Category: Opinion

At the inception of University College Ibadan which in 1962 metamorphosed to the formidable University of Ibadan, the founding principal, Dr. Kenneth Mellanby made sure that high level research activity was one of the pivotal goals of the new university. In order to achieve this objective, he made sure that pursuance of knowledge through cutting edge research was enshrined in the ordinance with which the university was established. The emphasis on research made Dr. Mellanby to supervise the first PhD thesis in the whole of British colonial university in 1952. The title of the thesis was

’Ecology of Cyclops in South- West Nigeria and their Relation to the occurrence of Dracunculus medinensis (the guinea worm) in that Region’.

The thesis was written by Professor Sanya Onabamiro who later became the professor of parasitology in the university.

One of the giants at Ibadan who actualized the dream of Dr. Mellanby in making Ibadan a citadel of sterling academic research was the late Professor Aderemi Oluyomi Kuku, the renowned professor of mathematics who died on February 13.

The late Professor Kuku was an academic colossus in mathematics. He obtained his PhD degree in 1971 at the University of Ibadan and his area of specialization was in algebraic K-theory, commutative and non-commutative algebra and non-commutative algebra and group theory. In his research activities, the late Professor Kuku was involved in algebra/number theory/geometry/representative theory-a contemporary and multidisciplinary subject that also has applications in mathematical physics, dynamic system and control theory.

From this awesome research interest, Professor Kuku taught many generations of students and produced many PhD students. Among students produced by Professor Kuku, are the present Head of Department of Mathematics at the University of Ibadan, Dr. Micheal Enioluwafe and Professor Ajetumobi of Lagos State University. For his prodigious contributions in his discipline, Professor Kuku was promoted to full professor in 1982, and he held many posts in the university such as the Head, Department of Mathematics and Dean of the prestigious Postgraduate School now Postgraduate College from 1986- 1990.

The University of Ibadan was fortunate to have the late Professor Kuku as the Dean of the Postgraduate School. From the beginning of his tenure to the end, he brought his characteristic energy and academic prowess into the administration of the school. He laid the foundation of the process for the computerization of the postgraduate school results and prompt issuance of transcripts. His greatest contribution in the school was the introduction of interdisciplinary discourse in 1990. The discourse has been going on since then. The first in the series of the multidisciplinary discourse was delivered on February 27, 1990 by the late Professor G C M Bakare of the Department of Guidance and Counselling with the title ‘Leadership in Nigeria, some lessons from psychological research’. Professor Kuku himself gave the 75th edition on August 27, 2018. The title of his lecture was ”Higher Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology”

This mustard seed sown by the erudite Professor Kuku at the postgraduate school has grown into a solid and formidable Iroko tree whose shade provides a regular meeting place for brilliant intellectual exchanges. At present, 79 lectures had been given under this multidisciplinary discourse, and it has showcased top academics in different disciplines within and outside the university. As the Dean of Postgraduate School at Ibadan, he was instrumental to the formation of the Committee of Deans of Postgraduate Schools in Nigerian universities and he was the first president of the committee.

The late Professor Kuku through his discipline of mathematics conquered the intellectual world and brought glory to Nigeria. He was for many years the resident mathematician at Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy where he helped many young Nigerians. He also held many professorial positions at highly reputable universities and research institutes in Europe, Canada, USA, China, Hong Kong and Nigeria. The late professor had 85 research articles in highly regarded journals, 10 books/monograph and 23 articles on topical issues.

The late Professor Kuku deservedly was honoured both at home and abroad for his immense contributions in his discipline. He was a Fellow of Nigerian Academy of Science (FAS) and the federal government awarded him in 2009, Nigeria National Order of Merit (NNOM), which is the highest academic honour in Nigeria. Before that time, he was given the national honour of Order of the Niger (OON) in 2008. At his hometown, he was given the chieftaincy title of Otunba Ofiran of Ijebuland. Outside the shores of the country, he was the president of the African Mathematical Union (AMU) (1986-1995) and president of the African Academy of Sciences, 2014 to 2017.

I commiserate with the family of this academic giant and intellectual colossus, for this irreparable loss. It is not their loss alone; the whole academic community has lost an academic gem. The family like those of in academic world should take consolation from the fact, that the late professor brought glory to Nigeria and black race through his discipline in mathematics.  Like Caesar, we can truly say that he came and saw and conquered.

• Professor Lucas was Dean of Postgraduate School, University Of Ibadan (1994-1998).

The Mali junta would seem to have won Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe to its side, thereby threatening the ECOWAS solidarity, and further compounding the regional bloc’s faltering attempts to ensure early return to constitutional order in three of its military-governed member States.

Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop and his Togolese counterpart, Robert Dussey, announced in Lomé last week, after two days of talks that President Faure Gnassingbe has agreed “to facilitate dialogue with international and regional institutions in order to sort out the Malian crisis.”

Col. Assimi Goita and his army colleagues staged a coup that toppled Mali’s elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020. Goita masterminded a second putsch in May 2021 against the interim government in which he was a vice president, and has reneged on his pledge to organise elections last February to hand over to civilians.

In response to the junta’s decision to delay the political transition by three years, ECOWAS on January 9, imposed sweeping sanctions against Mali. While some analysts consider the punishing sanctions as high-handed, with a West African Economic and Monetary Union, UEMOA court dismissing some of the measures as illegal, the Mali junta has persisted in its uncompromising stance.

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, the ECOWAS officially designated mediator on the Mali crisis has undertaken more than half a dozen mediation missions to Bamako with little progress.

Goita shunned an invitation to attend an ECOWAS summit in March and his government has instead, announced a 24-month revised transition timetable.

The military juntas in Guinea and Burkina Faso have not only followed Mali’s example in toppling elected governments, but are also similarly delaying political transitions in both countries. The Guinea junta has announced a 36-month timetable, while their counterparts in Burkina Faso have unveiled a 39-month programme.

ECOWAS has suspended the three countries from its fold, but the juntas in Guinea and Burkina Faso have refused to apply the regional sanctions against Mali.

Togo’s alignment with the Bamako junta, which could be interpreted as breaking the ECOWAS ranks, is not surprising. Lomé has maintained a flexible position toward the Malian military in power, by refusing to impose heavy sanctions.

It is also instructive to note that Faure Gnassingbé assumed power in controversial circumstances, described as a military coup by critics following the sudden death of his authoritarian father President Gnassingbé Eyadéma in February 2005. After weeks of domestic protests and international condemnation, he stepped down and a presidential election was held in April, in which he claimed victory. The opposition rejected results of that poll, resulting in more violent street protests, but the young Eyadéma has since won re-elections and consolidated his hold on power.

He reportedly visited Bamako secretly in January for talks with the Mali junta officials.

Malian Foreign Minister Diop said after the Lomé meeting last week, that his country urged President Gnassingbe to use his “good offices missions to mobilize again,” actors such as ECOWAS, “whose essential aim remains the organization of free, transparent and credible elections and the return to constitutional order.”

His Togolese opposite number Dussey, tweeted that Togolese government “is ready to accompany Mali at the political and security levels with a view to restoring constitutional order, peace, stability and the integrity of its territory. For Togo, only a permanent and constructive dialogue with the Malian transitional authorities will create the conditions for a rapid return to constitutional order and an effective fight against terrorism,” he added.

Togo has been part of a dialogue group facilitating international negotiations on Mali since February, but the manner of Lomé’s acceptance to interface between Mali and the international and regional institutions without apparent reference to ECOWAS or its designated mediator, suggests a lack or disintegration of coordination.

This could reinforce the position of critics who accuse the regional organisation of inconsistency and lacking in effective strategy and leadership in dealing with the military juntas in three of its member states. Or could this be part of a secret move by ECOWAS, France, the former colonial in Mali and the Bamako junta, “to patch up differences?”

The Goita regime has not covered itself in glory on the transition programme.

His colleagues in Guinea and Burkina Faso are not doing any better, but have attracted less severe sanctions from ECOWAS.

French President Emmanuel Macron claimed in a recent statement that he was instrumental to the imposition of stifling sanctions on Mali following his discussions with ECOWAS leaders. The ECOWAS leadership has not disputed that claim, which only reinforces the unravelling diplomatic relations between Bamako and Paris.

France has never hidden its opposition to the defence cooperation agreement between Mali and Russia’s private Wagner group, now supporting the Malian military in dealing with insecurity in the country. This was after France and the U.S. had announced their decision to end military support and cooperation with Mali.

Consequently, the French Barkhane forces, stationed in Mali have been moved to neighbouring Niger, while the Goita-led junta has expelled the French ambassador from Mali and also severed Mali’s 2014 defence accord with France, accusing French troops of “flagrant violations of its national sovereignty.”

With growing anti-French sentiments in Mali and some other Francophone African countries, recently re-elected president Macron has his job cut out for him on the inevitable recalibration of the France-Africa relations, to address the corrosive mutual mistrust.

Meanwhile, apart from their severe impacts on the Mali economy, the ECOWAS sanctions are also adversely affecting neighbouring states, such as Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.

Instead of seeking to manipulate or out-maneuverer ECOWAS, the Malian junta must demonstrate sincerity, good faith and responsiveness to positive interventions and genuine commitment to the restoration of constitutional order within a reasonable timeline in the country.

ECOWAS, for its part, should not allow its member states or external forces to divide its ranks. It must demonstrate clear vision, independent minded leadership, cohesion and sincerity in negotiations, consistency in decisions and actions towards finding lasting solutions to military incursions in politics and regression of democracy in the region.

With regional integration as its overarching mandate, ECOWAS has an abiding duty to redouble collective and unified efforts for sustainable peace, security, political stability and democratic consolidation, or lose its relevance.

• Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and an Independent Consultant on Corporate Strategic Communication, Media, Peace & Security, and Elections.

SIR: It is glaring from the high cost of nomination fees imposed by Nigerian political parties that the commercialization of politics is fast becoming an indelible feature of Nigeria’s political culture. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) fixed the cost of nomination forms for president at N100million ($240,884), governorship at N50million ($85,470), Senate at N20million ($34,188), House of Representatives at N10million ($17,094) and State Assembly at N2million ($3,418).

The leading opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) pegged N40million ($68,376) as the cost for presidential nomination forms, N21million ($35,897) for governorship, N3.5million ($5,982) for Senate, N2.5million ($4,273) for House of Representatives and N1.5million ($2,564) for State House of Assembly.

While the two main parties introduced concessions for women and a 50% discount for young aspirants, aspirants are still subject to paying other high sundry fees for administrative costs and state secretariat fees before nomination forms are submitted for processing. Unfortunately, these pre-primaries expenses represent a small fraction of the cost of politics.

Fair competition is the hallmark of candidate recruitment in political parties. Imposing high costs on nomination forms limits accessibility to political entrepreneurs with deep pockets and wide patronage networks, thereby shrinking the political space. When money shapes politics, it assaults the democratic right of citizens to contest for public office, especially where it determines who qualifies to participate in politics.

To a large extent, the justification advanced by political parties for the high cost of nomination forms is implausible. Political parties claim that the high monetary value placed on the nomination forms is a due diligence measure to distinguish pretenders from contenders. To the parties, it is a parameter for measuring interest, seriousness, and commitment to contest for office.

The reliance on the high cost of nomination forms as a due diligence measure indicts political parties for failing to invest in long-term leadership recruitment, development, retention, and transition. If parties maintain consistent, inclusive, and structured engagements with party members on policy, leadership, and governance, it will address the leadership recruitment question. Through strategic engagement opportunities, the leadership philosophy and values of political parties can be espoused and inculcated into party members ahead of the electioneering season. Prospective contenders can be identified, groomed, and empowered to contest for party nominations. It is counterproductive for political parties to wait for the election commission to ring the election bell before engaging in leadership recruitment. The true test of a party’s commitment to decommercializing politics is its long-term leadership recruitment approach and strategy.

Furthermore, the over-dependence on revenue from the sale of nomination forms to run party affairs exposes the poor health of political parties. Ideally, political parties fund candidates, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria, where candidates fund political parties. Political parties cannot generate revenue through membership dues, levies, and donations hence the high cost.

The current funding model of political financing creates unfair competition and shrinks the political space to the detriment of competent leaders, youth, and women. Political finance reform is an urgent necessity to ensure the political space is accessible to all persons regardless of age, economic class, tribe, and creed. Any meaningful reform of party funding or campaign funding should deliver the following four key outcomes; first, limit the influx of unregulated money in the political process; secondly, enhance the capacity of political parties on resource mobilization and maintenance of proper account of financial transactions and assets register; thirdly, strengthen INEC’s capacity to monitor and ensure compliance with political finance regulations and; fourth explore new pathways of candidate selection that de-emphasizes the place of money and economic power over competence, capacity and character.

The net effect of these outcomes will be improved safeguards for the political space, party supremacy, and candidate recruitment.

• Samson Itodo, sitodo@yiaga.org

SIR: When APC and PDP pegged the costs of presidential form at N100million and N50million respectively, Nigerians thought many politicians will be edged out of the contest. That candidates in their numbers, are trooping to buy presidential forms, particularly in the ruling party, has confirmed the opposite. So far, the APC has 24 aspirants who have bought forms and many are expecting to follow suit.

With the low quality of leadership in the country, the emergence of many aspirants would ordinarily be seen as a welcome. If not for the monetization of democracy by our politicians, the idea of many aspirants will foster competition which could bode well for the country’s growth and development in the end.

However, one hopes that the swelling number of aspirants is not due to the monetary reward that democracy confers on politicians. Politics in Nigeria has become a gravy train to self-enrichment. The lifestyle of our political office holders are tempting and can push many Nigerians to buy these forms in the hope of recouping their investment at some point. The electorate who hold the ace for electing leaders are usually caught in the web of choosing between the good and bad candidates which political parties present. Politicians use huge amount of resources to buy the conscience of voters and influence the results of elections to their favours.

With regards to the aspirants who are scrambling to buy forms, some perhaps did it for recognition. Whatever may be the reasons for the large numbers of aspirants, the development indicates that our fledgling democracy is ripe. Indeed, the political culture is evolving with more Nigerians accepting democracy as the best system of government. What worries Nigerians is that many of the aspirants have purchased forms without a clear blueprint on how to address the myriad problems or challenges bedevilling the country.

Nigerians expect the aspirants to have in their kits, robust programmes and policies aimed at unifying the fragmented country, tackling the insecurity and fixing our deteriorating economy. Besides, one expects to see or hear from them the solutions they have rolled out which will resolve the age-long impasse between government and ASUU. The strike embarked upon by ASUU has kept university students at home with consequent alteration of academic calendar which will invariably affect the development of our educational system.

On the whole, the large number of aspirants should strengthen our democracy and provide an avenue for delegates to choose the best among them.

The electorate should also shine their eyes and elect only credible candidates who are competent enough to provide democracy dividends to them.

• Ibrahim Mustapha, Pambegua, Kaduna State.

There are close to two hundred independent nations and territories in the world ranging in size from geographical behemoths like Russia and Canada, to little specks in the oceans like Grenada. Other countries like China and India boast of populations in excess of one billion people each and others like Andorra and Bermuda boast of populations of a few hundred thousand. In terms of the condition of people in the various countries, this varies over such a broad spectrum that it is futile to make any attempt at categorisation. Before the rise of the nation state, especially in Europe, borders hardly existed in any meaningful way and people moved freely over the globe putting down roots where they thought they could make a living. In many cases however, such movement was not voluntary, the greatest example of this being the Trans-Atlantic movement of Africans over a four hundred year period when an estimated twelve million Africans were forcibly taken from Africa and enslaved on plantations in the New World, to work from cradle to grave, creating wealth for the people of Europe. It is the wealth created by African slaves that built the foundation for the affluence now enjoyed by people of European descent in Mainland Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and people of European descent in South Africa.

With the end of slavery within the Western hemisphere beginning from 1834 in places under British control, the USA in 1865 and Brazil in 1888, there was an acute shortage of labour because the newly freed slaves exercised their new found freedom by walking away from the places of their enslavement thereby creating a big problem for people with huge plantations to run. This led to a situation in which people were transported from mainly China and India to replace the black people who had been liberated from slavery. The British turned to their possessions in India and recruited indentured servants who were expected to work for very low wages for a certain short period before coming back to their places of origin. The Americans were at that point beginning to build the railways which stitched their large country together. They would have found it impossible to do this without the large scale importation of labour from China which is why you have a visible population of ethnic Chinese in the USA today. In the period after the civil war in the States, there was a shortage of labour needed to drive the vastly expanded industrial sector of their economy and so they turned to Europe for migrants to fill the slack, which is why there are so many Americans with consonant heavy names from Eastern Europe, mainly Poland as well as Roman Catholics from Ireland and Italy. In all this time, there was a steady trickle of Jews escaping the persecution and periodic pogroms visited on them in many parts of Eastern Europe including Russia and in the time just before the Second World War, in Germany. The continuous arrival of people in the USA over the last five centuries means that that country is a nation of migrants, the indigenous people of the place having been hunted down, killed and their land expropriated from them.

A new kind of migration took place in the period immediately following the end of the Second World War. With millions of people dying in the war, there was an acute shortage of unskilled labour in the formerly belligerent countries of Britain, France and Germany. The British turned to their former slave colonies in the West Indies and brought over thousands of black people to do what we should not shy away from describing as the dirty jobs which native Britons shunned and perhaps loathed with a passion. It is clear that this policy was not well thought out because nobody quite realised the consequences of bringing people over from their own countries to solve a short term problem. The West Indians had been persuaded to look at Britain as the great Mother country which needed their help and they were therefore willing to come over to do their bit. Not even they, gave any thought to what was going to happen to them within a community in which they stood out so prominently on account of the colour of their skin.

Over in Germany, the same problem was being faced and the same solution was proffered. Germany and Turkey, at that time the leading part of the now defunct Ottoman Empire were allies in the First World War. They lost that war but memories of their alliance persisted and so it was almost natural that the Germans turned to their former allies to provide what they described as guest workers for their factories which were beginning to come back to life after the war. These migrations of course have had a profound effect on the demography of those countries and explains why the current English football team has a preponderance of young men of Caribbean descent and why the German football team has, over the last few years paraded players with names like Khedira, Ozil, Can and Guandogan even if some of them are now questioning the essence of their German connection. In this respect, no other country is more visible than France which has won the World cup twice in the space of twenty years with teams made up primarily of players of Arabic, African and West Indian descent with a sprinkling of ethnic Frenchmen thrown in for good measure, a veritable United Nations of footballers representing one nation. It is worthy of mention that the French parading their team of stars from all over the world are once again favourites to win the World cup for the third time when the finals of that competition take place in Qatar in a few months’ time.

The USA is above everything else a nation of migrants not even because virtually all Americans can trace their origins overseas but because over the last one hundred and fifty years, more than half of the population of the country have arrived from somewhere else. In those years also, the contribution of migrants to every facet of life has been overwhelming. The USA is by far the capital of food varieties and the world is eating all kinds of foods brought to the USA by migrants and have evolved in different ways to  a truly wondrous mixture of cuisines which have been exported all over the world even if there is a downside to this phenomenon. The world has taken to eating American foods even when they are nutritionally inferior to locally available foods which are being or have been forced out of the menu available in other parts of the world where they have been domesticated. There are of course other aspects where migrant vigour has pushed the USA along the path of sustained development and as long as the very high standard of living associated with this country persists, she will continue to be a lodestone, attracting people from all over the world. This inevitably means that as long as migrants continue to arrive, they will precipitate various forms of advancement which guarantees even greater development. There is therefore a strong suggestion that migrants contribute a great deal to their host communities so that on balance migrations should be encouraged as much as possible. But what we see in practice is the direct opposite of this observation. The world is not likely to forget in a hurry that the immediate past President of the US, Donald Trump was so obsessed with keeping immigrants out of his country that he talked about and did little else besides building what he called a beautiful wall to keep illegal Latin immigrants from entering the United States through their southern border with Mexico. His otherwise inexplicable popularity with the American electorate gained traction as a result of this policy of exclusion.

In the period since the end of the Second World War, the rich nations of the world have built up extensive welfare states in which a great deal of services are free at the point of delivery. In Britain for example, the National Health Service is guaranteed to provide decent healthcare services to those who need them without having to pay for them directly. This and other welfare services may be free to the recipient but it is paid for in full by everyone who has a job and pays taxes which swallow up a considerable proportion of all legitimate income. There are utilities aplenty but they are paid for on a cash and carry basis and those who default in making payment for any service are instantly cut off and denied service. You do not need a vivid imagination to think of what happens to a household which cannot pay their electricity bill in the dead of winter. In terms of shelter, most people are a salary or two away from homelessness and this means that being in one form of employment or the other is a matter of life or death. These may be the features of life in the West but the options available are way more attractive than what is available to most people in the poorer countries where, as in the case of Nigeria, no less than 70% or 140million people are, at least technically regarded as poor, many of them very poor. This means that they have no access to education, healthcare, decent shelter and food which are wanting in both quality and availability. The irony of this particular situation is that these poor people are most unlikely to scrape together the means necessary to effect their migration to friendlier climes where, at least in their fevered imagination, there is almost unlimited access to life more abundant. The people who are able to vote for a higher standard of living with their feet are those who already enjoy a standard of living far in excess of what is available to their much less fortunate compatriots. These people may be welcome in their destination because they have the skills which are required to further drive the development of their already sophisticated host communities. In other words, they are a form of development aid from the underdeveloped to vastly more developed countries.

The problem about migration begins when a large number of undeveloped people decide to gate crash into developed countries in search of greener pastures. They are looked upon as jobbers in search of free meals and are therefore ruthlessly excluded from the rich countries sometimes in the crude manner of building walls across borders. The situation is made worse when the would-be migrants profess a religion which is different from the prevailing Christianity of the Western countries. Unfortunately, right now millions of people are fleeing from the chaos in Syria and it has been made clear that they are especially not welcome in fortress Europe where strong arm tactics have been prepared to effect their exclusion from paradise as it were.

The problem of migration is global but can you imagine the chaos and confusion which will ensue if just 10% of Nigerians, 20 million souls in all, decide to hightail it out of their country which at the moment is a hot bed of existential challenges?

Lagos Lawyer, Mr Femi Falana SAN recently argued that former President Goodluck Jonathan is not eligible to contest for the presidency of Nigeria again having spent five years as president between 2010 and 2015. Falana premised his argument on a 2018 constitutional amendment which purportedly bars Jonathan from contesting because if he (Jonathan) becomes the president of Nigeria in 2023, he will spend a cumulative nine years as president whereas the amended constitutional provision on which Falana relied on limits the occupant of the position to two terms of eight years.

I am not conversant with the amended constitutional provision that Falana relied on but I dare say that Falana got his interpretation of that provision wrong. A law does not take a retroactive effect and the 2018 constitutional amendment does not affect Jonathan. It can only affect a fresh president from the date it was signed into law. What if Jonathan had won the 2015 presidential election, didn’t Falana know that he would have been in office for nine years by 2019?

The immediate past Governor of Yobe State, Senator Ibrahim Geidam was a governor for 11 years. He was a deputy governor in 2007 when he was elected into office with his then boss, late Governor Mamman Bello Ali. When his boss died in early 2008, Alhaji Geidam became the governor of the state and completed the remaining three years left by his late boss. He contested twice for his own term in 2011 and 2015 which he won. By the time he left office in 2019, he had accumulated a cumulative 11 years as Governor of Yobe State against eight years which the constitution stipulates for a governor to be in office.

Therefore, against the foregoing background, Jonathan is constitutionally qualified for another four years in office as president of Nigeria. But, should Jonathan run again for the position? I do not think so for some of these reasons adduced below.

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has had his palm kernel cracked for him by the benevolent spirit as far as politics is concerned. President Jonathan is the only Nigerian who had tasted the four positions in the executive arm of government; the deputy governor, governor, vice president, and president.

President Jonathan is the first man among the class of deputy governors of 1999 to become a governor in 2005. President Jonathan had wanted to retain his position as the governor of Bayelsa State in 2007 when divine providence catapulted him to the position of the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  From the class of deputy governors of 1999, only three people ever reached the position of a governor. They are; Mahmud Shinkafi, Ibrahim Ganduje and Alliyu Wammako of Zamfara, Kano and Sokoto States respectively.

Dr. Jonathan is the first and only democratically elected Vice President to become the president as a result of the death of his then boss, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Dr. Jonathan is the first and the only sitting civilian president to concede defeat and handed over to his opponent after a presidential contest. Dr. Jonathan demonstrated the true virtues of a God-fearing man by calling then General Buhari to congratulate him.

Perhaps that singular action saved thousands and millions of Nigerians from being killed as a result of bloodshed which the then opposition had purportedly promised to unleash across the length and breadth of the land of Nigeria if they had lost the election. Those who today derisively call President Jonathan  a coward are ignorant of the fact that nobody knew who would have survived the stampede and catastrophe that would have been ensued across the land of Nigeria had Jonathan behaved like other African leaders who usually refuse to concede defeat.

Former President of the United States of America, Barack Obama also contributed to Jonathan’s loss of the presidency. Obama showed undue interest in the 2015 presidential election and surreptitiously worked for the then opposition against President Jonathan. Who knows if Jonathan would have been given the Laurent-Gbagbo treatment if he had refused to vacate power?

Since Jonathan left office he has been traversing Africa and the world on peace keeping mission. The world, especially Africa leaders have been venerating him for the peaceful role he played in 2015. One still wonders why those in charge of Nobel Award have not deemed it fit to confer the Nobel Peace laureate on Jonathan because he truly deserves it.

However, the rumour of Dr. Jonathan scheming to return to power is not advisable. What is he coming back to do or what did he forget in Aso rock? One mistake Jonathan made while as president was that he failed to utilize the position very well especially for the southern part of Nigeria. Perhaps he was hoping to do that on his second term which never came.  Jonathan forgot that the presidency of Nigeria with over 300 tribes is not a walk in the park.

Jonathan should thank his creator for making him a great man and a member of the minute elite club that had ruled Nigeria since independence.  The Presidency of Nigeria position which Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief MKO , et al couldn’t attain after repeated attempts in their lifetime was what Jonathan achieved on a platter of Gold.

Jonathan’s comeback as the president of Nigeria means that power will quickly return to the North in 2027 even after Buhari’s eight years on the seat. Jonathan has the right to his personal ambition and fulfillment but he should place a higher premium on the ambition of the southern part of Nigeria who would want to retain the presidency for eight years from 2023. Only a man like General Buhari with his cult-like follower ship could have defeated President Jonathan in 2015 and since God allowed that to happen, Jonathan shouldn’t overstretch the good luck in his life because it may result in anticlimax.

• Maduako, writes from Owerri via ifeanyimaduako2017@gmail.com (08061562735)

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported in the second quarter of 2020 that there were 76,526 PhD holders in Nigeria. Indeed, in the absence of current and useful data, we can conservatively approximate the 2022 figure to be somewhere around 85,000. And there are approximately more than 20,000 PhD students in Nigerian universities. This ought to be beautiful statistics in terms of educational data for national development. But then the good statistical taste soured when you link the large number of PhD holders with the raging unemployment figure and quality cum relevance of education in the country. Still following the 2020 figure, NBS said 16.9 percent are unemployed. The breakdown is that while approximately 46,000 are fully employed, 15,000 are underemployed and 12,000 are unemployed. And the worst evidence in this situation analysis is that a large chunk of the approximate 20,000 PhD candidates will be added to the unemployment figures on the completion of their doctoral studies.

Then there is the fundamental matter of the strength of these PhD holders, and their capacities and competences to intervene intellectually, through significant researches, in Nigeria’s socioeconomic predicaments. The quality of the doctoral degrees from Nigerian universities is tied in distinctly with the status of the universities, their infrastructural dynamics and academic acumen. Once we take ASUU’s outcry over the state of Nigerian universities into consideration, as well as the parlous working condition of academic staff, then we return with a negative verdict on what to expect from the doctorate degree holders that we are churning out every year. The state of higher education in Nigeria makes it extremely difficult to produce efficient and foresighted PhD holders with the philosophical sensibility that deduce and resolve problems logically and within a larger picture of human well-being and their humanity.

A fair diagnosis therefore is that the doctoral programs in Nigerian universities are essentially devoid of their fundamental core: the philosophical essence of a doctor of philosophy degree. This diagnosis takes its root from the stilted ideological premise of the National Policy on Education. In making a distinction between the humanities on the one hand, and the natural, social and management sciences on the other hand; and in preferring the latter to the former, the federal government grounds the Nigerian educational system on a philosophical path that rejects philosophy, history and the humanities, as being significant for national integration and development. If the philosophical sensibility is central to the nature and relevance of the humanities, then relegating the humanities to second fiddle in the national development equation in the NPE is not only tantamount to damaging the fulsomeness of what the doctorate implies in grasping the essence and fundaments of life and existence and being, it ought to be done more creatively.

The anti-intellectualism of the Nigerian political class is demonstrated in the lackadaisical attitude paid to the health of higher education in Nigeria, as the very fulcrum of human capital development that sustains the backbone of the Nigerian state as a developmental entity. The universities produce human capital as a consequence of researches into existing and unfolding bodies of knowledge. And these human capitals are conditioned to also achieve the advancement of knowledge through their commitment to adding to the existing bodies of knowledge either in industries or by further researches. When the universities turn out students, the graduates are the finished products of specific knowledge about the societies and the economies. And they are expected to generate further knowledge that keeps oiling knowledge production for the sake of the society and the nation. The principles, theories, formulas, hypotheses and postulates that are taught these graduates are supposed to flow through them into the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the society and the good of humanity.

Philosophy features prominently in the understanding and analysis of the body of knowledge that is gathered and utilized. Philosophy and the philosophical methods, especially critical thinking, moderate both basic and applied researches, especially in outlining, analyzing and synthesizing ideas, issues, problems, data, and the direction in which to drive the issues germane to societal progress and the future of our civilization. Most fundamentally, philosophy insists on the clarity of ideas and issues, and rigor in the pursuit of answers and resolutions through properly formulated queries and questions. Most fundamentally, philosophy—as the love of wisdom—is concerned with the appropriated knowledges and facts that could be properly deployed for the sake of human well-being. Wisdom is not just an abstraction. It has functional tangibility. It asks the question: what do we do with what we know—about the world and about ourselves? The highest point of the academic accumulation of such functional knowledge is the doctorate.

That is the highest degree that a university awards. Philosophy, as the love of wisdom, therefore sums the zenith of the love for knowledge and its utility in practice. It stands to reason, therefore, that the highest degree would be a doctor of philosophy. Having a doctorate, however, does not make the holder a philosopher. But this is because we have used “philosopher” here in the sense of someone who had dedicated his or her life studying philosophy as a discipline, and understanding its methods and subject matters. But there is a broad view of philosophy that makes every human a philosopher. In this context, we are all proto-philosophers to the extent that we are curious about our existence and what it entails. A PhD holder approximates philosophy to the extent that she achieves knowledge in a specialized field that speaks to a problem-solving capacity and critical thinking. At this level, a PhD, properly so-called, must be able to apply the accumulated knowledge to problems and predicaments. She must be able to search and re-search in ways that clears the path for solutions and re-solutions. After all, philosophy generally used to be the sum of all practical knowledge.

However, the real issue is not to ask if everyone with a PhD is a philosopher. On the contrary, we should ask if it is desirable to make a PhD holder a philosopher. The answer is an emphatic ‘Yes’. Philosophy goes beyond a method of research. When we seek a philosopher in a PhD, we are demanding that a doctorate degree holder must be essentially trained to be a thinker—that is the philosophy in the PhD. A philosopher in this sense develops the perspicacity—the deep vision that allows for a relationship between existence, meaning and values in life. And the thread that runs through the three is the accumulated knowledge that relates values to the meaning that makes existence bearable. When a candidate therefore applies for a PhD in a university, she enters into a journey of discovery, through a disciplined research regimen, that outline the relationship between the knowledge accumulated and the imperative of being human. Knowledge becomes useless— from physics and quantum computing to sociology and human geography—if it is not conditioned by the human search for meaning. The methodological rigor involved in researching for the PhD involves perseverance, creativity, imaginative learning, critical and analytic thinking, passion, patience, and communicative openness. However, all these open up the candidate to an empathetic mindset that sees the larger picture about humans and humanity, and the functionality of the acquired knowledge in the larger search for meaning. It is the capacity to see the larger vision about humanity and the values that make life meaningful that makes the PhD holder a philosopher—a thinker with the imperative of making life and living worthwhile. From the above, it is not difficult for the reader to see how the doctorate-as-philosopher becomes critical to the task of nation-building in Nigeria. With an enlarged mind, radiating in those dimensions of being and being-ness that my little 2010 book characterizes as The Joy of Learning, such a doctorate holder transcends the ethnic and religious bias that cripples the national integration project in Nigeria. The discipline requires in accumulating and sieving through knowledge to determine which is relevant and which does not condition open-mindedness. A critical and analytic mind enables the capacity to see how we can move beyond the frivolous and the superficial as a people towards a deeper understanding of our collective malaise and the way out of it. Unfortunately, however, it is also not difficult for the acute reader to see how transforming a PhD holder into a thinker becomes a rather herculean task in Nigeria. The condition that makes higher education the context for such transformation is just not there in the first place. The universities themselves are not motivated by any philosophical clarity about the vision of their existence and objectives vis-à-vis the postcolonial knowledge production of Nigeria and her search for development.

As a first order of business therefore, the objectives of higher education in Nigeria must be revisioned and re-strategized, especially within the national policy on education. The place of the humanities, and of philosophy in the humanities and in national development, must be re-aligned properly and creatively side-by-side the natural, social and management sciences. Philosophy is fundamentally central to the understanding of the educational dynamics of a nation as it is to the core of the doctoral degree that a student earns from such a higher education that is meant to produce the human capital to transform such a nation. Once philosophy is missing anywhere in this equation, hope is lost!

• Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary & Professor, National Institute For Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos – tolaopa2003@gmail.com

Issues affecting Lagos State naturally bothers me. I  was born in Lagos, had my primary and a part of my secondary education in Lagos and lived in Surulere for the first 29 years of my youthful life. There is a Lagos side of me which I should say has had a certain level of influence in my thinking. If I am deemed a liberal, we should thank Lagos, if I appear not to be a bigot or ethnocentric in my approach to national issues, it can be traced to my sojourn in Lagos.

Till date my parents reside in Lagos, both parents of mine made a living in Lagos from which they provided much for myself and my siblings , even now, it is like a second home to me and I draw a lot of memories and experiences from the state that never sleeps.

Lagos offered me the opportunity of seeing Nigeria as She is, through contact with the motley of tribes and ethnic groups that have called Lagos home, I was able to deduce that no culture or  tribe was superior to the other, and that it was possible for all Nigerians to live together despite the differences posed by both culture and religion. As a Christian I had Muslim friends and neighbors, we mixed freely , and respected each other as we learned about each person’s culture and beliefs. Lagos for many then and now was what I will call the poster boy of tolerance.

So it bothers me when an organization going by the name Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC all of a sudden decides to stand logic on its head and perhaps fuel some sort of acrimony between the people of Lagos using religion. MURIC has of late earned immense notoriety following a number of its comments one would deem as incendiary, all in the name of seeking to advance what it perceives or calls Muslim interests.  Like a  ‘jaguda’ , its leader,  Professor Ishaq Akintola  has sought to flay tempers by its obnoxious demand that the sitting Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu should not seek to return as Governor  of the City of Excellence not because Sanwo-Olu has not performed as a sitting governor or has fallen short of the provisions required by one to occupy the office of governor but an ugly daub of religion.

While I understand that  our nation’s politics has been frazzled by the ethnic and religious strains, it still beats me that the likes of Akintola would seek to use the very thing that should unite us for our common good to destroy that cord at a point in time when tempers are rife and the nation seems more divided than ever before.

The professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies is wondering why Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is seeking a second term and believes that Lagos should have a Muslim as governor. He claims that Sanwo-Olu  having spent his first four years in office should not seek another four as he is entitled to by the Nigerian Constitution . Akintola argues or offers a jaguda sort of logic when he claims that since Sanwo-Olu’s  predecessor Akinwunmi Ambode had done four years earlier, Christians in Lagos had had their  fair share of 8 years and thus Sanwo-Olu ought to step aside for a Muslim!

Akintola much forgets that prior to the emergence both Ambode and Sanwo-Olu, two Muslims in the persons of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola  both spent a whooping sixteen years dwarfing whatever possible combination of years Sanwo-Olu and Ambode could ever have. Now should we deploy Professor Akintola’s jaguda logic , and stretch our imaginations into 1979, adding Lateef Jakande’s four years to the tally of 16 years for the Muslims while adding Michael Otedola’s two years to that of the Christians we would still arrive at a deficit for the Christians after adding four years to Babajide Sanwo-Olu..

Akintola’s jaguda logic on one hand possesses  immense contempt for performance and continuity, such a posture betrays a lack of understanding of the issues of governance. Perhaps, Akintola must believe that we belong to the stone ages where religion solely ruled the affairs of men, he must be inured to certain trends and developments and cannot understand that in a democracy that an elected person under the Nigerian Constitution  can run for a second term if he deems it fit. Akintola also shows contempt to the average voter in Lagos since he assumes that it is a given that should Sanwo-Olu decide not to run that the system by virtue of the edict of MURIC woukd  settle automatically for a Muslim. He must think that even the delegates of the parties are zombies for that matter.

On a lighter side Akintola also forgets that asides Christians and Muslims , Lagos is home to a number of local religions, I am wondering why  he is not advocating for Oro, Voodoo , Sango and Ifa worshippers to replace Sanwo-Olu since they are also religions and have not also had their turn in office. Even free thinkers should  also agitate for their turn to govern Lagos, since the likes of Akintola believe that each religion must take its turn, then in fairness, i insist  that a Sango worshipper should be allowed to occupy Alausa Ikeja.

Let me state that irrespective of what anyone thinks Governor Sanwo-Olu is entitled to seek a second term.

May Nigeria Succeed