BusinessDay 21 Aug 2018

Tuesday 21 August 2018
10 BUSINESS DAY
C002D5556
COMMENT
MAZI SAM OHUABUNWA OFR
sam@starteamconsult.com
I
have been in the United States
of America attending family
events and attempting a vacation.
Before I left Nigeria, I was
really downcast with the turn of
events in country, especially the show
of shame happening in the political
circles: Rumours of planned decamping,
mass decamping and some descamping;
threats of impeachment and
attempted impeachments in the midst
of worsening insecurity and growing
poverty. Nigerian politicians seem to
be taking the people for a ride. For me
the political environment in the country
was unpleasant especially the high
display of impunity and rascality by
the security agencies. Naturally many
people were blaming President Muhammadu
Buhari (PMB) and his ruling
APC party for fouling the environment.
However, when I arrived the USA
and turned on the TV and listened to
what people were saying about President
Donald Trump (PDT), I realized
that the social and political environment
in the USA was also agitated and
for some very unpleasant, though for
different reasons and circumstances.
Just as many Nigerians were blaming
PMB, so were many Americans that
I spoke to or watched on TV pissed
off with PDT. That got me thinking.
Are there parallels, coincidences
and differences between these two
leaders who though are being heavily
criticized by many today, also seem to
enjoy cult following by group of others
STRATEGY & POLICY
MA JOHNSON
Johnson is a marine project management
consultant and Chartered Engineer. He is
a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering,
Science and Technology, UK.
“The transmission of knowledge and the
capacity to sustain excellence, to produce
relevant research results and to offer the
society convincing and intelligent social
criticism has been dwindling rapidly
in our universities. This has resulted in
societal stagnation rather than national
development.” – Professor Eyitope
Ogunbodede, Vice Chancellor, Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile Ife
The above quote was sourced
from a presentation delivered
by the erudite professor of
Preventive and Community
Dentistry, Eyitope Ogunbodede at the
First Rehoboth Dream Solid Foundation
Annual Lecture 2018 edition which
took place on 9 August at the Admiralty
Conference Centre, Lagos. The paper
titled “Public Education in the 21st
Century: A Reappraisal of the Nigerian
Education System since Independence,”
generated a debate regarding
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Is there a common destiny between Buhari & Trump?
who seem unfazed by the criticisms?
First I noticed that both PMB and
PDT are not mainstream politicians,
though they have long nurtured the
desire to rule. They are not chartered
politicians like my sibling- Senator
Mao. Yes, they have had long political
affiliations but seem to lack
normative political skills. Trump
has been a real-estate businessman
and TV personality while Buhari
has been essentially a soldier. Even
in their political affiliations, they
have moved around. PDT was a
Democrat at some point (up till 1987,
2001-2009), Reform Party (1999-
2001), Independent (2011-2012) and
Republican (1987-1999, 2009-2011,
2012-Present). He also had made
some attempts to join the presidential
race at three previous times and
actually went through Reform Party
primaries before dropping out and
then finally making the bold and
audacious bid in 2016 that brought
him to the Presidency. PMB we know
seized power through a military coup
in December 1983 and was, in turn,
overthrown in August 1985. He contested
three times under two political
platforms (2003-ANPP, 2007-ANPP,
2011-CPC) before making the 4th
and ultimate bid in 2015 on the APC
platform that finally brought him to
the presidency.
Second, PDT is the oldest and
wealthiest person to become President
in America at age 70 just as PMB
is the oldest person to become Nigeria’s
civilian President at age 73. PMB
was supported to become Nigerian
President by Obama and he was the
first African President to be invited
to the White House by Trump. Third,
both PMB and PDP won elections
to the presidency against the run of
play- coming from opposition parties
and were heavily de marketed
because of their past records.
Fourth, both are strong willed
and profess populist, protectionist
Are there parallels,
coincidences and
differences between
these two leaders
who though are being
heavily criticized by
many today, also seem
to enjoy cult following
by group of others who
seem unfazed by the
criticisms?
and nationalistic world views and currently
have poor domestic ratings mostly
for different reasons- PMB for poor
security management, struggling and
post-recession economy, one-sided
anti-corruption fight and a rancorous
political environment, while for PDT
it is for his largely anti-American stand
on many issues, his romance with Putin
of Russia and the repudiation of global
agreements- WTO, Paris climate agreements,
Iran nuclear deal etc. He seems
to be turning American values upside
down, restricting freedom of speech
and press freedom and currently has
grave integrity challenges. Fifth, both
have scant respect for diversity. In
PMB’s security architecture and discretionary
appointments, he has ignored
the Southeast Nigeria and has focused
heavily around his catchment area. The
gains made by women in Jonathan’s era
have been grossly eroded. Similarly,
PDT has expressed racial preferences
and in his White House, most of the
faces are white and the colour and
gender diversity built by Obama has
been fully annihilated. PDT is accused
of trying to re-establish white
supremacy while PMB is accused of
trying to establish a Fulani empire.
On the flip side, PDT is loquacious
but PMB is taciturn though both have
to be kept on point, to avoid accidental
discharges, which happens more with
PDT as he often feels obliged to comment
on every issue from his twitter
account. PDT is very active, pushing
his agenda and fighting through
several unpopular policies, executive
orders and social commentary, but
PMB is restrained and seems more
strategic than tactical.
As it stands, both seem to be fighting
battles for political survival. Both
men are in their first terms and from
all indications want to do second
terms as allowed by their respective
country’s constitutions. PDT is facing
tough challenges. He is at logger
heads with most of the international
community, except perhaps Russia
and Israel. He regards the European
Union (EU) as adversaries or even
enemies. He is at war with closest
Neighbours - Mexico and Canada and
has problem with NATO allies. He is
currently undertaking an economic
warfare with China using unheard of
tariff spikes with China struggling to
retaliate. He has exacerbated the Middle
East tensions with his unilateral
recognition of undivided Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel, moving the US
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
He has repudiated the Iran nuclear
deal and is currently on a shouting
match with Tehran, recently opening
another shouting frontier with Turkey.
The international community would
wish for a change of leadership in
America by 2020 or preferably earlier.
Naturally they share similar views
with the Democratic Party and now
An appraisal of public education in Nigeria
the poor state of public education in
the country.
The gist of Ogunbodede’s presentation
is that Nigerian educational
institutions at all levels must undergo
critical reforms and restructuring to
enable them make meaningful contributions
to national development in the
Twenty-first Century. Certainly, this is
not the first time one of our brilliant
and intellectually gifted academic has
drawn attention of policy makers to
the fact that with technology changing
rapidly, and the world becoming
increasingly knowledge based, education
has emerged as a key determinant
of a nation’s economic development.
The truth is that a country with low
educational standard can never join
the league of industrialized nations.
As an observer and beneficiary
of public education in Nigeria, one
could assert that things have never
been this bad with public primary,
secondary and tertiary institutions in
the country. Admittedly, it is not all bad
news because the number of primary,
secondary, and tertiary educational
institutions have increased in the past
four decades. These institutions have
produced many brilliant students and
outstanding teachers in the country. In
the 1980s, Nigeria had 16 universities.
Today, there are a total of 162 universities
in Nigeria comprising 41 Federal,
47 State and 74 private, at various levels
of development and growth, according
to Ogunbodede. There is no state
of the federation that does not have
more than one university. So whilst we
‘
’
concede that progress has undoubtedly
been made, serious question still remains
about the quality of public education in
Nigeria. A visit to any public primary,
secondary, and tertiary institution will
expose the level of decay and inadequacies
of facilities. Yet, students are enrolled
beyond the capacity of classrooms and
other structures without a corresponding
increase in the number of teachers.
Budgetary allocation to public education
is poor and on a downward trend in the
past few years.
Lecturers in public universities are
neglected because of inadequate funds
for research, conferences, and capacity
building workshops. We now have a situation
where competent and dedicated
university administrators are endangered
species. Teachers and lecturers are poorly
rewarded such that most people consider
academic work as the job of last resort.
That is why most teachers and lecturers
engage in parallel time consuming
occupations which undermine their
performance. For public education to
thrive, every aspect of the society must
be involved. Education is the prime
mover of any given society and a critical
factor for improving the quality of human
resources. Education, either in private or
public institutions takes input from several
factors of the society and gives outputs
to these factors. These factors include but
not limited to culture, human and natural
resources, nation’s historical background,
industrial development strategy and
leadership amongst others. These factors
must be of higher standard before Nigeria
can have quality education. What a na-
tion provides as inputs into education
is what she gets as outputs. It is a case
of garbage-in, garbage-out (GIGO).
Each factor, though discrete are at the
same time mutually interdependent
with other factors. Thus, a progress
within any factor on its own or indeed
a combination of a limited number of
factors will not give rise to national development.
The chances of success will
rather increase if all factors including
education are married together with the
precision of a good orchestra.
In order to have a high standard of
public education, Nigeria must parade
visionary leaders across the entire
spectrum of the society. No nation can
develop without visionary leaders. All
things being equal, the probability of
getting visionary leaders is higher in
societies where the people are more
educated and gifted than one peopled
by dullards. Hence, the truism that nations
get the leaders they deserve.
When the culture is poor and investment
in human resources is low,
Nigeria cannot have quality education.
The standard of education will not be
high when there is disjointed national
development strategies and policies.
Therefore, national development is
not merely the function of economic
conditions alone but arises from the
total situation within the society. Have
we ever asked ourselves why poor societies
remain poor? It is because those
societies have neglected the cultural
dimension to economic development. If
a nation’s value system is poor, then she
remains backward ad infinitum. Nigeria
many conservative Republicans are
even sharing this view. Last week
President Jimmy Carter spoke, following
earlier comments by George
Bush and Ronald Reagan’s daughter
and several other leading Republicans
like Senator John McCain. Even the
intelligence community has joined in
raising the red flag against PDT. Everybody
is waiting for special counsel,
Robert Mueller’s report on Russia and
related matters!
Fortunately, PMB does not seem to
have much problem with the international
community, though Nigeria is
holding Africa back in many respects,
more so now with its reluctance to
sign the African Continental Free
trade Area (AfCFTA) pact. He is widely
respected abroad and has been made
the anti-corruption champion by the
African Union (AU).
But PMB has plenty of issues domestically,
the greatest of them being
his patent inability to secure the lives
of Nigerian civilians. Life has always
been cheap in Nigeria since 1966,
when the Military, of which he was a
key player, turned Nigerians against
themselves. But in the last three years,
life has become completely worthless
in many parts of Nigeria. This coupled
with the inability of his ruling party
APC to either unite its members or
cause the government to unite the
people of Nigeria.
Many Nigerians say that the country
has never been as divided as it is
today under PMB as ever it has been
since the end of the Nigerian civil war
in 1970. Coincidentally Many Americans
say that America has never been
as divided as it is today under PDT
since the end of the American Civil
war in 1865.
Would this be worthy legacies for
PMB & PDT? I would rather not.
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cannot be an industrialized economy
without adapting its culture to modern
industrial realities.
Nigerians generally have not imbibed
the culture of using scientific
means to solve industrial, medical,
governance and managerial problems
etcetera. Many Nigerians have not accepted
science, and technology as a
way of life. Rather, most Nigerians have
remained superstitious and animistic.
We want miracle to happen in national
development. But there is no short
cut, the people must work diligently
to achieve national development. As
primary, secondary and tertiary institutions
increase, education has
not significantly changed how most
Nigerians relate to the natural world.
Public education can improve in Nigeria
provided all other factors of the
society mentioned above are of higher
standard. Otherwise, Nigeria will not
be able to develop highly skilled and
technologically adroit citizens that will
enable her transit from backwardness
to industrialization. Time has come
for state and federal governments to
overhaul curricula of public schools,
and provide adequate funds to enable
these institutions prepare students who
are pro-industry. Contributions from
families, communities and the Organized
Private Sector will go a long way to
improving public education because
state and federal governments cannot
do it alone.
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