Sitting around our dining table one evening just a few days into the new year, 2017, we had a wonderfully engaging and truly enlightening discussion with a friend who visited and stayed the night, a professor in one of our federal universities. I came away from that discussion feeling very proud that we had such a brilliant mind in one of our institutions of higher learning interacting with young Nigerians and having an impact on their training, but at the same time overcome by a sense of regret and sadness because our system has not found a way to ensure that our very best people are the ones put in charge of running our affairs. I can just imagine what transformation would occur in a university that would appoint such an individual to be at the helm of their affairs. Unfortunately, we have not accepted that a university, above all else, must be a merit-based institution.
An interesting point made during the discussion was the striking correlation between the level of electrical power generated and distributed in a country and the position of that country’s institutions on the table of the global ranking of universities. Our friend chose to look at the ranking of African universities and compare with the level of electricity generation across countries. He said that he expected that there would be some correlation; however, he did not expect it to be, in his words, “a perfect correlation”. The African countries which universities had the highest rankings were also the ones with the highest level of electricity production, in the exact same order – South Africa, followed by Egypt, then Morocco.
A cursory look at the vision and mission statements of Nigerian universities, several of them recently crafted or amended, would reveal the presence of phrases like “building a world class institution”, “relentlessly pursuing excellence”, etc. Ultimately, these are just words, lacking any tangible substance; for how do we build world class institutions without the availability of electrical power which would allow the conduct of teaching and research activities? It is most interesting to note, also, that the Committee of Vice Chancellors is hardly ever reported as putting any pressure on government, whether at the federal or state level, over their inability to fulfill their primary assignments due to the lack of “power”. How can we then compare with similar institutions worldwide? This is not surprising, though, for the politicking that goes into the selection of the Vice Chancellors themselves is well known; their appointment is hardly ever based on merit, but rather on connections with the powers that be. This obtains, interestingly, not only in the case of the public universities, but in the private ones as well. The candidate who came first when a private, church-based university was about to appoint a Vice Chancellor was not offered the job because the church’s General Overseer said that he could not have a VC who did not belong to his church and was not directly under his spiritual authority.
One cannot but wonder how long it would take us to recognize that our aspiration for a better quality of life depends directly on what we do with our educational system. When we continue to act in ways that do not promote excellence, for example, lowering the standards for admission into our tertiary institutions, what kinds of outcome do we expect? Indeed, our leaders do not even appear to expect that our universities are supposed to be the nation’s problem-solvers. They are constantly looking to the developed countries, and China is currently the most attractive to African nations in particular, due to the absence of any complex historical relationship based on a colonial past. Do they even stop to wonder how China became such a technological and economic powerhouse within such a relatively short period? Is there not a path to development which they too should seek to pursue?
We ought to lament the fact that most Nigerian tertiary institutions have not had much of a significant developmental impact upon the lives of the communities in which they are situated. For example, since the School of Agriculture was established in Akure in the late 1950s, what transformation has occurred in the way in which Agriculture is being practiced in that locality? Have new techniques of farming been developed by the institution and introduced to the farmers? How about new crops? And to bring it closer to home for me, what tangible impact has the presence of Obafemi Awolowo University had on the town of Ile-Ife and on Osun State in general? Our universities are not seen as agents for innovation and transformation; rather, their presence is felt primarily by communities merely via the provision of job opportunities, especially for low level employees, and also in terms of the accompanying boom in economic activities.
At the beginning of this new year, how wonderful it would be if we could collectively resolve to transform our thinking and perspective, at least as far as the education sector is concerned. If we could come to understand that our development is hinged so crucially upon this sector, maybe we would begin to act in a manner that would lead to the eventual transformation of our environment. Maybe we would come to make the connection between our words and our actions, and see that our actions determine the quality of our lives.
