The Federal Government is set to implement a new policy that would bring about transparency in the government operations and ease the process of doing business in the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari made this known today when a foreign business man presented what was termed policies on enhancing Nigeria’s trade and economic competitiveness at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The President said that the new policies will be focused on increasing efficiency and transparency in government operations, and the blocking of leakages from revenue generating agencies.
President Buhari said that his administration is fully committed to closing all the loopholes in the revenue generating agencies, increasing their efficiency in trade facilitation and ensuring transparency in all government businesses so as to attract greater foreign direct investments into the country.
He added that the Nigeria Customs Service, Ministry of Trade and Investment, Ministry of Finance and other relevant agencies will be encouraged to adopt some of the positive ideas contained in the presentation for implementation next year.
The foreign business man, Mr. Lim Chee Boon, had told President Buhari that virtually all the countries that implemented his company’s solutions have successfully reduced corruption in their import and export processes. [myad]
I am saddened by the pretenses being expressed and exhibited by members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who are presumed to be displaying ‘public support’ for former President Goodluck Jonathan against the continuous pounding and crucification of his person by the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). Their dramatized support is draped with the same mannerism that greeted their incompetence and selfishness.
In accepting their guilt, having come under constant pummeling by the Nigerian mob, dominated media, they are now pleading with the man that has the ‘yam and the knife’ that came to power with an agenda either of the populace or selfish; to treat them and his 95 percent voters alike. Making it look like the goose and the gander theory.
How is this possible?
President Muhammadu Buhari had, at his inauguration, presented a three point agenda of curbing corruption, insecurity and unemployment. His party also promised to pay N5,000 which is now less than a paltry 20 dollars – due to the falling naira exchange rate – as social package to the unemployed Nigerians with the strategy still being worked out.
With a sloppy and wobbling economy that is without shocks, President Buhari and the APC’s promises can’t be fulfilled except some measures are taken, which includes the disbanding of the very mysterious, non formal appropriated and unaudited security votes, managed by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in the case of the federal executive, Security Officer in the National Assembly, the judiciary.
It would have been expected that the PDP put up stronger arguments and campaigns in their areas of advantage as per public perception and continually defend their conducts for tempering with the now sacrilegious security votes which have always served as the shock absorbers of the incumbents in successive administrations at times of re-elections. And not the despicable cry babies that they have since turned themselves to. It is a fact that except for Nigerians’ love for sensation, the security vote has long been in existence; it is a tradition that crept in from the military era. The present administration is however, leveraging on and exerting on its probe as long as it can defend it and make the administration remain popular before finding a balance in fulfilling it electoral promises to the citizens of our collapsing federated states with its never improving socio infrastructural deficits.
It is therefore unimpressive for the PDP to at this time, circulate a statement calling for the open probe of GEJ. It is childish, ill timed and so irrelevant. The man, GEJ has long been on the focus of the APC led administrations’ probes. He has been under their radar with investigations and conclusions against him made a long time before he handed over power to the then opposition. His media arraignments also dominated radio discussions, newspaper opinions and television discourse fora. There are a few APC governors who have not taken upon themselves habits of dressing down Jonathan at will and on every opportunity given to them by beat journalists.
Several documents have been accessed or deliberately released on social media. The same social media that PMB acknowledged as being the springboard in his ride to power is being indirectly gagged through the senate despite its current usefulness as a library for Jonathan’s approval documents. Every Tom, Dick and Harry is in possession of the evidential documents which are drawing up conclusions or giving interpretations to the role played by the former NSA, Sambo Dansuki, the errand boy. It clarifies that he was also just carrying out his duties and responsibilities and can only be convicted in the court of law if he diverted what he was expected to disburse or hadn’t procured things he was meant to procure.
President Buhari was a former military head of state. He understand the game and he is also surrounded by former civilian governor and Vice President, they all know how funds are loosely managed in the NSA’s and SO’d offices. We should understand that he also served as a close confident of former Head of State, Late Sani Abacha, heading an office, the Petroleum Trust Fund that had similar extra-ordinaries functions. He waited all these while to go for the jugular that is now christened blocking of economic drain pipes in the Nigerian states.
It would have been expected that the PDP succumbs to the lesser party category that it has relegated and denigrated itself than coming to the public to pretend that they are behind a man they sold away like Joseph in the run up to the 2015 General Elections. The cynosure of abuse of power, corruption and disassociated from his role in sustaining democratic tenets except in a few occasions that his strides are mentioned reflexively by those who would dare not try such consciously like in the case of Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola most recently.
Jonathan’s mobilization of the military and men of the Department of States Services to Edo and Osun in the cause of ensuring peaceful elections in the aforementioned states was not taken lightly by the then opposition APC and now ruling party. President Buhari and the party condemned the actions, interpreting them as a compromise in the part of the departments in the exercise of their constitutional duties, then seen as a pretense by Jonathan to rig the elections. Personnels in those departments were severely punished after the victory of the APC for those acts. But today, the PDP has since forgotten those incidents and are now playing the blind and deaf game to the same party and its leader’s mobilization of more of those armed personnel ahead and in the course of gubernatorial elections in its controlled states of; Kogi and Bayelsa.
They haven’t impressed on the public on the role played by these personnels. The viral videos of their escapades are on the internet showing clips of election rigging that were allegedly perpetrated by these so called personnels. The President has since expressed disappointment in the conducts and the inconclusiveness of the ‘Inconclusive National Electoral Commission’ monitored elections.
I feel the PDP should have paid more attention in such areas where they have tenable arguments than re-opening a closed case awaiting formalities that can only form picture news as all, about the looting in the NSA office, other holding points for funds, stealing spree and the cluelessness of GEJ and his administration has been exhaustively reported.
All the PDP as a party need do while their members are being allegedly singled out for probes is to return to the drawing board with their eyes wide open strategizing on their new moves at ensuring that attempts at turning the country into a one party state fails and not converging at every space available to wail like the wailing wailers that they are. Because as at now despite the fact that the constitution is enshrined with the need for a minority leader to exist from an opposition party in all the legislative houses in the federation many have been intimidated or hoodwinked out of those houses in the new total victory mantra.
The PDP can’t stop Jonathan from being prosecuted or disallow a prescribed jail term for him. Only President Muhammadu Buhari has the powers to do so. He is exercising it and you must allow him use his powers that the 95 percent, about 15 million voters have so entrusted to him. We are nurturing our unity and purposes for being together as a nation. Let it be on record that a former president was probed, found guilty and jailed. Let it also be on record that the government that jailed him; that same administration also scrapped the traditional security votes but are unfortunately still being operated. And made government so transparent to the extent that it too can withstand probes and prosecutions at the tail end of its tenure whether in four years or eight years.
Meanwhile, PMB has so many fronts that needs to be attended and championed at these time. Monetary policies have failed, fuel shortages are still being experienced, Indigenous People of Biafra are on civil rampage threatening secession, South West Coalition are behind IPOB, Boko Haram is on bumper to bumper against the government, Shiite Moslems have raised their head in Kaduna with Yobe, Kano and Bauchi on high alert while the Niger Delta Reformed Militants are also watching developments in the country. If these are not enough headaches for PMB it is not for you, the PDP to stop the prosecution and probable imprisonment of Jonathan. You possess no moral rights to do so because you sold him away.
President Muahammdu Buhari has identified poverty as the major cause of Nigeria’s security challenges.
According to the President, the insecurity in the North-East, abduction for ransom in the South and the sabotage of the oil industry in the delta region have one connection or the other with poverty and unemployment.
Speaking at a dinner he hosted in honor of the visiting Alumni Association of the Indian Defence Services Staff College, DSSC, Wellingon from where he received part of his own military training, Buhari gave assurance that the revival of industries will get his serious attention the moment he finishes with the 2016 budget preparation.
“Very soon, we will sit down to see how we can rehabilitate industries. We will do this in order to clear the problem of unemployment. We are meeting after the budget to see how to revive industry and secure the economy.”
He decried a situation in which 60 percent of the country’s 64 percent youth population was unemployed.
“This is extremely dangerous for our country.”
The delegation was led to the President by the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Ghanashyam and it included a number of retired Indian army generals who were course-mates of the President. [myad]
Nigeria Army has explained why the soldiers opened fire on members of the Shiite Islamic Group in Zaria, Kaduna state yesterday.
In a statement today, the Director of Army Public Relations, Colonel Sani Usman said that the Shiite sect on the orders of their leader, Ibrahim Elzak-zaky, allegedly attacked the convoy of Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, in Kaduna state.
He said that the attack took place while Buratai was on his way to pay homage on the Emir of Zazzau and attend the Passing Out Parade of 73 Regular Recruits Intake of Depot Nigerian Army in Zaria.
“The sect, numbering hundreds, carrying dangerous weapons, barricaded the roads with bonfires, heavy stones and tyres. They refused all entreaties to disperse and then started firing and pelting the convoy with dangerous objects.
“The barricade was obviously a deliberate attempt to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff and members of his entourage while on a legitimate official assignment as Special Guest of Honour at the passing out parade which has earlier been widely publicized.
“The troops responsible for the safety and security of the Chief of Army Staff on hearing explosion and firing were left with no choice than to defend him and the convoy at all cost as well as open up the barricaded road for law abiding citizens. This is in line with the Nigerian Army Rules of Engagement and Code of Conduct.”
Usman made it clear that such kind of behaviour would not be tolerated from any individual or groups and should not be allowed to repeat itself. [myad]
The Shiite Islamic Group has denied attacking the Nigeria Chief of Army, General Buratai which led to the killing of its members by soldiers in Zaria yesterday.
In a statement signed by Isak K and posted on the website of the movement, the Shiites said that the claim that Buratai “narrowly escaped assassination as a result of attack from Muslim brothers and Sisters of the Islamic Movement is a blatant lie.”
The statement claimed that members of the movement were unarmed and had gathered for a ceremony at their Husainiyyah base to change the flag on the dome of the building to herald the beginning of the month of Rabiul /Auwal- the birth month of Prophet Muhammad when the incident happened.
“Any excuse given by the military as reason for besieging Hussainiyyah and firing for hours, leading to the death of yet to be specified number of people, is considered a lie of the decade,” the movement added. [myad]
The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has expressed shock over the involvement of some media chiefs in the Sambo Dasuki corruption investigation and called for a thorough investigation over alleged billions they got from the said Dasuki.
The NGE position was contained in a communiqué issued today after its fourth quarterly standing committee meeting in Abuja. The communiqué was signed by NGE’s President, Garba Deen Mohammad and Secretary General, Victoria Ibanga.
“The Guild calls for thorough investigation into the circumstances leading to the involvement of some media executives in the payments from the office of the former National Security Adviser in the interest of fairness and justice.”
The body also criticizes attempts to gag the press and impinge on freedom of expression and urged the Senate to retrace its steps with respect to the Frivolous Petitions Bill currently under consideration.
Instead, the Guild called on the federal lawmakers to expunge Section 24 of the Cyber Crime Act which is considered to be more obnoxious than the Frivolous Petitions Bill.
While commending efforts of the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to recover stolen public funds, the Guild urged the government to respect the fundamental human rights of suspects in the process.
Part of the communiqué reads, “The Guild asks Government to thoroughly investigate every corruption case and pursue same diligently and to logical conclusion.
It advises Judges to be circumspect in granting injunctions and be more painstaking in the adjudication of corruption cases.
“The Guild warns state governments not to renege in the payment of the N18, 000 minimum wage and urges them to improve on their internally generated revenue, reduce the cost of governance and ensure due process in the award of contracts.
“The Guild is alarmed by the downward slide of the Naira which is impacting negatively on the purchasing power of Nigerians and wants the Federal Government to diversify the country’s revenue base to shore up the value of the national currency.
“The Guild notes with concern the perennial fuel scarcity in the country and call on the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the problem.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has extolled the winning spirit of Nigeria’s Under-23 team for gallantly defeating Algeria in the finals of the Under-23 Africa Nations championship yesterday.
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said that President Buhari was delighted that this was the first time that Nigeria attained this soccer glory in this particular category.
“The boys have worked incredibly and admirably so hard to to bring national glory to Nigeria, adding that” their tenacity and the passion to excel were factors that propelled the Under 23 team to victory.”
President Buhari said that he is proud of these “talented and determined young Nigerians” for winning laurels for the country, and breaking the record of giving Nigeria that opportunity for the first time. He said that his administration would give them every support and active encouragement to excel in the future. According to the President, his government would always reward hard work and excellence. He however advised the Under 23 Nigerian African champions to sustain the standard they have attained. [myad]
Soldiers have arrested the leader of the Shiit Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, has been arrested by soldiers. This came after heavy clash between the sect and the soldiers yesterday in Zaria.
The heave clash resulted in the loss of several lives with the Nigeria Army claimed that the Shiite Muslim group attacked the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, with the intent to assassinate him.
But El-Zakzaky’s group denied the army’s version of the incidence, claiming that the soldiers launched what they called unprovoked attack on defenceless people.
Heavy fighting broke out late night which dovetailed into the early hours of today after the troops returned to El-Zakzaky’s residence in Gyallesu area of Zaria at about 11pm.
The return of the troops was to effect the arrest the leader of the movement, but this was resisted by his members – resulting in the exchange of heavy gunfire and chants by members of the movement in the area, lasting for over two hours. [myad]
Minister of information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has accused the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan of turning Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into ATM machine or piggy bank of a few people. He also accused Jonathan government of having presided over the frenzied mop-up of dollars, either for ‘armsgate’ or for slush fund purposes, from the CBN to a point where it almost ran out of the hard currency.”
Lai Mohammed, who reacted to the comments credited to Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, that businesses may collapse in the next six months because the Buhari administration has mismanaged the economy, said: ”If there was still any honour left among thieves, there is no way the leaders of a party under whose watch the nation’s economy suffered a monumental mismanagement and would still have the temerity to insult a government that is working hard to turn things around or the citizens who are bearing the brunt of such mismanagement.
”It is now clear to all Nigerians that if the PDP had won the last general elections, Nigeria’s economy would not have survived one more month, considering the battering it received under the immediate past administration. It is therefore unconscionable that those who should show contrition and hunker down to avoid public opprobrium are the same ones pointing an accusing finger at the Buhari Administration.”
The Minister said that even though the Buhari administration met an economy that was in coma, it had refused to use that as an excuse for inaction, hence has been working hard on measures that will turn the economy around and greatly offer relief to Nigerians by lifting millions, not thousands, of people out of poverty through a massive social intervention policy.
“The outcome of the months of hard work will manifest soon in the 2016 national budget that will give succour to millions of Nigerians who are reeling from fallout of the solecism of the immediate past Administration that turned the country into a cash bazaar.”
The Minister advised the leaders of the PDP and members of the immediate past administration who are involved in the emerging cases of looting binge to urgently return to government coffers, the funds they have squirreled out of the commonwealth.
”They are lucky that Nigerians are not as incautious as they are, otherwise they would not be able to walk around freely, not to talk of having the effrontery to fire darts at the government that inherited their rot or the people who are suffering the consequences.
”They looted the billions of Naira that were allocated for the fight against insurgency, causing many innocent and patriotic soldiers to die needlessly, yet they are not remorseful. They looted the treasury to influence the last elections, doling out money as if it was going out of fashion, yet they continue to grandstand.
”In the latest revelation, a Minister under the immediate past dispensation admitted to sharing 600 million Naira to six Chairmen of the Contact and Mobilization Committee of the PDP for the last general elections, 300 million Naira to an account given by a former PDP chairman, 200 million Naira to a PDP governorship candidate and 100 million Naira to a former PDP governor. This is just one case out of many, yet these revelations are but a tip of the iceberg of what Nigerians will hear in the days ahead.”
Lai. Mohammed assured that despite the mind-boggling revelations about looting and the mismanagement by self-styled economic wizards, the economy will bounce back under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is bringing probity and transparency back into governance. [myad]
I have been reading some depressing stories about the state of the Obafemi Awolowo University, formerly University of Ife, which provide an equally depressing metaphor for the state of higher education in Nigeria. Great Ife as that university is known to its staff, students and alumni, is probably Nigeria’s first model university in every respect. Its major competitors were the University of Ibadan, the University of Lagos, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. But Ife was far ahead in terms of the beauty of its environment and the facilities made available to staff and students. Built with Cocoa money (not petro-dollar!) by the Western Region Government, that university was a perfect illustration of the idea of the university and it managed to produce generations of scholars and students, known for nothing but distinction.
I studied at the University of Calabar (Malabites!), and at the time, I took time out to visit all the universities I mentioned earlier. In those days, the top universities in Nigeria were tourism destinations. Ibadan and ABU had the best bookshops anyone could think of, and the bookshop in UNILAG was also professionally run. UNN students insisted that they attended the University of Nigeria! But Ife had the most beautiful campus. It was the only university that had a special publication titled “Ife University in Pictures.” I remember receiving copies of that publication as a gift at different times from my friends: Kola Ogunleye, Akeem Adewuyi, and Kayode Ajala who served in the university as a youth corps member.
Whenever UNIFE students spoke about their university, you would think it was a little piece of heaven that had been converted to a university. They spoke about beauty, excellence, intellect and great scholarship. Every lecturer on the campus was painted like an Oracle at Delphi. So much mythology mixed with tales of absolute excitement attracted other students to the university. Curiousity once took the better part of me also, and I went on a visit to see the marvellous depiction of a campus in physical reality. I was not disappointed. Great Ife was great. I did not go to the classrooms, but my friends took me round. The University had just opened a Bukateria at the time, where everything was available. Driving into the campus itself was a delight; well-manicured flowers at both ends, long, comforting, welcoming drive.
We moved from one hall of residence to the other, where the students felt as if they were God’s special creations, lucky to be receiving education in one of the brightest spots on planet earth. I didn’t like the arrogance of the typical Ife student or graduate, even the girls had a special bounce to their gait, even if less pretty than our girls in Calabar, and I always quipped that flowers and beauty do not make a university, rather it is the intellectual content, but even in this regard, Ife was well-regarded. It boasted of some of the brightest guys in academia: that was in those days when Nigerian universities were centres of excellence, knowledge, discipline and distinction. Let’s add culture, for truly culture matters, and in educational matters, culture is perhaps everything, and there were scholars in Ife who had grown to become cultural icons in their respective fields.
The visits to Ife as expected always ended up at the newly launched Bukateria. Good food. Great ambience. And from the Bukateria Complex, there was a place we always visited for palm wine. I think they called it Old Bukka, close to the theatre. The halls of residence – Awolowo, Fajuyi, Moremi, Angola, Mozambique were exciting too; the students behaved as if each hall was a country unto itself, with each student having a permanent badge of identity. The students had quadrangles in every Faculty, and a Sports Complex, where my friend Akeem ended up with a black belt in Karate in addition to a degree in Architecture. Indeed, the University of Ife that I describe could compete at the time with any top university in the world. I have been to quite a few as a regular or executive student, there is no doubt that the university environment, where the gown is a special symbol, is meant to be a combination of everything that is excellent, to impart knowledge in a friendly environment where the student is groomed to become great citizens in society and for knowledge to be produced for the advancement of mankind. That is the ideal!
This is why it is particularly tragic that the same Great Ife is now a shadow of its former self. These days, more than 30 years after that glorious era that I describe, students of Obafemi Awolowo University, are now reported to be protesting over dilapidated halls of residence and terrible facilities. That bad? There was even a picture in the newspapers of OAU students fetching water from a stream! And I read one columnist calling on the university’s alumni to hurry up and rescue their alma mater. Please, is it that bad? But the story of this tragedy is the larger story of the Nigerian education system. My generation (waoh, man don dey old oh) went to school in this same country, and from kindergarten to doctorate, we can only recall in comparison with emergent realities, good memories. Once upon a time, our secondary schools were like higher institutions, but today our universities, with a few exceptions, are no better than secondary schools, and the secondary schools are no better than poultries. In those days, there were school principals who were more famous than state governors, commissioners, and traditional rulers, because they were known for their ability to manage schools and produce excellent students. There were government schools, there were mission schools, there were private schools, but there were standards, competition and quality.
A whole generation of students has now passed through the Nigerian education system without any memory of those good old days. What they know is the story of distracted teachers who sell handouts or beg for money from parents. What they know is the tragedy of a school system where teachers are perpetually protesting about lack of pay, lack of facilities and the inadequacy of everything. What they know are lecherous male teachers asking for sex in exchange for marks. What they know are ugly campuses, with no toilet facilities, no water, no light. When they hear about the gown, what they imagine is a gown in tatters, now terribly disconnected from the town. In our time, companies and government departments came to campuses or the NYSC camp to recruit staff, the school-to-work transition was so smooth and certain that even nurses and midwives upon graduation were sure of a decent future.
As an undergraduate, our room was cleaned, our beds were laid, and the cafeteria fed us well at cheap rates; we had water, we had uninterrupted electricity supply, our teachers were smart and committed, life was good. There were students in Nigerian universities from all parts of the world; the ones from Southern Africa were even sponsored by the Nigerian government and they were happy to be here, so happy some of them focused on our girls and caused problems each time they got drunk. But today, who will send a student to Nigeria?
Everything changed the moment government went mad, and till date that madness has not been cured. That madness started in 1984 with the removal of education subsidy. My point is: the present administration must see the need to properly define the role of government in the education sector, and further work out the details about sustainable development. The rot of past decades is so deep, the crisis so bad, as has been described, and the marks are still evident, only sustained intervention can make the difference. And if I may say so, this is one sector where government subsidy will be a good idea.
It is of course clear that President Buhari in his second coming wants to be remembered as the man who fixed Nigeria. He tried it in his first coming but he didn’t have a definite mandate. Now, he has the people’s mandate, plus extra-ordinary goodwill, and he is still determined to achieve his original objective. He wants to catch thieves. Fine. The only irony is that even General Sani Abacha did exactly the same thing, but other governments came and rewrote the narrative. Thief-catching is certainly okay! Perfect. It will excite the mob, extract vengeance, and may be promote justice, but President Buhari must begin to look to the future and build his own concrete legacy. His record in Nigeria in the long run, will be his legacy, but it must be that kind of legacy that cannot be re-written by revisionists.
So, what then, is his legacy project? I believe he can capture the society at the younger level: by investing in the historians of tomorrow and making their today better; by re-creating the future of Nigeria, by atoning for the past, by using public funds to secure the future of Nigerian children. Those young boys and girls in Nigerian public schools who are being poorly served, sitting in badly shaped classrooms, being taught by unpaid teachers; those undergraduates in higher institutions who graduate and have to be re-schooled by their employers before they can be found manageable; those graduates who learn research and science by simulation and who cannot compete in the international arena of skills; those unhappy teachers in our schools who are busy looking for other jobs on the side; all the children in special schools who have been forgotten by government, all the Nigerian children who are out of school, all those boys and kids who graduate from university but know nothing – they all need President Buhari. And time is not on his side. And he cannot do it alone. Many state Governors have shown that they take their cue from him: most of them refused to appoint Commissioners, until he appointed Ministers. They should be part of this legacy project.
The President should launch an aggressive restoration programme in the education sector that takes off from where the Jonathan administration signed off. The rot is so age-long, so deep, that no Nigerian President in many years to come can ever have enough time to fix all the problems with Nigeria. But every President that comes along can either leave a scratch, a mark, or a legacy. It is up to President Buhari to make his choice. Asalaam. [myad]
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Great Ife And The Failure Of The Gown, By Reuben Abati
I studied at the University of Calabar (Malabites!), and at the time, I took time out to visit all the universities I mentioned earlier. In those days, the top universities in Nigeria were tourism destinations. Ibadan and ABU had the best bookshops anyone could think of, and the bookshop in UNILAG was also professionally run. UNN students insisted that they attended the University of Nigeria! But Ife had the most beautiful campus. It was the only university that had a special publication titled “Ife University in Pictures.” I remember receiving copies of that publication as a gift at different times from my friends: Kola Ogunleye, Akeem Adewuyi, and Kayode Ajala who served in the university as a youth corps member.
Whenever UNIFE students spoke about their university, you would think it was a little piece of heaven that had been converted to a university. They spoke about beauty, excellence, intellect and great scholarship. Every lecturer on the campus was painted like an Oracle at Delphi. So much mythology mixed with tales of absolute excitement attracted other students to the university. Curiousity once took the better part of me also, and I went on a visit to see the marvellous depiction of a campus in physical reality. I was not disappointed. Great Ife was great. I did not go to the classrooms, but my friends took me round. The University had just opened a Bukateria at the time, where everything was available. Driving into the campus itself was a delight; well-manicured flowers at both ends, long, comforting, welcoming drive.
We moved from one hall of residence to the other, where the students felt as if they were God’s special creations, lucky to be receiving education in one of the brightest spots on planet earth. I didn’t like the arrogance of the typical Ife student or graduate, even the girls had a special bounce to their gait, even if less pretty than our girls in Calabar, and I always quipped that flowers and beauty do not make a university, rather it is the intellectual content, but even in this regard, Ife was well-regarded. It boasted of some of the brightest guys in academia: that was in those days when Nigerian universities were centres of excellence, knowledge, discipline and distinction. Let’s add culture, for truly culture matters, and in educational matters, culture is perhaps everything, and there were scholars in Ife who had grown to become cultural icons in their respective fields.
The visits to Ife as expected always ended up at the newly launched Bukateria. Good food. Great ambience. And from the Bukateria Complex, there was a place we always visited for palm wine. I think they called it Old Bukka, close to the theatre. The halls of residence – Awolowo, Fajuyi, Moremi, Angola, Mozambique were exciting too; the students behaved as if each hall was a country unto itself, with each student having a permanent badge of identity. The students had quadrangles in every Faculty, and a Sports Complex, where my friend Akeem ended up with a black belt in Karate in addition to a degree in Architecture. Indeed, the University of Ife that I describe could compete at the time with any top university in the world. I have been to quite a few as a regular or executive student, there is no doubt that the university environment, where the gown is a special symbol, is meant to be a combination of everything that is excellent, to impart knowledge in a friendly environment where the student is groomed to become great citizens in society and for knowledge to be produced for the advancement of mankind. That is the ideal!
This is why it is particularly tragic that the same Great Ife is now a shadow of its former self. These days, more than 30 years after that glorious era that I describe, students of Obafemi Awolowo University, are now reported to be protesting over dilapidated halls of residence and terrible facilities. That bad? There was even a picture in the newspapers of OAU students fetching water from a stream! And I read one columnist calling on the university’s alumni to hurry up and rescue their alma mater. Please, is it that bad? But the story of this tragedy is the larger story of the Nigerian education system. My generation (waoh, man don dey old oh) went to school in this same country, and from kindergarten to doctorate, we can only recall in comparison with emergent realities, good memories. Once upon a time, our secondary schools were like higher institutions, but today our universities, with a few exceptions, are no better than secondary schools, and the secondary schools are no better than poultries. In those days, there were school principals who were more famous than state governors, commissioners, and traditional rulers, because they were known for their ability to manage schools and produce excellent students. There were government schools, there were mission schools, there were private schools, but there were standards, competition and quality.
A whole generation of students has now passed through the Nigerian education system without any memory of those good old days. What they know is the story of distracted teachers who sell handouts or beg for money from parents. What they know is the tragedy of a school system where teachers are perpetually protesting about lack of pay, lack of facilities and the inadequacy of everything. What they know are lecherous male teachers asking for sex in exchange for marks. What they know are ugly campuses, with no toilet facilities, no water, no light. When they hear about the gown, what they imagine is a gown in tatters, now terribly disconnected from the town. In our time, companies and government departments came to campuses or the NYSC camp to recruit staff, the school-to-work transition was so smooth and certain that even nurses and midwives upon graduation were sure of a decent future.
As an undergraduate, our room was cleaned, our beds were laid, and the cafeteria fed us well at cheap rates; we had water, we had uninterrupted electricity supply, our teachers were smart and committed, life was good. There were students in Nigerian universities from all parts of the world; the ones from Southern Africa were even sponsored by the Nigerian government and they were happy to be here, so happy some of them focused on our girls and caused problems each time they got drunk. But today, who will send a student to Nigeria?
Everything changed the moment government went mad, and till date that madness has not been cured. That madness started in 1984 with the removal of education subsidy. My point is: the present administration must see the need to properly define the role of government in the education sector, and further work out the details about sustainable development. The rot of past decades is so deep, the crisis so bad, as has been described, and the marks are still evident, only sustained intervention can make the difference. And if I may say so, this is one sector where government subsidy will be a good idea.
It is of course clear that President Buhari in his second coming wants to be remembered as the man who fixed Nigeria. He tried it in his first coming but he didn’t have a definite mandate. Now, he has the people’s mandate, plus extra-ordinary goodwill, and he is still determined to achieve his original objective. He wants to catch thieves. Fine. The only irony is that even General Sani Abacha did exactly the same thing, but other governments came and rewrote the narrative. Thief-catching is certainly okay! Perfect. It will excite the mob, extract vengeance, and may be promote justice, but President Buhari must begin to look to the future and build his own concrete legacy. His record in Nigeria in the long run, will be his legacy, but it must be that kind of legacy that cannot be re-written by revisionists.
So, what then, is his legacy project? I believe he can capture the society at the younger level: by investing in the historians of tomorrow and making their today better; by re-creating the future of Nigeria, by atoning for the past, by using public funds to secure the future of Nigerian children. Those young boys and girls in Nigerian public schools who are being poorly served, sitting in badly shaped classrooms, being taught by unpaid teachers; those undergraduates in higher institutions who graduate and have to be re-schooled by their employers before they can be found manageable; those graduates who learn research and science by simulation and who cannot compete in the international arena of skills; those unhappy teachers in our schools who are busy looking for other jobs on the side; all the children in special schools who have been forgotten by government, all the Nigerian children who are out of school, all those boys and kids who graduate from university but know nothing – they all need President Buhari. And time is not on his side. And he cannot do it alone. Many state Governors have shown that they take their cue from him: most of them refused to appoint Commissioners, until he appointed Ministers. They should be part of this legacy project.
The President should launch an aggressive restoration programme in the education sector that takes off from where the Jonathan administration signed off. The rot is so age-long, so deep, that no Nigerian President in many years to come can ever have enough time to fix all the problems with Nigeria. But every President that comes along can either leave a scratch, a mark, or a legacy. It is up to President Buhari to make his choice. Asalaam. [myad]