So what is The Way Forward? The way forward is that the ruling elite in Nigeria must be sure of what they want. We have an example; many years ago, Ghanaians were here; they flooded our universities; when the Ghanaians rulers saw what was happening, they took a step back and said, lets us change direction’. They closed down the universities for three years or so, rehabilitated all the facilities in the universities and brought the students and the lecturers back. Now, the CBN Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi disclosed that Nigerians spent about N62billion paying school fees for 75,000 Nigerian students in Ghanaian universities. Our people are in South Africa paying fees there, but who are those going there; they are the children of the rich. Ghanaians are in Ghana universities but they are not paying what Nigerians are paying there. So, the way forward is that government makes up its mind that Nigerians must have a place under the sun and that place under the sun can only be guaranteed with a sound university system. It must make up its mind; is it to close down the university system for three years or so, do what should be done and then invite students and lecturers back? For instance, in the University of Benin, you don’t have a foreign student and if you go to other universities in Nigeria, I don’t think there are foreign students. When I came to the University of Benin, I was interviewed by Prof. Smith, a Briton who was the Dean at the time and many people from different parts of the world were here as teachers and students. But, right now, they are not in Nigeria; instead, Nigerians are everywhere. That shows that the system has collapsed. When we went to the National Assembly, Sen. Uche Chukwumerije and his colleagues told us that they were on their knees begging us to recall the students because they are on the streets posing dangers and problems, and we said, it is better for them to be on the streets than on the campus of universities learning ignorance. You cannot teach ignorance to people or half knowledge to the people because they will be more dangerous to the society. ‘Not asking for money for ourselves’ If you have a doctor that is not well trained, and you say ‘go and remove an appendix’, and he goes to remove your heart because he doesn’t know where the appendix is; it is better not to have doctors than the one who will go and remove your heart than the appendix. That is what the Nigerian government wants us to do and the academics in universities are saying no, for once, let us do the right thing; we are prepared to stay at home for between three and five years until these problems are resolved. We are not asking for money, facilities must be provided to make the universities truly what they ought to be. In terms of how to solve the problems in the universities, when the financial crisis broke out in 2007 and banks declared that they were in trouble, government brought out N3trillion to bail out the banks. First, they gave the banks N239billion, another N620billion and N1.725trillion making a total of N3trillion. Then the aviation sector said that it was in distress, they gave the sector, N500billion and they gave even NOLLYWOOD billions of Naira. These sectors are important, but they are not as important as the fundamental which is the education sector. If you can give the banks N3trillion and all the universities are asking for is about N1.5trillion, the same way in which they sourced the money which they gave to the banks which they are now saying that they should not pay back, they should be able to do more for education. So, nobody should come to us and say that government has no money. If they can bail the banks with N3trillion, banks owned by the private sector, they cannot tell us they cannot fund the education sector because the World Bank told them that Africans do not need higher education, that what Africans need is middle-level technical education; that is what the Okonjo-Iwealas and Goodluck Jonathan are for. So, let them do what they did in the case of the banks to education and if they do that, the problems will be solved.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 00:45:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015