By Chimezie Elemuo
IT is exhilarating to see the House of Representatives honour the First Class graduate from the University of Lagos, (Unilag), Mr. Ayodele Daniel Dada, who made a grade point of 5.0. In other words, the young man scored ‘A’ in all his courses from first year to final year. ‘A’ great feat, indeed! It is noteworthy to add that there are many other Ayodele Daniel Dadas, walking the streets of Nigeria without any hope of getting even a minimal education. Suffice it to also say that there are many more brilliant students in our citadels of learning far more brilliant than Ayodele Daniel Dada who will graduate with the least grade because the system will oppress and suppress them, dimming the light in them. Mr. Ayodele is one of those students who have been able to wriggle out of the decaying university system with good grade either by hook or crook or by playing by the rules. But without any doubt in my mind, I would be bold to assert that those students who play by the rules find it difficult to excel with flying colours.
This is so because education has been mortgaged long ago without government caring to do anything about it. Maybe, Ayodele never had those lecturers who would insist that you grease their palms with five thousand Naira (I don’t know how much they collect now) or above before you can pass their courses. Generally, public university system is run on the unscientific basis of the more difficult it is, the better.
I am sure Ayodele did not have those lecturers who will purposely fail you because you crossed their path one way or the other. I had a lecturer who insisted that no student will ever score A grade in his course and there was no question about that. Given every opportunity, every Nigerian student can excel.
You will know what a nation will become by the values she promotes. Since the news broke about the young man from Unilag, encomiums have been pouring in for him, culminating in the standing ovation he got from the lower chamber of the National Assembly. The corporate world went silent as if nothing was going on. If the bloke were a musician who had dropped a single album which skyrocketed to the number one on the musical chart list, all the corporate institutions would have been fawning around him with mouth-watering contracts as an ambassador. Don’t you see how they ran around the bread seller who became a sought after model? We promote vanity in Nigeria and not those things that will engineer national growth and development.
Apart from the NLNG and Etisalat that have shown much interest in the education and intellectual industry, the corporate entities in Nigeria are only interested in how to make profit. Our corporate institutions must invest in things that add value to the society. I will like to see national honours instituted which would be awarded to those who have excelled one way or the other in the sciences, medicine, engineering, law, public administration and humanities.
This will aid research and give the upcoming generation of students what to look up to and improve their areas of interest. We have engineers who can build robots that can be used in factories and even to combat the insurgency in Nigeria. Our engineers can build military hardware, except that the Nigerian environment is so hostile that surviving in it is a herculean task. Corporate institutions like NLNG and Etisalat should expand their yearly prizes in literature to the sciences. Who knows, they may be the ones to discover Nigeria’s Albert Einstein.
The government’s nonchallant attitude to education must stop. Education should be seen as a basic right of every Nigerian child. Our citadels of learning are nothing away and must be cleaned up. Ninety percent of the lecturers there cannot in the real sense of it be called academics. Some of them are unemployable and will remain so if they dare come out from their cocoon. They dish out hurriedly written handouts to students and you must buy or fail the exams. I am sure that Ayodele did not fail to buy any! Otherwise, we will not be celebrating him today.
The days are gone when university lecturers were known for their research work. Even those lecturers who still research, it is disheartening that their research works are below expected standard and cannot withstand peer review. This has resulted in capital flight. Yes, those who can afford it now send their wards abroad for studies. Mark you, some employers of labour have preference for degrees obtained abroad than the one been paraded by Mr. Ayodele. If Mr. Ayodele does not go for his masters degree abroad, he may discover after the whole pomp, the first class degree is a mere paper. There are some employers that will never employ you unless you have a masters degree.
Where will poor Ayodele get the money to pursue post-graduate study? Normally, students like Ayodele are placed on automatic post-graduate studies by the university without any dime coming from them. Normally, the universities retain students like that, but gone are the days. Some have called for national economic summit to marshal out ideas on how to solve the economic problems bedeviling Nigeria. I also call for national education summit which is long overdue, if you ask me.
Let us discuss ways to revamp the education system in Nigeria. While we celebrate Mr. Ayodele, government must not forget that there are many as good as him who are on the streets!
n Barrister Elemuo writes from Port Harcourt.