The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Dear Governor Aiyedatiwa

    Dear Governor Aiyedatiwa

    I write to congratulate you on your inauguration as the seventh Governor of Ondo State, my home state. I would have sent this letter to you privately or even come to your office to congratulate you, but I could not  do so now for two reasons. First, I am currently out of the country. But, secondly, and more importantly, I wanted the public to know that I have accepted you as my Governor, despite my public opposition to your election. It may interest you to know that, in the same vein, I did not support your predecessor, late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu (may his soul rest in peace) during his first election in 2016 but rallied around him once he was inaugurated as Governor. I even successfully mediated between him and then Osun Governor Rauf Aregbesola over the scuffle between his SSG, Ifedayo Abegunde, and Osun’s Commissioner for Regional Integration, Bola Ilori. I also went on to support Akeredolu’s re-election in 2020.

    I look forward to discussing matters affecting our state and, particularly, Idanre Local Government, my beloved cradle. Ondo State, even as part of the Old Western Region, was the bastion of democracy and home of progressivism. It was the home base of numerous associates of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, including Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Gabriel Akin-Deko, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Chief Adebayo Adefarati, and Chief Wumi Adegbonmire.

    Each of them left a significant mark on the development of the state. Chief Ajasin, for example, built the Secretariat, which continues to be the seat of the Ondo State government till today. In the current democratic dispensation, Chief Adefarati took off where Chief Ajasin stopped and saw to the establishment of the Ondo State University in its present location, after splitting with Ekiti State University.  His successor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, notably established the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, named after him by your boss, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN. Agagu’s successor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, built the iconic Dome, initiated the concept of Mega Schools and built many of them across the state. Above all, he established the first University of Medical Sciences in the country.

    Akeredolu, who succeeded Mimiko, developed the expansive structures opposite the Dome, housing the Ondo State Internal Revenue Service, the IT Hub, and other facilities. He also expanded teaching hospitals and facilities for UNIMED, and constructed a network of roads throughout the state, including two iconic flyovers at two major intersections in Ore and Akure.

    Every Governor since 1999 invested heavily in infrastructure in major sectors, notably in education, healthcare, transport, agriculture, and trade. It is hoped that you, too, will put your own stamp on the development of the state. Indeed, the task before you is enormous, given the current financial and security situations in the state. The good news for your administration is that state allocations have increased, and I trust you are making effort to also increase the state’s Internally Generated Revenue. State residents are anxiously looking forward to the dividends of democracy from increased revenue inflow.

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    But it is to Idanre I now turn for the rest of this letter, because of an urgent task before your administration.

    Your Excellency will recall that our beloved monarch, Oba Frederick Aroloye, Arubiefin IV, the Owa of Idanre Kingdom, joined his ancestors nearly seven months ago, precisely on July 30, 2024 (see my tribute, Kabiyesi, Oba Frederick Adegunle Aroloye, Arubiefin IV, 1926-2024, The Nation, August 7, 2024). As indicated in my tribute, Idanre people are anxious for government action in order to avoid the seven-year delay and confusion that attended the installation of his immediate predecessor. Already, Idanre people are suffering from the disruption of traffic, following the relocation of major markets in the town as a result of the traditional mandatory change until a new monarch is installed.

    The delay and disruption so far are understandable in view of the three-month window provided in the Declaration and the reorganisation of the Local Government, including an election. It is now hoped that there will be no further delay since the election had already taken place, followed by your inauguration.

    Fortunately, the procedure for the selection of the Owa of Idanre had previously been approved by the Ondo State Government, following its review of the Morgan Commission’s recommendations. For example, the Ondo State Government approved, as a general rule, that “the concept of ‘Omo Orite’, ‘Aremo’, and ‘Abidagba’ should be abolished wherever it was being practiced”.

    With particular reference to the Owa of Idanre Chieftaincy Declaration, it is important to emphasise that the Ondo State Government recognises in the Declaration (a) that Idanre has only one ruling house, that of Agbogun; (b) that Idanre has only 12 Kingmakers (titles provided); and (c) that “all male ‘direct’ descendants of the past Owa of Idanre” are qualified to be proposed as candidates (see page 65 for details).

    Another major task for which the people of Idanre would be very grateful is the dualisation of the Akure-Idanre Road. This was discussed with Governor Akeredolu but he put his preference on a new link road between Akure and Idanre through Ijoka, for which the community remains grateful. However, the major artery to Idanre from Akure remains the one between Oke-Aro through Alade and Atosin. Your immediate attention to this road will be highly appreciated, especially given the tonnage of cocoa, timber, and foodstuff hauled through the road.

    Here’s wishing you a successful tenure.

    Professor Niyi Akinnaso, MFR.

  • Annul N17-20B Presidential Library!

    Annul N17-20B Presidential Library!

    Give N1m each to 20,000 secondary school libraries. 

    Humphrey Nwosu, who died in October 2024 at 83, chairman of National Electoral Commission [1989-1993] was a chief victim in the greed driven horror and tragedy which still surrounds the ‘freest and fairest’ election. Humphrey Nwosu is finally vindicated. Then, a generation of hope-driven Nigerians were force-fed a new military government term ‘annulment’ of the 1993 election. That devilish act created an aftermath stained with the blood of falsely accused and convicted innocent patriotic Nigerians and which witnessed wrongful imprisonment in terrible conditions, fear, ‘Japa Babangida’ and the terror causing  ‘Japa Abacha’. The murder spree under Babangida accelerated under Abacha.

    In order to survive, many fled facing mental and monetary problems, destabilised families and businesses and communities with destroyed historical roots. Entire families for years never saw any relations, losing the essential ingredient of African society- the extended family. The consequent changes in life were catastrophic and created unhealable wounds to date. Yes, some wounds heal as evidenced by many who suffered greatly now becoming rather strange comical laughing bedfellows at this autobiography launch.

    However, if you died in 1993 or later, as thousands did, from the now known to be a criminal and illegal annulment, you are dead and your family has been in chronic mourning. You were not invited to the autobiography presentation. We cannot open the graves, marked and unmarked, of you and thousands of other tortured victims of the democracy struggle to apologise on behalf of the unapologetic perpetrators even as an unbelievable N17 billion was raised for a Presidential Library Complex for the man who failed to deliver his self-appointed, coup-generated, responsibility to release the peaceful election results and install his legitimately elected successor, Chief MKO Abiola -THE WINNER OF THE 1993 ELECTION.

    At last, we can shout that without arrest or editors warning us to say ‘PRESUMED WINNER’ fearing of litigation or military backlash. Yes, Buhari reinstated his legacy. Thanks! We remember the collapse of Abiola’s huge business empire and can only imagine the real suffering of his family. The human and economic cost went beyond the Abiola dynasty. The human and economic losses are incalculable particularly in the Southwest during five months of self-inflicted ‘solidarity’ strikes. Like many, I took to daily walking 43 minutes to a strike-driven reduced workload. 

    In Ibadan, we got together, meeting secretly, not parking in front of my house, the meeting point, and for six weeks discussed what could be recommended to others to be done across particularly agriculture and education to alleviate the sledgehammer that was the sectional despotic retrogressive military government as the military plummeted from democracy deliverer ‘hero’ to ‘zero’ countrywide.

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    Following that dialogue, we made some impact and I started Educare Trust in 1994 which with the help of many members and partners created the Educare Trust Exhibition Centre in 1998 in Ibadan. The ETEC has been a springboard impacting millions of youths with social skills, moral and civic volunteer values, health empowerment, school and reading books [mini-libraries], footballs and sports equipment, computer literacy and co-curricular activities etc. All these to fill the gap left by a military and even political leadership which neglected the complete education of Nigeria’s youth. That criminal neglect while the rich got richer, in spite of the efforts of Educare Trust and others, has led directly to most schools falling into decay without even a grant to buy books for the empty or non-existent library, footballs, sports equipment etc.

    Note that the one seeking a Presidential Library in his ‘honour’ or ‘dishonour’ was not elected president in a country which, because of his generation of failed leadership, has a huge educational elephant in the autobiography launch room.  That elephant is the 18,000,000 out-of-school-children, Nigerian’s unable to go to mostly inadequate schools.

    School is compulsory, by the way.  It is very likely that seeing the almost N17b raised on the day, latecomer sycophants or previous beneficiaries will still climb on the bandwagon with in their ‘settlement might’ raising the figure to N20,000,000. Applied to the school library system, that is N1,111 for every ‘Out-Of-School-Child’. It is N322,000 for each of the 62,000 government primary schools  in Nigeria or N849,256 for each of the 23,550 secondary schools.

    Many years ago, as the education system lay in ruins, there was an announcement to set up a Heritage University  following a Heritage Secondary School by the recipient of this N17b-?N20b Presidential Library Project Fund. Then I wrote without success that it would have been better restitution for him to award every secondary and primary school in Nigeria just $1,000. This was presumptive on the ‘discovery’ of the location of the ‘disappeared’ $12,500,000,000 First Gulf War windfall referred to by the then expelled Financial Times correspondent.

    Once again, the former leader in the midst of lame autobiographical explanations for ‘failure to act’, and even facing accusations from descendants of Abacha, is at a huge moral financial crossroads- to serve ‘MYSELF OR THE MANY’- the Nigerian children with library upgrades in 23,550 secondary schools or 62,000 primary schools or N500,000  to 40,000 schools or N1,000,000 to 20,000 schools.

    He risks being the only visitor/reader in his GIANT PROPOSED PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY.

    We, the people, will annul this project to help pay Nigeria’s moral national debt to the dead, the deprived and the 18,000,000 out-of-school-children.

    Mr Ex-President: Annul this presidential library.

  • Nigeria’s presidency: Winning without the ‘North’

    Nigeria’s presidency: Winning without the ‘North’

    Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El- Rufai, has been in the headlines lately no thanks to his rampaging posts on X. In one of the latest, he warned President Bola Tinubu risked receiving the same treatment meted to former President Goodluck Jonathan by the North when he sought a second term.

    He declared that less than two years into Tinubu’s tenure, his relationship with the zone had deteriorated badly – something he mournfully intoned was the recipe for electoral disaster. He reminded the uninformed that his region has always been the kingmaker in Nigerian politics.

    The ex-governor would have us believe he spoke altruistically out of love for his All Progressives Congress (APC) and not as one emitting bile after losing out in the sharing of political spoils. We choose to believe that this is the case.

    The storm ignited by his words had barely died down when former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, who no one can accuse of being charitable towards the current administration jumped on bandwagon. He echoed El-Rufai’s threat that unless Tinubu appeased the North he was in danger of receiving an electoral shellacking in 2027.

    Lawal argues that the president’s policies were impoverishing the region. This would suggest that the North was something of an Eldorado as of May 2023 which has now been despoiled by Tinubu’s reforms. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The region has had a longstanding problem with multifaceted poverty; a challenge which the regional elite have failed to do anything about in six decades.

    Long before El-Rufai and Lawal began weeping in their kunu, a group called the League of Northern Democrats led by former Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, had emerged early in the life of the current administration with a clear agenda of hostility towards the administration.

    Of all the regions in the country, the North is one that Tinubu has pandered to whether regarding appointments or in the quantum of resources devoted to fighting insecurity. Yet, the shrillest cries of discomfort continue to resound from the quarters of sections of the elite. So, it’s hard to say whether it’s truly a case of a people hard done by protesting justifiably, or one of those used to exercising power suffering withdrawal symptoms. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

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    From the little that’s been said already the threat of withdrawal of Northern support will hang over Tinubu like the Sword of Damocles as we head towards 2027. The sense that whatever that region decides determines what plays out nationally would also be tested.

    Unfortunately, the notion of Northern unity in political action is more myth than reality. Perhaps there was a time in the First Republic when this was so. But we’ve seen through the past few decades that no region in Nigeria ever goes 100% in one direction electorally – with very few exceptions.

    Yes, the North has played kingmaker in very unique circumstances, but those are not everyday scenarios – especially given existing ethnic and religious cleavages across the region. That is why in reality there’s a far North politically and a Middle Belt who don’t always see eye to eye on issues.

    We don’t need to travel far to see that the region hardly ever acts with one voice. At the 2023 polls, certain interests misled the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into believing that it was only a Northerner who could win, and that there was nothing wrong with Atiku Abubakar succeeding his kinsman who would be rounding off eight years in power. They miscalculated and lost badly despite running a campaign that openly appealed to ethnic sentiments.

    The Northerners in PDP were clearly not on the same page as those in APC who came to back power shift to the South in the national interest. In any event, the majority of the region’s votes went to Atiku but that didn’t make him president.

    Rather than painting a false picture of regional exceptionalism, the likes of El-Rufai need to realise that Fourth Republic election outcomes have confirmed that you can win the presidency without necessarily winning in the far North. Celebrating the 2015 poll results as though it was based solely on what APC and Buhari pulled off up North is also disingenuous.

    Buhari received massive Northern votes as he had always done but what made the difference when he was elected was that he won in the Southwest. Without that it would be a repeat of his usual frustration of being shown up as regional champion. The drafters of our constitution ensured that no such persons would ever sit in the office of president.

    I recently saw a graphic of Nigeria’s 2011 presidential election results showing a country slashed almost equally in two halves. All the states above what is generally referred to as the Middle Belt or North Central zone were won by Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), while the then ruling PDP took the entire South – with the exception of Osun State which was won by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    Further back, the result of the 1999 polls was a clear nod to the nationwide strength of the PDP under whose umbrella the cream of the national political elite had congregated. The upshot was a performance that was robust across the zones.

    Four years later, there was a clear impact on the results after four years of Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. PDP would shed significant votes in the far North with the entrance of Buhari as candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) which had its strength largely across the North but was quite feeble down South.

    The results of the 2007 poll largely mirrored those of 1999 because PDP and its key rivals presented Northern candidates. The ruling party had Umaru Yar’Adua, ANPP Buhari and Atiku Abubakar who had been exiled from the ruling party fronting ACN’s challenge. In this race the role of the North as kingmaker was a non-issue.

    A similar scenario would have played out four years later had Yar’Adua not died unexpectedly.

    His demise thrust the country’s fragile power sharing arrangements back into the front burner. The ruling party was torn between denying a sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan, the party’s ticket and managing the unprecedented situation caused by Yar’Adua’s death. Wouldn’t it be fair to let another Northerner step in to complete what should ordinarily be the zone’s clear run at finishing two terms?

    The agonising would play out within PDP as the major Northern presidential aspirants Aliyu Gusau, Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and Bukola Saraki, formed a common front to challenge Jonathan. They even had shadow elections that threw up the former VP. In the end this regional challenge on behalf of the supposedly invincible kingmaking zone collapsed spectacularly at the party’s Eagle Square Abuja convention, with Atiku making a bitter speech full of name-calling that acknowledged his imminent failure.

    At the general election where Buhari reprised another of his strong performances across the far North, producing an electoral map that virtually split the country into two halves. In spite of being spurned by the far North, PDP managed to hold on to its key strongholds in the Middle Belt and by so doing retained power. Despite leading in the majority of the states in his region Buhari still fell short – making nonsense of the myth that the North is the be-all factor in Nigeria’s politics.

    The theory that El-Rufai has tried to sell might have been valid in earlier republics. What was once a monolith has greatly fragmented with the Middle Belt increasingly carving out a unique identity with its electoral behaviour in recent cycles. A close look at the results of the 2023 polls is quite revealing.

    Before the election, not many gave Labour Party’s (LP), Peter Obi, much of a chance up North. But he ran a cunning campaign with focus on religious sentiments in the minority areas of the region. It resonated in the face of fierce resentment generated by the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC.  The upshot was the unheralded party making inroads in South Kaduna and winning in Nasarawa.

    Tinubu didn’t win the North, but where he fell short he came a respectable second to meet the 25% constitutional requirements. All he needed was run up the votes elsewhere and emerge with the highest votes.

    So, rather than engaging in political blackmail in the name of their region, politicians need to scrutinise election results to see how the likes of Obasanjo and Jonathan managed to win, without winning the ‘North.’  It’s a pathway to power that remains valid even in today’s very polarised Nigeria.

  • NOA; Bode Emanuel & Berkhout

    NOA; Bode Emanuel & Berkhout

    National Orientation Agency, NAO, strikes positively again with an accurate cartoon illustrating the deadly dangers of scooping fuel from fallen petrol tankers which could explode at any time burning and killing all those around them. Nigeria has lost to explosions, burns and injury and death, many thousands directly from tanker accidents and fuel scooping. The NOA cartoon was shown on TV and hopefully it was free to air as part of the media’s responsibility to educate the masses on this and many other masses’ life skills like ‘WEARING LIFE JACKETS’.

    NOA published its programmes in states in the newspaper-hopefully for free? NOA can also put the messages in cartoon STORY TELLING form on NOA posters and recruit corporate sponsors for funding. ’A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS AND SAVES A THOUSAND LIVES!’ Posters in every market and classroom.   

    We have lost too many Nigerians to violence over the last 20 years. Violence and health problems have truncated so many lives that Nigeria’s life expectancy has hovered in the late 50’s for decades. To gauge what Nigeria loses by such deaths, it is worth measuring such tragic losses against those who managed to survive all struggles and pass on at a ripe old age.

    I have personal knowledge of two ninth decade citizens who have recently passed from this life. First Chief Olabode Emanuel, 1935-2025, spelt with one ‘m’ not ‘mm’ has been described as an Admiral of industry, a Titan, an Iroko, a Trojan, ‘A White Charger’, a quiet but masterful businessman, an accountant par excellence, an astute guru, exemplary philanthropist, a benefactor to multiple charitable and Catholic Church Organisations and institutions et cetera.

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    A distinguished and proud descendant of returned Brazilian freed slaves who settled in Lagos in the mid-1800s, he held a high leadership post in the Catholic Friendly Society 3619.   Of note is that he was a very proud and practical Gregorian playing a keen leadership role in the survival and recovery of St Gregory’s College, Ikoyi Lagos, and in helping to elevate it to its current state. He played leading roles in social Clubs like Ikoyi Club, Island Club, Motor Boat Club, and Yoruba Tennis Club. The above is just a rough sketch of the life and times of Uncle Bode who led a very full life. He has certainly gone to a well-deserved rest. May he RIPP. Amen

    The second role model is Chief Joop Berkhout, 1930-2025 who was an outstanding personality who had more faith in Nigeria than most Nigerians. Of Dutch origins, he has for many years, since 1966 when he came to Nigeria as founding managing director of Evans Brothers Publishers, been  described as a Dutch-Nigerian and freelance Permanent Dutch roving Ambassador to Ibadan specifically and Nigeria in general.  He was a publishing doyen and publishing house builder starting Spectrum Books and later Safari Books where he elevated publishing to new heights in Ibadan at the University of Ibadan and around the country.

    He was an astute long-term functionary of the Ibadan Dining Club, established by Chief Simeon Adebo and a host of great historical names; he serving as long term secretary. He was an astute businessman and also a keen educationist as demonstrated in his achievement of an elevation in the quality and direction of publishing through his wide range of publications including novels, textbooks, journals, periodicals and later specialising in biographical and autobiographical works of many leading Nigerians and others.

    Berkhout was a promoter of youth activities through his association with NGOs including a 30-year relationship with Educare Trust as a distinguished member, regularly attending functions and channelling books to needy youth, a great entertainer opening his home to many local and international guests sharing incisive ideas and actions while relaxing and a firm believer in Nigerians and Project Nigeria even during the frequent bleak times. He cherished being honoured for his publishing achievements with his chieftaincy title from The Source, The Ooni of Ife, and wore the title with great pride. He had many close friends in Ibadan and across Nigeria notably Emeritus Prof Ayo Banjo who preceded him to glory. Another great Iroko has fallen in Ibadan and Nigeria. But he sowed a great many ‘learning and book’ Iroko seeds, which, thankfully, have germinated as a generation change on Nigerian soil in the publishing and education sectors and are set to become Irokos in their own right – an Iroko planter’s delight. It has been a pleasure and an honour to have interacted frequently with Chief Joop Berkhout during the last 50 years, first by hearsay and later as an aburo and sometimes as a doctor. May his books be read by the current generation in his honour. May he RIPP and may his family be comforted. Amen. Appreciation also to his doctor/PA/carers.

    The lives of Chief Olabode Emanuel and Chief Joop Berkhout are very good illustrations of success where others were not so successful. There are others like them and many others who, as mentioned earlier were not allowed to achieve revered old age. We must do everything possible to take the death factor out of early life so more Nigerians can live long fruitful lives. The ‘no scooping fuel’ , use of life jackets across the waterways, speed limits on roads, potable water, better education, accessible quality schooling for the 10+million Out Of School Children -OOSC, better toilet : population ratios are rights of being born.  

  • Managing Nigeria’s youth challenge

    Managing Nigeria’s youth challenge

    For too long we’ve been told how Nigeria is a nation bursting with potential. You only have to look at our population of well over 200 million people. With wherewithal, this is potentially a massive market for virtually all products known to man: from food, to healthcare to housing, it should be attracting entrepreneurs and global corporations like moth to light.

    But a closer look at the figures throws up another reality. Seventy percent of that population are 30 years and below. Of that demographic, 42% are under the age of 15.

    In 2022, the Federal Ministry of Youth Development projected that up to 35% of young people between 15 and 34 years were unemployed. With an explosion in the last 20 years of public and private sector education investments, every year the country churns out millions of ‘educated’ youths – some employable, others unfit for employment – but all looking for work that’s unavailable.

    Every couple of months an additional layer is added to the multitude of the frustrated who left school thinking their shiny new certificates would deliver to them a better life. They would soon get rude reality checks after discovering those with superior paper qualifications who have been on the queue for ages.

    For years, many leaders didn’t realise the dangerous situation they were creating. Scores of universities owned by state and federal governments or private individuals and institutions were casually approved, with no thought to how the multitudes that would emerge from them would find fulfilment. Even with the nightmare now our reality, approvals are still being given for more tertiary institutions.

    Little wonder that in the last five years, the contraction of opportunities has created a new wave of migration by young people – the so-called ‘japa’ (Yoruba for escape) phenomenon. There are no clear figures but reasonable estimates would put the number of those who have fled in search of a better life in the high hundreds of thousands.

    Social media is awash with celebratory posts from those who successfully landed in their new havens – much to the envy and anguish of those still trapped in these parts, plotting how to outsmart visa authorities of some European country.

    Many were not so lucky; they never got to gloat on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, because their japa dream ended in the watery belly of the Mediterranean; others in the anonymous dunes of the Sahara Desert. And yet for many others who felt anywhere else was better than home, they discovered that hell has levels after suffering extreme maltreatment in the likes of Libya.

    Throughout history economic adversity has driven people to other lands in search of a better life. So what is happening in Nigeria at this historical juncture is not unique. What should concern us is doing something so that our homeland isn’t a place people – young or old – flee from.

    In the end no country, no matter how welcoming, is going to open its borders for an unending inflow of desperate migrants from the ends of the earth. We are already seeing that resistance. During the campaigns for the U. S. presidency last year, the Republican candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump, made the anti-immigrant message central to his sales pitch. It worked a treat as millions of Americans swept him back into office despite his moral baggage.

    Across Europe, we are also seeing many countries that were quite accommodating to outsiders now electing parties whose main attraction is their hostility to immigrants. That’s why it is pitiable seeing the desperation of young people who think that salvation lies only in escaping from Nigeria, not knowing that slowly, but surely, the door is closing to that option. The only truly viable alternative in making your home liveable, not wasting valuable time despising it.

    Unfortunately, for years not too many youths have taken an interest in things related to politics and governance. Seduced by the easy pleasures of entertainment and whatever distractions social media offered, many focused on getting easy money any which way.

    It is evident in the rapid spread of online financial scams involving mostly young people. Each month the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) parades hundreds of freshly arrested suspects. But the more they are apprehended, the more they multiply, damaging the image and reputation of the country around the world.

    Many of these youths have long since lost their moral compass. They are content with blaming those in government for messing up the country without accountable, or getting involved in the process of running things.

    The finger pointing conveniently ignores their own roles in tarnishing the country’s reputation and damaging its credit. They blithely ignore the fact that those above voting age who fail to engage the process by which they are governed as just as complicit as those who have mismanaged Nigeria.

    A turning point of sorts was probably the #EndSARS protests which began nobly as an uprising against police brutality, but terminated under a cloud of controversy at the Lekki toll gate. An action that staggered the authorities, triggering the dissolution of the infamous Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), was hijacked by external forces with diverse agendas.

    Although the protests ended as a heroic failure, they were a pointer to young people who drove it, that with better organisation, they could achieve great things politically. Two years after the protests, the campaign season leading to the 2023 polls saw the involvement of more youths in the political process. Many were first time voters. They were also naive and saw their desire for change manipulated by Machiavellian politicians who were only interested in riding on their backs to power.

    One of their big errors was a sense of entitlement that assumed they were ready to govern solely by belonging to the largest demographic in the country. Public office requires preparation and voters would not easily hand the highest ones to novices. Another mistake was deluding themselves that, somehow, they didn’t contribute to messing up the country. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

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    There are scores of politicians under 40 who have held political office at state and local government levels and contributed to the making of our current condition. Many were in state assemblies or even the House of Representatives. One of the brightest stars of the Bola Tinubu administration at its onset was Dr. Betta Edu. She was young, bright and beautiful; and obviously being primed for greater things. But she would crash down in the corruption controversy which engulfed her ministry early in 2024.

    The starting point to unlocking the potentials of Nigeria’s huge youth population is a humble acceptance that all have sinned against this country. Secondly, we must acknowledge that young Nigerians have the ability to do great things even if they are resident in this country. Some of the biggest entertainment stars to come out of Africa – the likes of Wizkid, Burna Boy and Davido – are all Nigerians. Their compatriots are also doing great things in sports, fintech and filmmaking to mention a few.

    This is why any wise government would turn attention to harnessing what this demographic can offer. In his Independence Day speech last year, Tinubu proposed a 30-day youth summit supposedly “to address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our your people.” On New Year Day he promised that the Youth Ministry would rollout modalities for the conference in the first quarter of 2025.

    On the face of it, the intervention shows an administration that understands the country has a huge challenge on its hands. The worry is how to ensure that this doesn’t end up as another jamboree for the usual windbags to bask in the limelight for a couple of hours. At the end of the day billions would have been spent with not much to show for the splurging.

    There is also a question as to whether we need 30 days to discover what we already know. It’s not rocket science understanding that young people are looking for opportunities, jobs, help with funding their education and starting businesses. Many are equally looking for a country where things work; a country whose leaders are role models.

    That said, the government deserves credit for this initiative just as it should be commended for others like student loans and credit schemes. It should, however, ensure that the proposed summit which supposedly is to produce an actionable template for unlocking the massive energy of our youths doesn’t end up as another Nigerian horror show.

  • Miracle man Jimmy Carter

    Miracle man Jimmy Carter

    “Jimmy Carter for me was something of a miracle … It is hard for me to understand just how you could be President from Plains, Georgia … He was a minority in Sumter County, but he became the friend of the majority …  I have known President Carter for more than half of my life and I never cease to be surprised, enlightened, and inspired by the little deeds of love and mercy he shared with us everyday of his life. It was President James Earl Carter that for me symbolized the greatness of America. He may be gone, but he ain’t gone far”.

    —Rev Andrew Young (92), in his funeral oration for President Jimmy Carter, January 9, 2025.

    Reverend Andrew Young was not speaking of the Biblical miracle. Rather, he was trying to portray President Jimmy Carter as someone who did extraordinary things and to whom extraordinary things happened. He spoke of two of such things in the opening quote: First, it was extraordinary for Carter to have become President of the United States from a small rural village in the Deep South and in a County in which Blacks accounted for about 80 percent of the population.

    Second, growing up as a minority in such a community at the height of racial segregation in which his father even partook, it was extraordinary for Carter to have embraced Blacks as much as he did. Carter shared this trait with Fidel Castro of Cuba, who grew up on his father’s sugar cane plantation, but hated the way Blacks were treated by his father and other Whites. This experience fueled Castro’s rebellion against the establishment and pushed him to socialism.

    However, operating within a democratic system, Carter was not anti-establishment, but he embraced minorities that the establishment has ignored. He employed more Blacks and women into office than all Presidents before him combined. Andrew Young was one of those minorities. Carter appointed him as  the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

    As it turned out, it was not only minorities within the United States that Carter embraced. As his presidency and post-presidency activities showed (see Jimmy Carter, January 8, and Jimmy Carter’s post-presidency, January 15, both in The Nation), Carter embraced humanity, focusing on the poor, the homeless, the insecure, and the oppressed across the globe. His ultimate goal was social and human development for which he considered education, healthcare, peace, and security as necessary requirements.

    Carter was the first “unknown” (that is, not nationally recognised candidate) to become President. No one expected him to win the Democratic primary, but he did, largely by relying on popular folk musicians to raise money for him. With their help and his plain talk, focusing on the truth (in contrast to the lies of the Nixon era before him), he went on to win the presidential election.

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    Carter had an aversion to wealth, stemming from growing up in a rural village without electricity and running water. So, he went into office with a vow that he was not going to enrich himself. He even fought legislators on pork barrel (budget padding) practices, even to his own disadvantage. When he lost reelection, he went back to his farm in Plains Georgia, and lived in the bungalow he and his wife had owned. He was now a debtor, because the farm he had put in trust four years earlier had been run aground. He had to sell the farm’s warehouse to raise money to save the farm. He put the farm in the hands of caretakers again, when the now famous Carter Center was built in association with Emory University in Atlanta, which became the base of his global charity work until death. The only other property in his name was his presidential library in Atlanta, built on donations. He owned a small office/bedroom, where the bed is a foldaway, which flushes with the wall when not in use, to the amazement of the reporter, who interviewed him there.

    Carter did not just do extraordinary things. Some unusual things also happened to him. Every member of his family—father, mother, and three siblings, died of cancer. His father and all three siblings died of pancreatic cancer in their fifties, except one sister, who lived to be 63. His mother first had breast cancer, which then moved to her pancreas and killed her at 85. Jimmy Carter also had his bout with cancer. Shortly after turning 90, he was afflicted with metastatic melanoma, a skin cancer with less than 10% survival rate! Miraculously, you would say, nonagenarian Carter became cancer-free, following radiation therapy and treatment with a cancer immunotherapy.

    He would go on to live beyond 100–the longest lived President with the longest (action-packed) presidency in American history.

    There are several dualities in Jimmy Carter’s life: A White minority in the middle of a Black majority. An unknown rural farmer defeating a wealthy Ford as candidate of the other party. An unlikely peace maker, who settled decades-long conflict between two adversaries (Israel and Egypt). The most powerful man in the world becoming a carpenter, building homes for the homeless and providing healthcare for millions across the globe, including Nigeria. A candidate, who never forgot the musicians that propelled him to the White House—he invited them to the White House time and again, even against the advice of close friends and the White House staff.

    To conclude that Carter was probably propelled to do good by White guilt is to disregard the man’s soul in the assessment. Here was a Christian, who taught Sunday School until 95 and vowed to live by his creed, by doing good for humanity. Rather than see Black and White as distinct races, he saw a common humanity, and pushed his country toward global interdependency.

    Carter’s political career hold three big lessons for politicians: One, make hay while the sun shines—Carter’s major achievements during his presidency came within the first two years of his administration. Two, Carter did not see power as a means of personal enrichment; rather, it should be used to facilitate fair and equitable access to political goods. Three, his post-presidency shows that the job of a President is for life, not in terms of the paraphernalia of office but in terms of continuing to serve humanity in meaningful ways.

    It was the totality of his contributions that the Nobel cited in his award for peace in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The Nobel Committee would be pleased to know that Carter continued with “untiring effort” for two decades after the award.

    Of course, Carter’s political opponents did not always like his humanitarianism and forward-looking programmes, when he was President. They even hated his elaborate post-presidential achievements even more, and they are bent on wiping them out. As a result, his immediate successor, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, reversed his environmental policies, by removing solar panels Carter got installed on the roof of the White House to cut costs. The present President, Donald Trump, and his men are moving to close down the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Education, both of which Carter established. The Republican party continues to deny climate change and has been challenging the necessity for the Department of Energy, also established by Carter.

    No matter what they do, however, Carter’s sterling achievements have been written in stone. It is unlikely that any President could match his longevity, his humanity, his love of peace as a necessary condition for development, and his global outreach.

    Andrew Young said it all: “He may be gone, but he ain’t gone far”, either from our memories or from the pages of history.

  • Less aid? Raise CSR goals

    Less aid? Raise CSR goals

    New states? Already, the cost of running our federal structure is too high. The information that there are expressed aspirations for 31 new states comes as news. How well have the states been run? Such a move will double the already cost of governance including ‘Salaries and Perks’ for the existing governors, deputy governors, assembly members, aides, commissioners, permanent secretaries, directors, ministry heads, vehicles and accommodation, office and dwelling, for the ‘new’ states. And this when many states are failing and still owing years of pensions and not paying minimum wage or raise enough Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    We do know that the unequal creation of states among other things was a monster created by the military as a divide-and-rule policy. It resulted in the uneven distribution of LGAs, a gold mine for states. State authorities’ lack of honest service delivery has greatly disappointed their own indigenes failing their sworn financial responsibility to pay salaries and pensions and contractors as-and-when-due. State authorities have also discriminated against some groups within their states, and this has also fed the fiery demand for more states.

    Nigeria cannot endure the huge additional political and economic cost of 31 new states.  It will be political and financial suicide. Even just a few scaling through may be too many.

    While we wait, we should interrogate the reasons behind the demand. These reasons should be addressed right now especially to placate aggrieved citizens feeling like strangers in their own home.

    The underlying lopsided creation of LGAs between North and South will not go away with creation of more states. Nigerians are still struggling with the wrongness of the ‘1999 Constitution’. To right that wrong we need to address that issue. It is more important than the census and getting our currency out of its sick bed and accelerating the improvement in exchange rate which is the only real way to improve the cost of living.  

    Certainly, things are looking up with the government, through CBN, paying past foreign debts criminally neglected by past CBN leadership deliberately criminally diverting funds. Unfortunately, those who deliberately put Nigeria’s finances in this dire predicament are not being brought before the courts quickly enough. Yes, some funds have been announced as being recovered. The Nigerian jury is sceptical about the fate of recovered funds and assets. Are they returned to the right places? Are they subject to be re-misused? 

    Who is the policeman policing recovered fund and assets? Nigeria is riddled with corruption stories involving those given positions of financial responsibility for the care of citizens -governors, accountant general, auditor general, CBN governor, ministers, NHIS leadership, NSTIF etc, etc. The EFCC and ICPC should investigate those recovered funds to ensure Nigeria is not losing its funds twice to another government approved thief. Enough is enough.

    We should be ashamed of ourselves as a country. With a reported 18,000,000+ out of school children’, (OOSC), surely there is much more we can do as citizens, communities, companies and country to help reduce this problem. For example, CNN has an advert of a group raising $3million for OOSC through playing polo tournaments across the world. Wonderful.

    The ongoing raid on worldwide aid will downgrade world education and healthcare and appears devastating. It will certainly deny many their dreams and goals. No country will quickly fill the crater in the aid inflows gouged out last week by the largest voluntary donor. Nigeria will lose many jobs in education and many lives in health from the resultant aid program cancellation for those fully funded and curtailments for those with multiple donors e.g. UN programs. The curtailments will be as much a 40-60% loss of funding.

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    These funding cuts will affect the ability to help, heal and teach victims of circumstance, not their own fault. The cost of limiting the funds is that Nigerian lives will be lost and growth of vulnerable Nigerians, health-wise and academically, will be stunted. Many more may join those out of school putting many Nigerian families’ future in jeopardy and increasing societal insecurity. To prevent this disaster, we Nigerians must fill the aid fund deficit crater ourselves. We can! The huge seizures of drugs confirm the huge drug problem facing our youth today. This will worsen with the truncated international funding.

    For many years rich countries felt obligated and happily helped less fortunate countries. Thank you. This ‘rule’ no longer applies. Don’t cry. Adapt! Many poor countries were/are riddled with corruption. Stop corruption-it kills!  The Nigerians rich in wealth, wisdom, skills or passion are already doing great things for unknown Nigerians. Step UP Higher! However Nigerian structured Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) philanthropic contributions must increase to fill the Nigerian hole created by cancelled aid.

    Nigeria’s political and corporate leadership and CSR foundations must deliberately meet and better plan to give needy Nigerians a bright future! For a start, corporate bodies should up their CSR to one per cent and divert some of their advert budgets to projects. Nigeria has too many multi-million advert billboards. Cut down on the billboards and transfer the funds to education and Health needs.

    Let the youth advertise your company through their success.   For a start EDUCARE TRUST has long advocated that no contract should be given by any government or corporate Nigeria to any company without interrogation of the ongoing on-going CSR record. This will direct billions to ‘raided’ projects and cancel out need for aid. It is called self-help.

  • Supervision for police/traffic authorities

    Supervision for police/traffic authorities

    We demand supervision of, and accountability from, police and traffic officials AND BETTER PAY.

    Sadly, the citizenry live and move in fear of the thousands of checkpoints and traffic stops by anyone in uniform – fake or official – local government, state or federal officials like Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and police. There are numerous videos backing up factual complaints of citizens against the checkpoint abusers.

    Last week, we saw a policeman seizing the steering wheel of a moving car. This week, we saw yet another case of a group of genuine police creating problems for the ordinary citizens around the airport roads some of which were UNSIGNPOSTED ‘ONE WAY’- a common government scam crime against Nigerians. We need SIGNPOSTS AND DIRECTION POSTS ON ALL ROADS in Nigeria. 

    We have all witnessed and been victims of emergency disappearing corner-corner criminally-motivated and visible checkpoints. Sadly, many such checkpoints have degenerated into extortion spots for criminal officials who have supervisors who ignore their job of preventing their subordinates from criminality, wrongful accusation and extortion of bribes.

    I am no friend of Okada riders because, instead of government giving us proper mass transit society with buses using less fuel and producing less emissions per passenger,  government retrograded our transport into Okada motorcycle or mono-transport. We know a bus carrying 30 people needs one large engine and one driver +/-a conductor.  Using Okada, those 30 people need 30 motorcycle engines and 30 drivers.  Apart from the environmental problem there is the 30 year-old Okada epidemic, from millions of unsupervised high speed often young aggressive riders, which has cost a tsunami of millions losing their lives or livelihoods, truncated work opportunities, and injury with lost limbs all at huge medical costs. The Okada epidemic has filled entire wards with innocent victims of the senseless unrestrained Okadamania.

    Maiduguri is one city where Okada is banned. Let us learn from them. We demand a much wider ban and a National Orientation Agency (NOA) campaign to get the Okada community to reduce speed, have a maximum speed, stop at traffic junctions and have more respect and responsibility for the citizens they carry and traffic around them. Imagine how many orphans and handicapped citizens there are in Nigeria from the swarms, wasp or bee-like, of Okada which having caused an Okada attack gather at every Okada crash to intimidate other road users.

    Why is there no training and little or no traffic management interaction with them except to extort from the Okada community? THERE MUST BE LIMITS AND REGISTRATION OF OKADA NUMBERS AT JUNCTIONS. Visit the Mokola junction, Ibadan. Disgraceful Okada and Danfo overcrowding blocking traffic! The traffic management officials including the police need to work with governments to restrict the scope and the speed of Okada while increasing their education and reduce extortion. And this is apart from the role of Okada in crime and terrorism.

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    Supervision of officials in uniform or with power, with stick or a gun is a neglected responsibility of LGAs, state and federal organisations.

    SUPERVISION AND ACCOUNTABILITY are key to reversing the rot on Nigerian roads. Without them, any tourism and travel will start with a ‘PRAYER TO BE INVISIBLE TO ROBBERS OR TRAFFIC OFFICERS’.  For example, for many years there has been standard FRSC checkpoint as traffic turns towards Benin on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Has it ever come under security and anti-corruption scrutiny?

    The huge quantity of recovered manholes, cable and junction boxes and other electrical material and previously railway sleepers is a credit to the police and other security agencies which would have received more credit had they prevented all these crimes from happening. That would have prevented the damage to vehicles trapped in open manholes with no covers and parts of Nigeria being plunged into darkness by cable thieves. These thieves are really damaging the economy.

    Looking at the recovered manholes and cables on the social media videos, it appears they do not have any identifying numbers of marks or stamps. Governments at state, federal and LGA need to instruct contractors to put easily read serial numbers on equipment for easy tracing. There should be long prison sentences with seizure of property and company assets for ‘sabotage and terrorism’ for any business or company found guilty. In fact, seizure of the trucks and prosecution of the company owning the trucks and the drivers carrying such stolen goods should be automatic and efficient. Nigeria cannot survive if every step forward is followed by a huge reversal through theft. This is often followed by resale to government. Crazy! This amounts to the theft of our future.    

    Sadly, there are more high profile in corruption cases recently all limping through the nearly comatose courts. The governors’ cases and now the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) training scam prompted, not by the police but by a petition, the National Assembly (NASS) Education Budget payments before budget approval accusations are typical. NASS needs to put its reputation first as these accusations are recurrent and it behoves NASS to stand out especially with the history of serial budget padding. This is particularly annoying when the ministry traditionally underserves needs and should not divert a kobo to unrelated unmonitorable projects like tampon purchases.

    The NASS is supposed to protect us from such corruption, not be thought to promote or actually participate in it, even passively. As Nigeria grows, NASS must grow into the role of an honest broker between government and the citizens. 

  • How bad is Nigeria?

    How bad is Nigeria?

    Two years ago, I found myself playing host to in-laws who came visiting from England with three children who had never been to Nigeria. Overfed with a diet of bad news about the country they were travelling to, they were prepared for the worst. I observed with amusement how they warily scanned their surroundings – perhaps expecting Tarzan to spring from the bushes without warning.

    I burst out laughing when one of the teenagers exclaimed: ‘Look! They even have buses,’ on sighting a Lagos BRT bus. On the drive home, they were sufficiently impressed with their environment that they confessed Nigeria wasn’t the hell on earth that they had been led to believe it was.

    For the next couple of weeks they would have the adventure of their young lives, doing simple things they couldn’t do in the concrete jungle where they lived. Things as mundane as climbing trees, chasing down lizards in the compound, visiting a local market to buy a live goat that would become a pet for them for over a week. When it was time to terminate the goat, they wept like they had lost a brother.

    These adventures included a visit to Ekiti where their granny and uncles made them learn how to pound yam – an exercise they took to with gusto. All these experiences they kept sharing on live feeds with their friends in England. They left Nigeria vowing to return very soon. Such was their enjoyment of a country many choose to dismiss.

    Denigrating the country is a pastime that has lasted for as long as it has existed as an independent country. Hyper criticism is the default mode for most Nigerians. That’s understandable because there’s so much to criticise – everything from failure of governance, lack of infrastructure, widespread poverty to extreme corruption. Whatever hopes the citizenry had about their new country in 1960, has been dashed over and again as the brief democratic experiment soon collapsed under the weight of internal contradictions – resulting in over three decades of military rule. Those who came promising to make Nigeria better often left it plumbing new depths of despair. Little wonder our favourite national sport is self pity and hate.

    While much of the criticism is deserved, a lot of it is something regurgitated by rote. A lot of Nigerians in the Diaspora are transfixed by their daily dose of bad news on social media, that they sternly warn those foolhardy enough to try, not to visit home if they loved themselves. A simple violent robbery incident or minor terror attack is blown up as though the entire country is on fire. Many are suspicious when you offer a narrative different from what they have come to believe.

    The country’s terrible image flows largely from what we say about ourselves. Over time I have come to see that foreign visitors and observers are often less harsh about the state our country than we are. When the ordinary South African citizen mock Nigeria as ‘a generator nation’, it’s down to our moaning over the years about failings in the area of electricity generation and distribution.

    When others ridicule us as scam artists and ritual killers, there is sufficient ammunition to do so, but it’s also down to sensationalism on social media and in Nollywood. The damage caused by movies that portray the country as nothing more than a haven for witchcraft and voodoo priests would take a lifetime to undo.

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    It is one thing when you are being hard on yourselves at home, it’s a different kettle of fish when the extreme criticism is internationalised by influential figures who, in so doing, reinforce existing negative impressions. In November 2024, afrobeats star Davido who hasn’t been shy to dip his feet into political waters ever since his uncle indicated interest in the governorship of Osun State, had on a visit to the United States warned his compatriots who had made their escape from the continent, not to make the mistake of returning because there was nothing good to report. His counsel was also directed at African-Americans who were showing increasing interest in goings-on on the continent.

    Speaking on the Big Homies House podcast, he said the Nigerian economy was in shambles and there were systemic issues affecting African countries. “It’s not cool back home,” he said.

    Not to be outdone, the new leader of the British Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, spent her first months in the position launching acidic attacks on her country of origin. From talking of how her brother’s shoes were allegedly pinched by the police, to bluntly warning that governments here destroy lives, she’s been a one-woman wrecking ball hammering away at the country’s already battered image.

    Many have been scratching their heads trying to make sense of her strategy given that Nigeria’s condition is unlikely to be a major concern of British voters at the next poll. Those who would have her pause in her desperate bid to be more English than King Charles, point to the fact that her predecessor as Tory Leader, Rishi Sunak, never scorned his Indian heritage the was she was done her own roots.

    There’s sufficient evidence that putting down her country of origin isn’t exactly helping her drive to become Britain’s first black female Prime Minister. A YouGov poll published late last year showed that only 32% of Tory voters felt she would be a good PM. Even more galling is that fact 24% of her party members felt that the extreme right wing politician, Nigel Farage of Reform UK, would do a better job.

    The foregoing is not to suggest that all is perfectly well with the country. Far from it! We’ve all acknowledged that we are in the midst of unprecedented economic challenges. But there’s no issue or failing in this country that’s unique to her. It is disappointing when you imagine that a country with so much potential could do a better job. Still, it isn’t sufficient reason for the amount of self hate Nigerians indulge in.

    In their push for power opposition politicians would magnify the economic challenges and claim civil liberties are under organised assault worse than in days of junta rule. Unfortunately, almost all their leading lights have been part of government at different levels in the last 30 years and had ample opportunities to make a difference. They didn’t. This makes their posturing as would-be saviours highly suspect.

    In 2022, Nigeria’s economy was ranked largest in Africa. Today, it is fourth behind the likes of Egypt, South Africa and Algeria. Despite continuing challenges there are signs of stabilisation and recovery on the back of ongoing reforms. Growth rate is expected to be between 3% and 4.17% depending on source of statistics. The African Development Bank Group projects 3.4% in 2025, while the Central Bank expects it to be as high as 4.17%.

    The government promises to drive down inflation from the current 34% to a more manageable 15%. Many analysts think this is optimistic. Still, it would welcome relief for most families who have seen their pay cheques bringing in less goods home month after month.

    The tremendous developments in the oil and gas sector, with the rise of Dangote Refinery, the resurrection of a couple of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) owned refineries and other lesser facilities, has transformed the country from a net importer of petroleum products to an exporter with potentially disruptive effect on European and other markets.

    Poverty isn’t going to disappear overnight. Boko Haram attacks in the Northeast, banditry in the Northwest or secessionist violence in the Southeast would continue to make headlines from time to time. But the charitable would acknowledge there’s a more stable situation with regard to insecurity which is far cry from the situation two or three years when mass abductions were almost a weekly occurrence.

    Nigeria may have these issues but let’s not forget that there are countries on the African continent which up till date have been carved by militias and where ethnic conflicts have raged unabated for decades. It may have her unique struggles but it doesn’t have to worry about that uniquely American phenomenon of gunmen walking into school yards and malls on mass killing sprees.

    This is a country on the mend that deserves a breather from unrelenting and unreasonable bashing.

  • Repositioning TVET in Nigeria

    Repositioning TVET in Nigeria

    From the inception of formal technical and vocational training in colonial times to the adoption of the modern phase of TVET in the country, the goals of such training have been the same: (1) to employ practical, hands-on approaches in training learners toward various career paths so they could help in filling the skills gaps in the job market and (2) to impart such necessary competencies and entrepreneurial skills in the learners that would aid in their career preparation and employability. The ultimate goal is to train those would contribute to economic growth by ensuring that they acquired practical skills, knowledge, and attitudes relating to occupations and careers in various sectors of the economy.

    The history of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Nigeria is as enduring as its projected benefits. Vocational training could be said to be rooted in traditional apprenticeship training in precolonial times. However, it has been integral to the Nigerian school system ever since its incorporation into the school curriculum in forms such as farming, crafts, carpentry, and so on, leading to the establishment of technical institutes and trade centres. Eventually, by 1976, “science, technical and vocational education was incorporated into the National Policy on Education. This gave birth to the establishment of the National Board of Technical Education in 1977 to oversee technical and vocational education. Six years later, when the 6-3-3-4 system of education was introduced in 1982, it was envisaged that 30% of primacy school leavers would enroll in technical colleges; 10% in trade and apprenticeship programmes, and the remaining 60% would continue training in conventional secondary schools. Beyond secondary schools, the focus of TVET has centred on polytechnics, which federal, state, and private proprietors have been establishing here and there at a frenetic pace. Today, the NBTE lists 41 Federal polytechnics on its website, not to speak of countless state and private polytechnics.

    The failure of the preceding systems to meet the country’s middle-level manpower needs was used as a ploy to introduce the 9-3-4 system in 1999. It was another case of substituting form for function, as if changing the structure of the education system would automatically produce desired results. Spurred on by the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, established in 2015, and UNESCO’s prompt, the Nigerian government has since been making moves to advance TVET education in the country. True, many polytechnics and vocational schools have since been established, but the noble goals of TVET have remained elusive. Rampant unemployment has pushed many a youth to violent and fraudulent activities. More and more citizens have become poor or poorer.

    What went wrong?

    In answering this question, I focus on the plight of Federal polytechnics. There are five major problems. One, there is a serious funding gap, deriving from the paltry budgetary allocation to education by the Federal Government over the years. Besides, only a fraction of the polytechnics’ approved budgets is released every year. There is also a high degree of unevenness in the release of funds: Some institutions get over 70 percent of their funds released, while others get a paltry 30 percent or less. It is suspected that this unevenness has to do with backroom dealings.

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    The saving grace for most of the institutions today has been TETFund, which has been providing funds for capital projects, equipment, and training to the polytechnics. In order to bridge the funding gap, each polytechnic should establish an advancement office to raise funds beyond the tuition and fees collected from students. Each institution should also set up a venture to produce and sell products and services to the local communities. Moreover, the polytechnics should develop self-help projects, including small-scale building projects, landscaping, and fence construction. This could be done in collaboration with practicing artisans within the local communities.

    Two, there is a dearth of necessary infrastructure and teaching facilities in the polytechnics. Older polytechnics are suffering from dilapidating structures and overstretched facilities, while some newly established polytechnics have had to run around to borrow equipment to satisfy accreditation requirements. At the end of the day, students are exposed to theory in the classroom but limited or no practical experience in the appropriate tools of their trade.

    Three, the curriculum in the polytechnics and the focus of each polytechnic have to be revisited or established. No industrialised nation practices a one-size-fits-all curriculum for its educational institutions, although certain standards or expectations could be set. Given the variable locations and environments of the nation’s polytechnics, each one should decide on what its unique focus should be and what, at the end of the day, each polytechnic wants to be known for. Nevertheless, given the rural location of many of the polytechnics, agriculture and local commercial and artisanal  practices should feature prominently. Bricklaying, plumbing, carpentry, welding, electrical installation, tiling, automobile and generator repairs, and so on, should feature in both the curriculum and experiential learning. Accordingly, polytechnic managements should take a census of local enterprises for on-site experiential learning for their students. The focus on “industrial attachment” is futile where there are no industries and where the few that existed have folded up. Local banks, hotels, construction sites, and other local enterprises are good alternatives. There is an urgent need to domesticate so-called industrial attachments for experiential learning.

    Four, there is a dearth of appropriately trained and skilled teachers across the polytechnics. It is one thing to have an excellent curriculum on paper; it is another to have an appropriate teacher to implement the curriculum. It is simple pedagogical truism that no curriculum is better than its teacher and that students hardly know  better than their teachers. There is an urgent need to inculcate the mission of polytechnics in the teachers and provide regular and adequate human capital development opportunities. As I indicated earlier, TETFund has been outstanding in funding such opportunities. However, such training should be retooled to suit local circumstances.

    Fifth, there is an urgent need to streamline the supervision of polytechnics in the country. It is a chaotic system by which polytechnic managements are summoned to Abuja every now and then or have four or five different visitations from various arms of the Federal Government (Education, Budget Office, Accountant General’s office, the legislature, and others). There have been occasions when Rectors, who had just returned to base from Abuja, were summoned back by another arm of the Federal Government. Besides the time and energy expended on such trips, the resources wasted on road and air transport, hotels, and duty allowances could be put to better use. The NBTE should step in here to establish some order!

    The newly appointed Minister of Education is determined to change the fortunes of federal polytechnics. He should realise, however, that TVET is an expensive educational venture as it needs constant adaptation of its facilities to changes in technology and technical equipment. It also requires that training be constantly adapted to the needs of the market in a changing world. That’s why it will be necessary for the Federal Government to pause the establishment of new polytechnics until the existing ones are well funded and retooled to make their graduates self-sufficient to create new jobs or are good enough to fill the job gaps in a changing market.