In the race of life, the individual who is behind
must run faster than whoever is ahead. Otherwise, he will remain
forever behind. True as this axiom is with reference to the competitions
between individuals, it holds with equal validity in the interaction
between nations or groups of nations. Some who are philosophically
inclined may wonder whether life should be a race in the first
place? The answer to that is quite simple. What life should be,
and what it is are different issues. Whether we like the evidence
or not, history bears conclusive testimony that life is a competition;
it is a race. On a planet where resources are limited but wants
and desires are unlimited, natural history in particular clearly
shows that life is a dynamic competition between and within species.
This clearly being the case, let us ask ourselves some down-to-earth
questions. Where is the Black race in this fierce competition?
Where is Africa? Where is Nigeria?
Honesty behooves us to admit that our race is behind.
Some historians tell us that this was not always so. We can take
as much pride as we wish in our past. We can recall the past;
but no one lives in it. The present remains our inevitable bridge
to tomorrow. Therefore, the relevant question persists: Where
*is* our race? The answer, sadly, but truthfully is "We are
behind." Africa is far behind. Nigeria, our dearly beloved
nation, is so distantly behind that she is no where to be found
in spheres that will orchestrate the direction of the human race
in the twenty-first century. We are confronted with a colossal
tragedy in which our beloved motherland gropes in seemingly perpetual
paralysis. Those who cannot see beyond their noses may continue
to take pride that Nigeria is the giant of Africa. Others who
enjoy the thrill of watching a buffoon make a fool of itself may
also deceive us that we are the "Giant of Africa." Our
ancestors wisely acknowledged that "the antics of a buffoon
in the market square is a comic relief but those who enjoy and
laugh at such antics never wish to have a buffoon for a child."
There is no question that poor leadership has turned Nigeria into
a truly "giant" buffoon in the market square of nations.
We provide good laughter, but no one wishes to be like us! Giant
of Africa indeed!
Quite frankly, the notion of Nigeria as a Giant is
erected on a faulty premise that being a giant confers special
advantages on an individual. But this is not always so. In any
case, a foolish giant, like Goliath of the Bible, will always
fall victim to a wise, calculating, and resolute individual like
the young man, David. While Goliath was taking pride in the hypertrophy
of his muscles and limbs, he had foolishly left his most important
organs- those housed within his head- unprotected! And that is
what is happening in Nigeria today. Some may take pride in our
numerical strength. It does not take much to make babies, only
two minutes of sex! Any pair of fools can make babies. In any
case, the resounding lesson of the ecology of higher mammals,
is that having more offspring than one can provide for is maladaptive
and foolish. Others can rejoice over our exceedingly abundant
natural resources. Those resources are useless until they are
wisely tapped and judiciously husbanded. More recently, some have
been so caught up in the euphoria of Olympic gold in soccer that
they forget that for the so-called Giant of Africa, the most important
institutions, the bridge to future progress and prosperity- our
schools- remain frighteningly unprotected, abysmally uncatered
for and pathetically decrepit.
Whatever a nation sows it shall reap. For many years
now, we have witnessed a systematic decimation of Nigerian education.
Governmental visitation of intellectual malnourishment on this
generation of Nigerian children has been no accident. If it were
an accident, by now, someone in the corridor of power would have
noticed that something is patently wrong, and would have executed
a remedy. Instead, what we witness is a continued implementation
of government policies that neglect and, by so doing, frontally
attack the minds of our youth. Those who sow the wind, will reap
the whirlwind. The wind of academic stagnation and intellectual
suffocation that is being sown by Abacha's regime, will unfailingly
produce the whirlwind of technological paralysis and economic
ineptitude. We do not need a soothsayer to tell us what lies ahead
in our immediate and distant future. A very reliable barometer
of our future is the nourishment we provide for the minds of the
stockholders of that future- our youths.
The human mind, as Obafemi Awolowo, correctly and
most eloquently noted, is the only positive, causative agent of
economic development. It is the most important factor in the engineering
of economic progress and prosperity. Whether it is an individual
like Biblical Goliath, or a nation such as Nigeria, the human
mind is a terrible thing to waste; it must be accorded constant
protection and nurture. There is no higher priority for an individual
or society. Otherwise, the Giant will fall flat just like Goliath
did.
The present plight of education in Nigeria has to
be a matter of enormous sorrow for everyone who loves Nigeria.
The sorry state of Nigerian primary and secondary schools, colleges,
polytechnics and universities is a clear pointer to the disaster
that may visit Nigeria in the twenty-first century. It is a disaster
we can avert only if we act quickly now. But if we don't, there
is no escape; this disaster will visit us, our children, and grandchildren
with tragic consequences. Wishful thinking cannot wash away this
pending tragedy. It is for this reason, that all Nigerians must
see the present crisis in our University system as a crucial part
of the struggle for the very survival of our dear nation.
I wonder what the late Sarduana of Sokoto, Alhaji
Ahmadu Bello must feel as he looks down and sees what has become
of the first-class university that his government envisioned and
built in Zaria. I wonder what the Owelle of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe, the indomitable Zik of Africa, must feel when he sees
of what has become of the University of Nigeria at Nsukka. And
do we need to wonder what that greatest champion of education
in Nigeria, the visionary Obafemi Awolowo, must feel when he sees
Ife, the once great university that now bears his name? Bello,
Azikiwe and Awolowo did not have the benefit of oil wealth. They
had groundnuts, cocoa, and coal. They had also a clear vision;
something that is pathetically lacked by the hooligans who have
used their guns to take our nation hostage.
No matter what mistakes were made by the trio of
Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello, they blazed
new trails, and made giant strides in advancing the education
of our people. They did so despite the categorical opposition
of our colonial masters. They did Alvan Ikoku and Ransome Kuti
proud. But today, the premier universities founded by these heroes
have become carcasses of themselves. Our universities are perennially
closed by those whose intellectual dwarfism is only matched by
their sadist pleasure in watching a nation flounder in chaotic
waters. It requires a special subphylum of evil and intellectually
dwarfed sadists to take the closure of universities as lightly
as the military junta has done in Nigeria. Or else, this must
be part of a master-design to stifle the sector of the Nigerian
populace that has been recognized as potentially most threatening
to military tyranny. Some may ask: Were the Academic Staff Union
of Universities not asking for too much? The answer, simple enough
is: NO! ASUU was and is not asking for too much.
It is not too much to ask a government to stand by
an agreement it made with its own people. This very government,
which is a de facto continuation of the Babangida government,
agreed to levy special taxes to raise revenues to rehabilitate
our decrepit institutions of higher learning. The revenues raised
far exceeded all projection. But as is the character of this government,
it turned around and refused to honor its word. Such wanton disregard
for decency and the rule of law typifies the moral carnage these
career adventurists in power have wrought on our nation. Is it
too much for ASUU to ask that our university libraries be stocked
with books and journals? Is it too much that teachers expect to
have chalks, dusters, pens, pencils and papers? Is it too much
to demand that the laboratories be equipped with necessary modern
analytical equipment? How can a Science department function without
the capability for distilling water? How can a department of Microbiology
work without incubators? How can a medical school produce competent
doctors when these students have watched their professors of surgery
go to theaters without simple tests like electrolytes? How can
we produce competent engineers that will drive our nation's economy
in the next century when those students are being educated in
dismally substandard environment?
Meanwhile, those who have taken our nation hostage
continue to live in obscene luxury. Their oases of comfort amidst
the grueling poverty of the vast majority of our people make one
to wonder, how long can this last? Or, is Nigeria a bottomless
pit? How farther down can we fall in this spiral of endless paralysis?
If General Abacha must abort the people's mandate to fulfill personal
ambition, must he also send this generation of Nigerian youth
to the purgatory of illiteracy? Must he sacrifice the future of
our nation on the altar of lewd power? Is this the legacy that
members of the armed forces wish for Nigeria? Will history forgive
General Gowon, President Shagari and General Buhari for keeping
quiet in a time like this? How could our traditional fathers-
the Emirs, Obas and Obis- afford silence when their people are
so recklessly oppressed? Can't members of the labor unions see
that our nation is going down the drain? Yesterday it was the
oil workers. Today it is ASUU. Do we know who is next? Is this
the type of life that the women of Nigeria who travailed to give
us life envisioned for their children? How can so many keep silent
in the face of this oppression?
Oludumare, the God who
gave Herbert Macaulay the vision of a free land; Chineke,
who endowed Azikiwe with courage, the Eternal Allah who
made Balewa to stand tall on the podium as the Union Jack came
down, when will you send deliverance? Please save us from these
predators in the land? Save us from Abacha and his swarm of locusts.
Dr. Olusola Adeyeye is a professor at Duquesne
University, Pittsburgh PA.