    Governor GeorgeAkume of Benue state, as he then was, also wrote about Nigeria’s longest serving Head of state.

    He wrote in:’Obasanjo’s Grandstanding on Restructuring'(16 March, 2020):”I remember my discussion with him during his visit to Benue State, preparatory to the PDP Jos Convention of 1999 when I referred to what Ken Saro Wiwa wrote about him in his book ‘On a Darkling Plain’.

    “… but this comment by Ken contradicted sharply with what Gen. James Oluleye said of him in his autobiography that he was a bundle of tricks”. When I brought that aspect of the book to his attention, he had a good laugh, and told me that Nigeria is a structurally complex, and socially pluralistic, country where no leader, WITHOUT TRICKS, can survive”.

    Concerning Akume’s lament to him about PDP’s very poor showing  in the South West, Ogun state in particular,  Akume wrote:”He regretted that the Yorubas were making a costly mistake about secession. He would not be involved in such a tragic event. The Yorubas, he said, would be GOADED by the Igbos to make a tragic move with cataclysmic consequences. The Igbos would then DITCH them, join the North and DESTROY them in a REVENGE offensive”. 

    Now how many Igbos would ever  believe that their friend, Peter Obi’s godfather, could ever describe them as being so treacherous?

    But that is not all as my co – columnist on this stable,   Idowu Akinlotan,  has severally weighed in on  our former President’s antics but the relevant one here is his comment of  8 January, 2023 on Obasanjo’s endorsement of  Peter Obi for the 2023 Presidential election.

    Akinlotan wrote:”Contrary to what many supporters of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo think, those who chide him for his unusual and intemperate letter endorsing the presidential candidacy of Labour Party’s Peter Obi are not doing so because they regret his refusal to support their own candidates. He has the right and pleasure to support anyone he wishes, regardless of the bad choices he has made over decades. What the complainants quarrel with is the tone of the endorsement letter, its instigation rather than logical persuasion of the youths, and the former president’s unbelievable deployment of mediocre philosophy of leadership.

    He is free to support anyone he likes, whether his critics like it or not, but it was expected that he would do it with the dignified poise of a leader, the decorum associated with great leadership, and with balanced, even-tempered and unassailable logic. He had all of 85 years to develop and hone that poise and maturity, and over 11 years as head of state and president to acquire the experience needed to set the right example for the nation. Now, all those years seem a horrible waste.

    Somehow, as is customary of him, his letter of endorsement was full of hysteria: hysteria against his imaginary foes, hysteria against his successors in office, and hysteria against his compatriots and God whom he sometimes gives the impression is permanently at his beck and call.

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    Mr Obi, a sophist like no other, probably deserves Chief Obasanjo’s support. The two sophists are thus obsessed with specious reasoning, and roundly complement each other. For whatever the endorsement is worth, no one should begrudge the controversial former president from backing Mr Obi’s candidacy. It was perhaps too far-fetched for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to expect Chief Obasanjo’s endorsement. Too much had soured in their relationship to realistically expect even a grin from the ex-president. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) would have been unable to fathom any endorsement from Abeokuta. That left the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and LP’s Mr Obi to vie for the bilious old man’s attention. It would have been incongruous for the APC, as the party knows very well, to receive the nod from their old and unforgiving antagonist and sparring partner.

    All the leading candidates for the 2023 presidential election had visited Chief Obasanjo in Abeokuta, more as a courtesy than necessity; but it would be hard to gauge what value they would have attached to his endorsement had he deemed them worthy of the gesture. Even Mr Obi who finally got the nod has remained nonplussed. He is uncertain what to do with the endorsement, especially seeing that the repeated hurrahs he had got from the politicised churches of Nigeria had not given his candidacy the needed boost. The streetwise LP candidate knows by instinct that Chief Obasanjo is long past his expiry date. In fact, much more, he knows that all that is left of the phlegmatic old warhorse from Abeokuta is his nuisance value. But better not to draw the ire of the sleeping bear: if he cannot be for you, at least make him indifferent to you. That was why Alhaji Atiku and Asiwaju Tinubu visited him. Both men were too smart not to know where Chief Obasanjo leaned; but they thought they could lessen the pungency of his vitriol. Alas, the former president remains as incandescent and malignant as ever”

    So why all this background history of ‘the Father of the nation’?

    It is a well known fact that President Bola Tinubu has no political godfather, not  Obasanjo, not Babangida nor is it Abdulsalam and none of them is being propitiated by the Villa like he were a god.

    Naturally, therefore, he has earned their ire, and while the last two can bide their time, no, not Obasanjo, the Yoruba top gun, who considers himself the greatest thing to have happened to the Yoruba race since sliced bread, and who is, therefore,  irredeemably angry that God allowed another Yoruba man to emerge  President in his lifetime. Without a doubt, he will hold that angst to heart till his entire life.That exactly was why he raced all the way to Minna straight from Benin city.

    Obasanjo is not one to let the present crises bedevelling the country, mainly economic and insecurity, not forgetting the high cost of living, pass without wanting to pay Tinubu back for the outlandish shellacking he and his candidate got at the elections in 2023. No, not when there are willing associates ensconced on the hills of Minna and an Atiku Abubakar that is never too far away, ever spewing nonsensical diatribes.

    However, the former President has not been bold enough to tell Nigerians his mission to Minna, except to reach into that bag of tricks and tell us he went there to celebrate, mid – September, a man whose birthday was in August.

    But he must try a little more to successfully spin this as Nigerians are no fools.

    The Nigeria media too will not  let him get away with this outright decoy. So snippets are already coming out of  what the serpentine Minna meeting was all about.

    Long story cut short, their meeting, to which General Aliyu Gusau was not, unexpectedly invited, was aimed at making a shortshrift of the Tinubu government, if not now, then in 2027, using the current economic hardship as cover.

    But they must, indeed, be very poor students of history.

    Not many could have forgotten Obasanjo’s spirited effort to abort the 2023 Presidential election long after voting has ended. He actually wrote one of his usual hate- filled letters to President Muhammadu Buhari, ferociously questioning the integrity of the election.

    I invite interested readers to please Google: Obasanjo and Charlie Boy on the 2023 Presidential election to listen to the telephone discussion in which the former President told his ‘son’ to go and OCCUPY Nigeria so as to, unceremoniously, abort the election. How very quickly he forgot the history of elections under his watch; elections he called ‘do or die?

    But if he forgot, Google never forgets. Below, therefore, is a portion of the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) report on the 2007 Presidential election conducted under President Obasanjo, the result of which the chief beneficiary,  President Umar Yar Adua, publicly condemned. It reads:”

    The Nigerian elections of April 2007 were judged by most observers to fall a long way short of the standard for credible, free and fair elections and is considered the worst in Nigeria’s post-independence, electoral history”.

    “The reports of domestic and international observers provide confirmation that all stages of the elections were fundamentally flawed”.

    “Widespread malpractice occurred throughout all stages of the elections, with failures in the late delivery of voting materials, late commencement of polls in most of the states, ballot box stuffing, allocation of votes where voting did not take place, falsification of votes, deliberate denial of election materials to perceived strong-holds of the opposition, and other such actions”.

    “Moreover, the current ruling party fixed the results in advance, even for local government, in all but a handful of states as part of an intra-elite deal, accidentally leaking (accurate) ‘results’ to the press a few days prior to the election. Some states, such as Rivers, Ogun,

    Oyo, and Ekiti, saw vote totals far above the number of registered voters. 2007 broke from 2003 in going from ‘competitive rigging’ to a vote-allocation, or ‘direct capture”

    “Elections were, as well, marked by extraordinarily high levels of political violence.

    55 people died on the day of the election and unofficial estimates for the whole electoral period were 200 deaths nationwide”.

    Above is a true picture of all the elections which took place during President Obasanjo’s administration just as the one that saw him to office in 1999 was no exception.

    That is the man who wanted the 2023 Presidential election cancelled because of infractions but, in reality, because Peter Obi, his candidate, who placed third  overall, did not win.

    It is a crying shame to see President Obasanjo go this low given the fact that a time was when as a Nigerian, one was proud to see him being counted among world leaders.

    Unfortunately, that was then.

  • In Maduguri, Tinubu kept faith with the  nativeland, renews fight against climate change

    In Maduguri, Tinubu kept faith with the  nativeland, renews fight against climate change

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu returned to Abuja late last Sunday after about 16 days outside the country. He was in China for a couple of reasons, ranging from state visit to investors’ forum to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). When he was done with the Chinese events, he went quietly to the United Kingdom, during which stay he met with the British monarch, King Charles III. He returned to Abuja on Sunday and he has since resumed to his task of fixing Nigeria.

    You should remember I wrote about his likely reason for pulling back into his closet to do some reassessment of developments and coming up with new ideas for the direction to focus. In fact, I suggested that he might be coming with a bang and closed the piece, saying “it is a new week, he is about to unleash a new energy, especially as he is coming from these few days of focused seclusion. Just watch out from this week”.

    It did not take very long after arriving the country before he started affirming our thoughts about his moves and likely steps. After arrival, his first official duty was heading straight to the capital of Borno State, Maiduguri, a capital city still looking to climb out of the mire of flooding. He landed in Abuja almost 11pm on Sunday and by Monday morning, travel plans were already afoot for him to go commiserate with the people and government of Borno. While in Maiduguri, he ensured to see the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Umar Garba, visited the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp and met with the governor, Professor Babagana Zulum.

    All that unfolded during that visit and the actions that will follow in proceed days defined a lot about the week, as well as the person of our President. First, while at the Palace of the Shehu, he disclosed that he actually had to disrupt his schedule that had been tailored to suit the attendance of some international engagements in the United State of America. According to him, it was more important for him to come back home at this period when many Nigerians in different parts of the country are grappling with one difficulty or the other. As it is, the harsh effects of economic re-engineering being undertaken by his administration is being felt by most homes, then there came along the vicissitudes of nature, including flooding in many parts of the country, compounding the already testy circumstances.

    The situation in Maiduguri, which was as a result of overflow of the Alau Dam, which in turn had actually been occasioned by heavy rains, was just a symbol of what had already happened to many other communities and towns in different parts of the country and still forecast for many more communities and towns before the end of the rainy season. Seeing, in first hand form, what the floods have subjected Nigerians to, the President recommitted to squarely and more determinedly ramp up the tackling of the effects of climate change in Nigeria.

    “I am just here to sympathise with you. I know your palace was overtaken by flood, I have heard the report, My VP gave me details but to me personally, I know I have to cut off. I was going directly to America but to be with you, if only for five minutes, share the moment. I thank you very much for your leadership for your various prayers this is one disaster that we must pay attention to, we will help Borno State.

    “We as a government, as Nigerian people, we pledge with you that we will help you in the rehabilitation. It is our problem not just your problem, we must share in each other’s pains. The situation that we find ourselves in the environmental problem, climate change and all of these are what we must tackle differently, and we must educate our people”, he said.

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    Besides recommitting to intensifying efforts at fighting climate change and its various manifestations, the President provided a bit more clarity into how he intends to protect the people against climate change disasters, more easily and readily, unlike the way response is currently structured. Speaking to Governor Zulum at the Government, after he had seen the Shehu and seen the IDPs, Tinubu mooted the idea of a disaster relief fund, which will reserve a dedicated purse for dealing with the sort of disasters being witnessed across the country, especially in places where the effects of climate change are mostly felt, like the floods in Maiduguri.

    “After my visit to the Shehu of Borno and the IDP camp, I have been reflecting on how to tackle this kind of disaster and the effects of climate change. There must be a disaster relief fund. I will invite the private sector to team up with us and help rebuild the affected areas. If we take a small percentage from FAAC and put it as disaster relief fund, which will include all of you, we will be activating and strengthening our sense of belonging.

    “I am glad that Prof. Zulum has been a very active governor. Let me assure you that we will be with you, Borno State and share the burden. This disaster was a natural one. It was not the making of anybody. We cannot pass the blame. We pray that the Almighty Allah will receive the souls of the departed and grant them eternal rest. May God also overlook their shortcomings and misdeeds on earth”, he added.

    Even before visiting Maiduguri on Monday, Tinubu has been rallying relief efforts for all states, especially those hit the most. In fact, on Wednesday of the week that preceded the last, his Vice President, Kashim Shettima, recalled an earlier approval by the President that a total of N108 billion be distributed to all states for the management of natural disasters, including flooding.

    Then on Thursday, he made a bigger decision, still on account of the widespread disaster that flooding has wrecked nationwide. His Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, announced that President Tinubu would be excusing himself from the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), assigning the Vice President to lead the Nigerian delegation to the all-important international engagement that is considered to be the highest-rated diplomatic event in the world.

    President Tinubu must have, during his strategic seclusion abroad, concluded that this is the most appropriate time for him as the leader of a nation-in-distress to stay back and coordinate healing process, as well as attend to other issues in need of re-ordering, just as I suggested last week. When Onanuga was relaying the President’s decision to skip this year’s UNGA, he did not fail to give the reason. According to the Presidential Spokesman, “President Tinubu wants to focus on domestic issues and address some of the country’s challenges, especially after the recent devastating flooding”.

    The President, by his action, gave live to the Yoruba philosophy of eternal vigilance, which is captured in the saying “no one goes to bed under a burning roof”. He would not leave local issues that need his attention here at home for matters that are receiving the attention of the rest of the world. Like he has always pointed out, he was the one who approached Nigerians for the mandate, he will not be unfaithful to those who so trusted him with the mandate, the Nigerian people.   

    Meanwhile, he has not let the challenges weighing heavy on the nation to slow the pace of his administration’s march towards economic stability down. For instance, on Thursday he received the global leadership of Coca-Cola Company, led by its President and Chief Executive Officer, John Murphy and the Chairman of Nigerian Bottling Company, Ambassador Segun Apata.

    He commended Coca-Cola for its long-standing partnership with Nigeria and for promoting investment opportunities that have employed over 3000 people across nine production facilities. He said “we are business-friendly, and as I said at my inauguration, we must create an environment of easy-in and easy-out for businesses. We are building a financial system where you can invest, re-invest, and repatriate all your dividends. I have a firm belief in that”.

    On Friday, he received the Forum of Former Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, led by former Senate President Ken Nnamani, assuring them of his commitment to genuinely seeking Nigeria’s triumph over its current challenges. He declared “I didn’t come to look for money and exploit the situation; I came to work. I asked for the votes, and Nigerians gave them to me”. He also appealed to the stakeholders in Edo to ensure yesterday’s governorship election went as ordered by guiding rules.

    Though he did much more during last week, I will still ask that you continue to pay attention because he is yet to start unloading the new ideas and executing the new plans he lined out, hatched during his quiet time in the closet.

  • At last, Dangote petrol

    At last, Dangote petrol

    • A new dawn that Nigeria must celebrate, whatever happens

    Until yesterday, I was not quite upbeat about Dangote Refinery’s (DR) resumption of supply of petrol for local consumption in the country today, as promised about two weeks ago. Ours is not like other countries where the leader’s word is like that of an oracle – final.

    There are all manner of conflicting signals and interests — from reports about the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) and DR not agreeing on the ‘modus operandi’ of the sale of petrol produced by the refinery, to the allegation by the refinery that only about three per cent of the marketers are ready to purchase their product despite the fact that it is cheaper. They never told us the price, though.

    But in Nigeria, any or all of these should cause apprehension.

    It was therefore prayer answered when this newspaper reported on its front page yesterday that: “Dangote Refinery begins distribution of PMS tomorrow (today) –Edun’. Coming from Olawale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, made the report somewhat credible.

    Edun, who spoke through the Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, at  a news conference in Abuja, said that all agreements had been “completed and loading of the first batch of PMS from the Dangote Refinery will commence on Sunday, Sept. 15.”

    He added: “From October 1, NNPC Ltd. will commence the supply of about 385kbpd of crude oil to the Dangote Refinery, to be paid for in Naira. In return, the Dangote Refinery will supply PMS and diesel of equivalent value to the domestic market, to be paid in Naira.

    “Diesel will be sold in Naira by the Dangote Refinery to any interested off-taker. PMS will only be sold to NNPC, NNPC will then sell to various marketers for now,” he said.

    This, however, is my worry. I am sure millions of Nigerians must also be wary of this role assigned this company whose incompetence should qualify it for a space in the ‘Guinness World Records’. A company that tells you good morning when in actual fact it should be good night. A company that says it has sufficient stock of petrol to last for ages even when fuel queues have blocked all major roads in the country! NNPCL! Ha!

    How the company would be happy that a private concern succeeded in doing what it could not do in decades — ensure its refineries produce fuel for Nigerians, and then cooperate with that private concern — is yet to be seen. And, even if NNPCL must be involved, why under the same incompetent management? People who had spent billions of dollars turning around refineries that have refused to turn around? People who should ensure we refine petroleum products as a major crude producer but have found the job of importing the products more lucrative?

    I said it several times in the Muhammadu Buhari era that most of his cabinet ministers got the original of whatever spell they used on their principal that made him retain them and their incompetence until the very end when they all fumbled and wobbled out of government.

    If there is any such spell that Melee Kyari, the group managing director/chief executive officer of NNPCL and his team are using on the present government, I destroy it with Holy Ghost fire!

    For me, Kyari has outlived his usefulness in that capacity and ought to have left that seat as early as yesterday. The Bola Tinubu government should do Nigerians the noble service of asking Kyari and his team to go home and rest.

    Dangote said something about his refinery which should make those managing our oil industry to be ashamed of themselves. He said DR has the capacity to monitor trucks that load their products. For the over six decades that Nigeria has been into oil exploration, neither the NNPCL nor its precursor, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can boast such vital tool. We do not even have an idea of the amount of petrol we consume daily. Nothing other than corruption could have accounted for this. With such a tool, we would’ve had a fair estimate of our daily fuel consumption, thus triggering alarm when the figures rise beyond reasonable limits. We would then be able to check subsidy thieves and smuggling to neighbouring countries, a very weak reason that successive administrations had always blown out of proportion to raise fuel prices.

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    A friend of mine usually tells us that somebody who eats stockfish and does not pick his teeth would never pay his debt. Something must be wrong with our oil industry managers, as exemplified by Kyari and the others, who don’t feel ashamed in the midst of their peers at international oil fora, that they are importing refined petroleum products despite being a major crude producer. With men like these, who feel comfortable in such company, we cannot make progress in that vital sector.

    I congratulate Dangote for seeing this project through, in spite of very intimidating challenges from within and without. It was the late Bashorun M K.O. Abiola who said that publishing is sweet, but oil is sweeter, when he had an opportunity to join the league of the privileged Nigerians to seep from the oil wells. If Dangote had thought Dangote Sugar was sweet, he too would soon find out that petrol is sweeter!

    But it was not an easy task. And, as Femi Otedola recalled: “You have not just built a refinery; you have liberated us from the chains of economic dependence that have held this nation back for far too long. The days of bowing to foreign powers for our fuel needs are over, thanks to your vision and determination.” It takes guts to start a project like this and complete it.

    Indeed, DR has not only liberated us from the shackles of foreign powers, it has also broken the backbone of their local equivalents and or collaborators. Again, hear Otedola. “You have dealt a death blow to the so-called local cabals who have fattened themselves for years, feeding off our nation’s economic slavery. These cabals, who have grown rich by keeping Nigeria in a perpetual state of dependence, must now face the reality that their era of easy gains is coming to an end….. “

    The only sad part of this aspect of the story is that these subsidy thieves are all over the place flaunting their ill-gotten wealth. We had the record of how much each of them allegedly stole, yet we lack the political will to pursue their matter to a logical conclusion. Rather, it is innocent Nigerians that are now vomiting what they ate.

    But, the fact today is; love or hate

    Dangote, he holds the aces. He is the man of the moment. If Nigeria decides not to cooperate with him for whatever reason at this point, it would be like the case of the man who wears his cap on his navel because he is quarrelling with his head.

    This is why I am happy that President Tinubu was able to see through the

    labyrinth of high wire politics and intrigues to get us to the point where Edun announced that Nigerians would start getting petrol from DR from today. The depot owners, as Otedola rightly said, should hurry to sell them before they become scraps.

    It is for all these reasons that we should situate why many interest groups tried to stop DR from getting crude even when it was clear they had lost the battle as the refinery has already seen the light of day.

    It is unfortunate that it is the same cabals that made importation of fuel our lot that are the ones fighting the man who provided an alternative. If they had run our refineries well, Dangote wouldn’t have been this crucial in the equation.

    Indeed, left to many of those pretending to be fighting in the national interest (just because they know that the illegal honeymoon they have been having at the expense of ordinary Nigerians for decades was about to come to an inglorious and unceremonious end), they would have loved the stalemate that had made resolution of whatever grey areas in the agreement between DR and the government to linger. They do not care about Nigerians suffering on fuel queues while that lasted.

    Please nothing I have said should be misconstrued as saying Dangote is a saint. There is no saint anywhere. Dangote has been accused of

    oligopolistic tendencies. I won’t confirm or deny that. It is difficult for anyone like him to have come this far without having some favour here and there. The man, as at the last time I checked, has never been in government. Yet, he had enjoyed favour from presidents in the country, including those not from his geo-political zone. I don’t know any of those accusing him of oligopolistic tendencies who would not want to dominate their environment, especially in a country where that is possible. If there are no laws forbidding that, how do you now blame an investor of Dangote’s stature for oligopolistic tendencies?

    Politicians who we know that have stolen huge sums of public funds and their collaborators in public offices stash the money abroad and are the very ones accusing someone who established industries where hundreds of thousands of people are working, of unethical practices. Who among the two is more useful to the society?

    I know many Nigerians must have been disappointed that Dangote petrol is not coming cheap as anticipated. But, given the dynamics of the economy, it could not have come cheap. The value of the Naira is partly a reason. Mind you, crude oil would still be sold to Dangote and other local refineries at the prevailing foreign exchange rate, even if they are paying in Naira.

    Second, the local refineries have other bills to pick, which are also denominated in forex.

    So, where lies the excitement about Dangote petrol? Good question. If Dangote Refinery and other local refiners are able to meet our local petrol need, it means we would stop importation of the product, saving a whopping 35-40 per cent of the forex we would otherwise have spent importing the product. If we are able to make such saving and it still

    does not impact positively on our exchange rate and the economy at large, then, we would need deliverance from the cankerworm and caterpillars that are feasting on our collective patrimony from the pit of hell.

    This, for me, is the significance of Dangote petrol.

    So, we still have something to cheer despite things not turning out exactly the way we had anticipated. Ultimately, though, I expect the price of petrol to get better if the government handles the forex savings well.

    Nigeria must be the only crude producer where the government and the people would never be on the same page while the regime of fuel import lasted. When the government would be praying for increase in crude prices at the international market, Nigerians would be praying for low crude prices because they know they will pay less for fuel. Mercifully, that divided interest should end now that we seem set for local refining of petroleum products.

  • SNAPSONG   233

    SNAPSONG   233

    Ode to Friendship

    Good friendship is gooder than gold

         It  glows, never glitters,

    In its  battle  against

         The  demons of darkness

    Its givers never Brutus you

         When you turn your back

    Nor crave a cunning Cassius

         To viper  your virtue        

    They laugh when you laugh

         They mourn when you mourn

    They are happy fellow hues

         In Life’s  capacious rainbow

    Read Also: FG begins distribution, installation of CNG kits in Ogun

    Ever so often,      

         They are your kindest critics

    Who cut through your vanity

         With the cruel kindness of the surgical knife

    In times of dire need

         You can share one grain of rice

    And leave the dining table

          Contended and gratefully calm 

    Good friendship is  gooder than gold

         It bends and never breaks

    So malleable and glorious

         In life’s tempestuous fire

    SNAPSONG-233Download
  • NLC, Ajaero, media and Tinubu presidency

    NLC, Ajaero, media and Tinubu presidency

    If President Bola Tinubu had adjusted fuel price marginally, declined to float the naira or minimally depreciated it, pandered to powerful interests within and outside the ruling All Progressives Congress, and grovelled before one or two former presidents, he would have remained a darling of the media and leading opinion moulders, while the country went slam-bang downhill. But he would have been untrue to himself, and would probably have ended up a very dissatisfied man and president. Instead, as he is wont, he chose the more difficult option. The consequence is that he is having a running battle with the trade unions, is having a hard time reining in inflation and lowering the cost of living, and has attracted much derision from impatient and frustrated Nigerians uninterested in growth figures and balance of trade statistics that have not translated into anything meaningful for them.

    With perhaps the exception of one or two media outfits, the president is roundly condemned in the media, whether traditional, social, or online. In fact sections of the media show their detestation by remaining silent on the president’s achievements and successful policies, while focusing almost exclusively on the hardships his policies with higher gestation periods have engendered. The president and his administration are blamed for the inability of local governments and states to conceive, execute and operate subsidised public transport systems, as well as ensure adequate food production. Decades of misbegotten unitary governance begun under the military and perpetuated by elected governments have encouraged a shift of blames away from the lower rungs of government, the so-called federating units, to the centre. Uncritical thinking has also meant that the great and beneficial byproducts of the radical, if not revolutionary, policies have been totally ignored or downplayed.

    In just one exemplifying day last week, the traditional media, particularly the newspapers, completely and unapologetically skewed their headlines against the Tinubu administration. They are of course not under obligation to support or praise the administration, for they may also have been hard hit by the government’s policies, but they owe their readers objectivity. On the arrest of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president Joe Ajaero by the Department of State Service (DSS) last Monday, the newspapers screamed various revelatory headlines after he was released. One paper psychoanalysed the Service by emblazoning its front page with “DSS succumbs to pressure”. What if other considerations, including legal, prompted the release? Another screamed “Crackdown on NLC, SERAP sparks tension” in their report of the arrest of the NLC president at the airport on his way to the United Kingdom. Though the NLC reached a wage negotiation deal with the government in July and opted out of the August 1-10 protests, it has pleased the union to equate the ordeal of their president with the fate and fortunes of the NLC. Many newspapers unfortunately and hastily draw the same parallel.

    Read Also: Lagos orders demolition of structures on Gbagada wetland

    Yet another newspaper, in a headline rider, regurgitated the untested and unverified submission of Amnesty International which concluded that the Tinubu administration was “Setting new record of impunity”. The main headline itself was that “Ajaero arrested, released, CSOs condemn action”. When the newspaper reported that CSOs condemn what befell Mr Ajaero, the devil was of course in the detail. How many CSOs? Perhaps a handful, maybe two or three. Well, it is a headline, isn’t it? But it cleverly fits the overall agenda of the newspaper and its detestation of the administration’s policies. Such biases, other media establishments in the world have shown, appear permissible. Here, however, it may be necessary to consider just how tenuous Nigerian unity is, and how increasingly unstable the polity has become in the face of unremitting ethnic and religious rivalry and provocations. The government may bear the higher responsibility for stabilising and unifying the country, but media organisations also have a huge role to play, particularly in calibrating the tenor of their reports and headlines.

    Still on the same subject of Mr Ajaero’s arrest and release, one other newspaper growled “Ajaero released as outrage trails arrest”. There is nothing anyone can do to coax the NLC executive committee to separate the foibles of Mr Ajaero from the fate and future of the union. The union members and executive committee believe that the administration is persecuting Mr Ajaero. But regardless of the pains caused by the Tinubu administration’s policies, should the goal of objectivity not lead the media to a higher degree of discrimination in news reports and headline casting? Outrage is a strong word involving disgust and revulsion. Did the media find out exactly why Mr Ajaero was arrested? Did they, by their reports, other than the conclusions of the union, investigate whether the DSS and police were not acting within the remit of their founding laws in inviting Mr Ajaero for questioning? Or are the media convinced that the fleeing Andrew Wynne, the Briton connected to terrorism financing and who had rented a space in Labour House, told the true story about his work in Nigeria and relationship with the NLC president?

    A day before Mr Ajaero’s arrest and release, and writing on petrol price hike, another newspaper cast the headline “Nigerians at breaking point, NLC, Atiku warn”. Of course the headline, though attributed to politicians and unions, was inciting. It is one thing for politicians to give vent to their frustrations, indulging their excesses without a care in the world, but it is another thing for a newspaper to cast a searing and provocative headline that inferred its association and even agreement with the union’s and politicians’ sentiments. The question is, who measures the alluded breaking point? By just feeling the vibes or looking at the scowl on people’s faces in commuter buses and at bus stops? Do newspapers not owe the public and their readers the duty of deconstructing the government’s policies, and to present the pros and cons in such a manner that the reader would draw their own inferences without being prodded or incited?

    Whether it acknowledges it or not, the Tinubu administration has remained unpopular nearly everywhere. But its policies have, to many knowledgeable Nigerians, been largely appropriate in tackling decades of economic distortions stifling growth as well as correcting the fiscal, and to some extent monetary, excesses of the past two administrations. Not only is the fuel supply situation normalising, as marketers encouraged by a realistic pricing regime have begun to import fuel, local production is also gearing up, thus freeing funds for rapid development. The job of local, state and federal governments is to ensure subsidised and modernised public transport systems. If they do, they will lessen the impact of fuel price hikes on the populace. Indeed, already, petrol pricing has begun to impose lifestyle adjustments that curb wasteful use of funds and eliminate needless travels, while encouraging efficient deployment of private and public resources. Even the ballyhooed electricity tariff hikes are leading to more efficient use of energy in homes, companies and public institutions. The administration’s tough measures may have their downsides, but they also have their benefits, radically affecting the way Nigerians have lived wastefully for decades. The media has, however, turned a blind eye to some of these beneficial and revolutionary changes.

    The Tinubu administration may not have got many of its priorities right, especially in terms of cost-cutting and the shock absorbers needed to be emplaced before reengineering the country’s public finance. The administration may also have engaged in wasteful and haphazard distributions of palliatives in a desperate plan to assuage public disaffection. But its economic measures, ridiculed as Bretton Woods imposition, have been largely interventionist and effective. Nigeria’s public finance is being restructured for the future; it would be a shame if newspapers, which should know better, are co-opted into scuttling the brave effort. The financial reengineering of the country has imposed hardship and suffering, particularly on the poor and vulnerable, but it may be time for the Tinubu administration to begin rearranging the country federally in order to reduce the obsession with Abuja. States and local governments should feed their people, and the jobless and the underpaid who are crying about hunger must also find succour in their states and local governments instead of taking refuge in the disgraceful opportunism of protest merchants fixated on Abuja and unmindful of the consequences of their actions.

  • Protests and the threats from within

    Protests and the threats from within

    The seeds for today’s grave economic crisis were sown years ago, as analysed in this place last week. Having matured robustly and come to a head in the closing years of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the crisis is unlikely to be resolved quickly or without pains. But while the crisis remains, and even grows in intensity, public reactions through protests will become a desperate, cathartic tool to either lessen or deaden the pains. Unwilling to confront what was certain to be a virulent public reaction to the painful administration of long-term remedies, the past administration borrowed heavily to smother the crisis and kick the nuisance down the road for the next administration to handle. There is, however, no consensus that the Bola Tinubu administration adequately explained before the elections the grave economic threat the republic faced, nor has it satisfactorily broken the crisis down in ways Nigerians could grasp or endure. There is also no consensus that the sacrifices needed to weather the crisis have been equitably shared, nor have the panaceas themselves been unimpeachable.

    Despite the misgivings and apprehensions, nothing adequately explains or justifies the volume and virulence of protests that have inundated the country since the last elections. The protests have taken on a life of their own, and they seem increasingly less directed at extirpating the crisis than scuttling democracy. This is where abundant care is needed. Protests and their freedom corollaries are guaranteed by the constitution in many sections, particularly Sections 39 and 40; but they are also caveated by other sections and laws, particularly Section 45 of the constitution and the Public Order Act, 1979. Notwithstanding these freedoms and caveats, protests have become the casual weapon of civil society organisations and labour unions whose countercultural understanding of civil engagements is a marked departure from the past when strikes were specific and targeted. What should cause deep apprehension is that protests have today become an omnibus weapon in the hands of every internet guru adept at manipulating the social media. Literally speaking, as the Nigerian condition is demonstrating with the dangerous proliferation of irresponsible and often foreign-funded activists, anyone can conjure a cause out of the blue or, worse, furnish a war.

    Putting a lid on protests-induced centrifugal forces will almost certainly be complicated by a number of factors ranging from class, low literacy, religion, regional and ethnic biases, and gross misreading and misunderstanding of constitutional protections. Protests have, therefore, become badly distorted by these factors into extreme opposition tactics. It is no longer enough to have a great cause, say for instance a campaign for higher wages, the trend is to irrationally weaponise the cause and turn it into a tool for a far worse, but cleverly disguised, agenda. Most historical protests have either led to wars or worsened the plight of protesters, but ignorant of the past, unwilling to learn from experience, and sometimes determined to even cut their nose to spite their face, protesters bungle what should ordinarily be a great tool to advance the cause of democracy or better the living conditions of the people. Sudan, Somalia, Ukraine, Russia, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, France, among other countries, have too many unsavoury and bloody stories to tell. What was designed to be a tailored and forceful overthrow of elected government in Nigeria in January 1966 quickly snowballed, under heavy ethnic intrusions, into a civil war just months later. Given the intransigence of protesters, agitators, and critics, not to say their inflexible and opinionated discourses, it does not appear Nigerians have realised that there is no easy or controlled or healthy way to undermine or even overthrow an elected government outside of elections.

    Read Also: FG begins distribution, installation of CNG kits in Ogun

    It is now more urgent than ever that defending democracy is far safer than the naïve optimism that a forceful change would lead to desirable outcomes. Had democracy being defended in 1966, imagine how entrenched it would have been today, not to talk of avoiding the embarrassment of now having to campaign for a return to the parliamentary system of government. And what if democracy, despite all its imperfections and electoral maladies, had been defended in 1983? The facts speak for themselves. Sadly, protest organisers today adopt the extremist goal of advocating forceful change, bloodbath, and disintegration, among other ignoble objectives, instead of policy correction or amelioration. The social media makes sloganeering of protests sexy and macho, with many ethnic supremacists with a grudge masquerading under social and economic activism. Political rhetoric has become flagrant and incendiary, and a dismal, spectral pall now hangs over the country, encouraged by irresponsible labour unionism and hard-line activists. Only last week, after having exhausted itself over threats to call a strike on behalf of their beleaguered president, Joe Ajaero, organised labour was again threatening to shut down the country over illegal and malfeasant miners. Clearly, separatist forces are at work, far beyond protesting the Tinubu administration’s harsh measures designed to correct the country’s economic disequilibrium.

    So far, the government has not found a practical and fitting answer to the maddening campaigns and incitement on social media. However, Nigeria is not alone contending with the social media malady. But while the chaos on social media predisposes many countries to danger, in Nigeria, with its unresolved national question, that danger is more imminent and its consequences dire. It is either the country steps back from the brink or takes a fatal plunge from which recovery might be impossible. The political opposition have incomprehensibly disallowed a closure to the 2023 presidential poll, and are setting themselves and the country up for a crisis that may consume everybody. It is not only the government that must rule responsibly, the opposition must also oppose responsibly by eschewing inflammatory language of framing discourses as winner takes all. Protests must also be responsibly directed at pertinent and specific issues, in order not to become a political manifesto underpinned by beguiling slogans. The August protests, egged on by sensational traditional and online media, were nothing but a potpourri of political agenda otherwise capable of propelling a well-organised political party into office. Too many disgruntled people are clearly looking for quick fixes instead of the careful, patient and methodical orchestration needed to win office and effect course changes.

    If the government is to pacify the country, it must understand and clearly enunciate the problems. There is the issue of the economic crisis caused by years of governmental incompetence, infrastructural decay, stagnation, and profligacy. There is also the controversial mix of policies designed by the current administration to arrest social and economic chaos such as fuel subsidy removal, currency exchange float, and hunger crisis exacerbated by insecurity and low wages. And there is the deep political divisions approaching chasmic proportions. Convulsing these problems is social media either gone berserk or unresponsive to any form of regulation or control. The administration must get the best brains together to help fashion a response a little removed from the fits and starts it has seemed accustomed to injecting in the past few months. The end result must be that the constitutional rights of citizens will be preserved, while the multifarious threats to the country will be extinguished, irrespective of whose ox is gored. The solutions will not be a cakewalk, especially in the face of mounting and provocative defiance by powerful interests now used to acting freely and irresponsibly.

  • The NANS ultimatum

    The NANS ultimatum

    Like many things about Nigeria, there is no unanimity on anything anymore, except perhaps among labour union activists who all seem to lie in bed surrealistically facing the same direction. Just last Tuesday, a faction of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) issued an ultimatum to the federal government to reverse fuel price increase or face street protest on September 15. The ultimatum was almost immediately countermanded by another faction of NANS headed by Lucky Emonofe which decried its issuance, insisted it did not come from NANS, and suggested to the federal government to investigate its origin. 

    The Emonofe-led NANS went as far as hinting that a Southwest governor was sponsoring the other NANS faction to undermine the federal government. The students said: “We have uncovered that a part of this funding is being allocated for a program in Abeokuta, furthering this individual’s anti-government agenda. It is alarming that a state government would go to such lengths, utilising its resources to support and sponsor activities aimed at destabilising the Federal Government, particularly when this faceless agitator is benefiting from the very administration he seeks to undermine. NANS firmly believes that such actions are not only irresponsible but also dangerous.”

    Read Also: Student loan: NANS wants stipend raised to N40,000

    There will always be agitation, and, alas, the current administration has provided ample reasons for genuinely aggrieved and mercenary groups to organise protests and threaten mass action. Protest is sanctioned by the constitution, but the cavalier manner threats are being issued by sundry groups in the country, instead of protests specifically targeted at unwelcome policies and measures, indicates how deeply divided the country became after the last presidential election, how the embers of that election still burn, and how too many powerful interests appear determined and desperate to bring matters to a head regardless of the implications for national stability. That a faction of NANS seems willing to be bought is perhaps a reflection of how far the country is fraying at the edges.

  • Oshiomhole, Mrs Obaseki and Edo poll

    Oshiomhole, Mrs Obaseki and Edo poll

    Edo will be voting a new governor next Saturday, September 21, 2024. It will be tough, fierce and bad-tempered. While on one side the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) state chairman, Odion Olaye, was threatening that the state would burn if the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate was not declared winner, former governor Adams Oshiomhole and first lady Betsy Obaseki were on the other side busy crossing swords on campaign rostrums with ill-natured language about marriage and family. It is now indisputably clear that the Labour Congress harbours many bad-tempered officials at the state and national levels, men and women who believe Nigeria owes them a living, and that without them and their personal wishes, the country should be erased. The subject of interest today, however, is the churlish exchange between Senator Oshiomhole and Mrs Obaseki, an exchange that has drawn much flak and caused disquiet in many quarters, perhaps in excess of the real significance of the words bandied by the two feisty Edolites.

    Mrs Obaseki drew the first blood when she hit hard at the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Monday Okpebholo, whom he derided for not being able to keep a wife. It was a personal shot at the candidate’s family life that in the estimation of many people went beyond politics. According to Mrs Obaseki: “Let us vote for the best candidate in this coming election; and I want to introduce the wife (of the PDP candidate). Incidentally, among all the candidates, only one has a wife, and it’s our own party’s candidate, Asue Ighodalo. Only he has a wife…Edo women know that only one candidate has a wife. Better things come to women when there’s a woman in the Government House…” It was a merciless barb shot at both the APC and Labour Party (LP) candidates. More, there is absolutely no correlation between having a wife at Government House and good things happening to women. But Mrs Obaseki dived into that terrain anyway and hoped to both score a point and get away with her indecorousness.

    The LP candidate, Olumide Akpata, simply ignored the first lady’s fulminations, or perhaps was not even aware until much later that anyone impugned the candidates’ marital rectitude. Sen. Oshiomhole was, however, not one to suffer fools gladly. On learning about Mrs Obaseki’s family jibe, he thundered: “I was shocked yesterday to see Mrs Obaseki, the first lady, saying our candidate has no wife. I’m sorry she had to say that because here is a woman who has no child. Between her and Obaseki, they are childless. They are not even ready to adopt. I don’t blame anybody who doesn’t have a child, but people who have love for children go to a motherless home and adopt. They have not adopted. They are both in their sixties. Our candidate not only has children; he has invested in the education of those children. The first one that spoke is a lawyer, the second one is a medical doctor, and they addressed the crowd in Edo South, Edo Central, and Edo North; and their mother was there.” It was a big punch aimed at Mrs Obaseki’s solar plexus. It was vintage Oshiomhole.

    Cut to the quick, the now subdued first lady blurted out defensively, aiming to curry the women vote: “My words of comfort to you, like myself, who have conceived and experienced miscarriages, painful stillbirths and evacuations of babies who died in our wombs and, as a result, have no children to show for the pain we have endured, is that you are not barren. I dare to call you fruitful. You and I are potential and proud mothers of children that will come in God’s time. Enjoy the life God has given you. Take your mind off your challenge, and before you know it, children will start coming. Being fruitful is not limited to childbearing. It is about impacting lives and creating positive change in society…” Mrs Obaseki completely forgot that she started the muckraking. Few Nigerians know or care about who has a wife or doesn’t, or who has children or don’t. It was, therefore, pointless making both issues campaign matters. One had children but no wife at home, another had husband but no children. Who cares? What have those things got to do with the qualification or competence of the candidates, as expansively as Mrs Obaseki might want to insinuate them into the race?

    Read Also: Uneme communities to honour Niger Delta Minister, Anglican Bishop, Oshiomhole, others

    Sen. Oshiomhole sometimes talks nineteen to the dozen, and his political career is dogged by many verbal indiscretions; but no one doubts his charisma and elocution, despite the heavy accent, nor his political sagacity which is sometimes vitiated by his characteristic impetuousness. Mrs Obaseki, on the other hand, also has a strong personality that is enervated by her obtrusiveness, a previously hidden nature exposed by the Edo governorship campaigns. She has a habit of making unguarded statements, is willing and even eager to deploy religious sentiments with Machiavellian conviction, and has repeatedly demonstrated just how perfectly she matches her husband, Governor Godwin Obaseki’s capacity for realpolitik. The irony in all this is how alarmingly Sen. Oshiomhole and the Obasekis are overshadowing the candidates in the September 21 poll.

    Though in his campaigns Candidate Asue Ighodalo exhibits tendency for dictatorship, perhaps more viciously tyrannical than Mr Obaseki, and Candidate Okpebholo displays the instincts of a steady hand, neither their flaws nor their strengths appear to matter as much in the campaigns as the domineering rhetoric and antics of party bigwigs whose names are not even on the ballot.

  • Gyrations in the education sector

    Gyrations in the education sector

    I have an uncle, a grizzled veteran of countless political battles, albeit at the local  level here in Ilésà. You are not likely therefore to have heard of him so you only have my word that the man is a verified legend on several fronts. Well into his eighties, he is still as feisty as ever and a good man to have beside you in a fight. The most significant thing about him is an abiding hope in a future which for quite a lot of people, is going dimmer almost by the minute. My uncle is the first to admit his lack of education having managed not to have spent a minute in any school as a scholar. In spite of this or perhaps because of it, his passion for education is boundless and to prove this assertion, he is currently the chairman of one primary and two secondary schools in Ilésà even though he has no children of his own in any of those schools. But there is a great deal more to him than politics and education. He is a raconteur par excellence and his store of Yoruba proverbs is, at least in my naturally jaundiced opinion, unmatchable.

    Many times, more times than I care to count, my uncle has, in my presence sent a heart felt invocation to God to protect him from the wrath of government. This is because in his opinion, only God himself is in a position to exercise power for any purpose than government, any government. This is why he is desirous of being in the good books of government and why he has spent nearly seventy years working assiduously in his own little way towards the installation of God fearing governments all over the country. He freely admits to a raft of failures in this respect but according to him, if you fall off a horse, the only choice you have is to remount the beast again and quickly too. So, he continues pushing his own political agenda in the hope that something good will happen in his lifetime.

    My uncle s passions are politics and education and have been inextricably linked in his mind since the days of the Action Group free education programme in the Western Region. He is a progressive personified and a rebuke to real life politicians who do not have a great deal, if anything, on a chameleon in the matter of changing their camouflage with every change in the direction of strength of the wind. It was therefore easy for me to use him as an anchor for this article on education, especially the lack of structure for meaningful education at all levels in Nigeria.

    My first submission here is that various governments over the last fifty years and more have wilfully abdicated their responsibilities in this critical sector of human endeavour. I doubt that there are many people better qualified to discuss this subject than I am. In the first instance, both my parents were teachers, my father being the headmaster of the largest primary school in Owo when I was born and my mother being the headmistress of the largest primary school in Lagos at the height of her teaching career. As for me, I spent forty-seven committed years as a university lecturer, thirty-one of them as professor and gathered a whole lot of experience in the process. In other words, not only was I born with the silver spoon of education in my lips, I turned it to platinum over the long period of my involvement in teaching other people’s children for little reward save the satisfaction I got from having the opportunity of expressing myself maximally over a very long period of time.

    The situation we have pushed ourselves into in terms of education in this country is dire but the people in charge of it at every level are not aware of the rot in the system which they claim to manage. I was moved to write this article as something of a response to the Honourable Minister of Education who has announced ex cathedral that as from now on no student who is yet to attain the grand age of eighteen would be allowed to darken the doors of any tertiary institution in the guise of a student. This is after those candidates have gone through the rigours of sitting for JAMB and the O level examinations and passing them well enough to secure admission on merit to one tertiary institution or the other. According to my uncle, government is all powerful and being so, cannot be challenged. Even so, government is not blessed with a sense of humour and should we out of unearned reverence for government refuse to challenge at least some of the excesses of that amorphous body will only be the sufferer when government policies attack  where we live.

    We have been told that there is an extent law which prevents persons under the age of eighteen from registering for courses in Nigerian universities and other tertiary institution I presume. That is quite well said but, it only begs the question as to why over the years that law has been de-fanged and made impotent but then we do not know the size of the breach because no figures were provided to allow us to comprehend the extent of the problem we are facing or even if indeed if we have a real problem on our hands. It is not as if relevant figures can not be provided to give us an idea of the character of the beast we are confronting. It is just that the almighty government represented on this occasion by the minister of education cannot be bothered to offer any explanation for engineering a policy which has a lot of people on the hop. After all, we are all so much in awe of government that we dare not look her in the face for fear of attracting her wrath.

    It is not that figures for supporting the minister in this instance are not available. They are and in profusion too. But in this country, we have such disdain for figures that we, in the first instance can not be bothered to gather them with any degree of seriousness and when we make any attempt to gather any set of figures, the whole exercise descends into farce very quickly which is why we have never been able to provide any honest figure for the number of mouths which we need to feed. Depending on where you look, current population figures for Nigeria varies from 200 to 230 million and any self respecting statistician will throw up their hands in horror as to how to deal with the discrepancy revealed by the side variation we have here. Talking about human statisticians, do we have enough of them to cope with the large volume of data we need to generate and analyse? I know that there has been a department dedicated to human statistics for more than fifty years at OAU but in a country with phobia for figures many of those admitted to that department are those who have been shunted into it from other departments offering more glamorous courses.

    In the matter under consideration, nobody can claim that relevant figures are not available. JAMB has been conducting entrance examinations, at least into all universities since 1978 and must, over that period have generated an awful volume of crushable figures from which a great deal of useful information can be extracted. But, we don’t have to go back that far to get information either to support or to castigate the minister over his abrupt realisation that there is a problem with underage students in our universities. It should be easy to find out how many students under sixteen took the last entrance examinations and how many of them passed well enough to be admitted.

    What we know from JAMB sources is that 1,842,464 candidates who sat for the examination, only 24% scored 200 marks and above and should be adjudged to have passed the examination

    Now, over to the universities which by law were to admit the students.  Someone had kindly sent me a video clip of the meeting at which the pass mark for universities were set this year. As a professor, albeit retired myself, I was shocked and embarrassed when people who sported the tittle of professor got up, identified themselves as professors and proposed that those who scored 140 (35%) be admitted to Nigerian universities. By any standard, at least by the standard that I operated with in my days at the university, a score of 35% was not even a suitable grade. Indeed what I was used to as a pharmacy lecturer was a pass mark of 50%. Now, to score such as low a mark as 35%, people have suddenly been invested with a badge of honour, to be celebrated with fan fare and loud drums. Our university system has now been degraded to such an extent that morons certified by JAMB are now qualified for admission into Nigerian universities!

    As far as I know, the honourable minister has not been moved to make a comment in respect of the abysmally low expectations that have been placed on potential undergraduates in Nigerian universities under his watch. Instead, he is excited by the desire to close the doors of his devalued paradise to those who have not yet attained the magical age of eighteen even though they passed the examination with a mark above the reasonable pass mark of 200 and well above. Indeed has there been any attempt to find out how many of those in this category are aged eighteen and below? The law of natural justice dictates that a sixteen year old who scored 240 marks is so much more qualified than a twenty six year old who could only muster 140 marks. That to me is simple common sense and I doubt that this situation has been looked out through this prism. But it is not too late to bring out this prism before an injustice has been perpetrated on an entire generation of potential students.

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    Now, there many who have come out in support of the honourable minister who himself has pointed out that British, American and other developed countries do not allow children under eighteen to be admitted into their universities. That is all well and good. But in those countries everyone is made aware virtually from birth that they are only qualified to enter university when they turn eighteen just as they know that they cannot obtain a driving licence, vote in elections or be served alcohol in a public establishment until they are qualified by age. And that age is not left to the whims and caprices of any individual. In those countries mentioned by the minister, births and deaths are carefully recorded and proof of any claim must be provided at designated places in order to get any service. I knew when my first child was born that he would need to provide a birth certificate at certain stages of his career. As soon as he was born I went up to the nurse in the ward to ask about how to get the young man registered. The nurse gave me a bemused look before telling me that her duty was to assist in his birth and nothing more. For registration I had to go to the Local Government Area headquarters. I then asked where within the hospital I could be given as evidence to be presented to the local government authorities as confirmation that a child had been born on a particular date.  The nurse gave me a second look more withering than the first before telling me that the hospital had no business whatsoever in the process of birth registration. With these rebukes ringing in my ears, I went to the LGA office not really believing that all that I needed was a word of mouth that a child had been born on a particular day. My fears were allayed when I informed the lady on seat that I wanted to register a birth.  Her response was immediate.

    ‘How many children do you want to register? I shook my head ruefully as I handed her the sum of 50 kobo to complete the transaction. I could have registered any number of children that I wanted to register. That is how lax our registration regulations are. And you can also claim any date of birth by simply getting anyone prepared to perjure themselves by claiming that someone have been born on any particular date. I wonder how many such affidavits have been signed in the last few days.

    The honourable minister has since rescinded his order concerning under aged undergraduates but this by no means invalidates the thrust of this article which points out other flaws in our educational system.

    • To be continued.