Enyinnaya: Failed generation: President is dead right

GREAT minds think alike. It was during our neighbourhood meeting at my residence in Lagos that one of our members, Mr. Dominic Ottih, a worker of one of the oil companies  who is probably  in his early 40s  at the heat of a debate on sensitive issue affecting him and the community pointed at me who is in his early 60s and said that the older generation are corrupt and have failed this country. That was in December 2014.

  Barely a month later, our number one citizen Dr. Goodluck Johnathan in his late 50s who is truthful to a fault, said “our generation has failed” while flagging off his re-election campaign in Lagos. Expectedly, this claim attracted reactions from the polity, some of them downright negative like the editorial comment in The Guardian of  January 23, 2015 titled “The Generation Question.” If I understood Mr. President very well, what he means is that his generation of leaders has failed Nigeria. Much as The Guardian in its criticism of Mr. President’s claim concluded that the young and the old are needed in nation building, it did accept the fact that “there may be some element of truth in the president’s remark; after all, his generation might have been the last beneficiary of quality education.” 

   I will use failure in education as the basis of my write-up that the old generation has indeed failed Nigeria so that I will be at par with the respected The Guardian newspaper. This is because according to Diogenes, ‘the foundation of every state is the education of its youth.’

   The foundation of Nigerian state was destroyed by the old generation of leaders that politicised education or brought politics into education. At 61 years, I fall into the generation bracket that had good education. Before the civil war of 1967 to 1970, both private and public schools were well funded, well staffed and had curriculum like Civics that taught patriotism and good behaviour. I attended the Methodist College, Uzuakoli  (UZUMECO) in present day Abia State founded in 1923. I gained admission in January 1967. I was taught English language and literature by an English man, one Mr. Lodge. We also had other English men like Mr. Ritchie, an Irish and Mr. Mugglestone who taught the sciences. All of them were university graduates.  With government takeover of missionary and other private schools, UZUMECO does not have that kind of teachers any longer because an Englishman does not teach them English Language and literature.

   Education became politicized by the military that took over missionary schools at the end of the war in 1970. The military establishment suddenly discovered in 1978 that there was a wide education gap between the North and South and they established the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to prevent a brilliant student from East or West from gaining admission into more than one university while his Northern counterpart does not gain admission. States were categorized into educationally advantaged and disadvantaged. Admission quota was introduced as admission policy and allocated state by state and with it catchment area was created. Result? Inequity was created with a brilliant youth that scored say 70% from educationally advanced state being denied admission while a dull youth with scores as low as 40% from educationally disadvantaged state got admitted. That is failure number one.

  When this policy was made (sorry to mention name), Colonel Ahmadu Ali (rtd) was the Minister of Education. When I applied to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1973 as an awaiting result applicant, there was nothing like quota, catchment area, educationally advantaged and disadvantaged state. All students competed for admission on equal terms and equal opportunity. If you performed better than others, you are offered admission. You do not need to know anybody to be considered for admission. Col. Ahmadu Ali was a beneficiary of equal opportunity admission policy, why did he introduce inequity in admission policy? Today he is a stalwart of the ruling party. Yet he failed the present generation of youth. 

  In 1973 when I gained admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the school fees was N340 per annum for tuition and boarding. After paying the acceptance fee of N40 my family did not have the resources to pay the N300 because my father, William Enyinnaya of blessed memory, was a Nigeria Railway Corporation pensioner. My siblings and family friends contributed my first term fees of N100. As a student, I became eligible for loan from Nigerian Students Loans Board established by the Gen. Yakubu Gowon administration for N1000 per annum. That was how I financed my education but the Government of Shehu Shagari scrapped the loans board on coming to power in 1979. Consequently, indigent but brilliant students can no longer get the benefit of higher education the way I did. That is failure number two.

   After squandering Nigeria’s riches in hosting FESTAC 77, Nigeria became broke. General Obasanjo in his wisdom with Col Ahmadu Ali as Minister of Education removed subsidy on education at tertiary level. The National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS ) under the leadership of Segun Okeowo of blessed memory went on nationwide demonstration. Universities were shut. Kunle Ojo was shot dead by the police and several other students were wounded; others rusticated. The policy was not reversed. Today, university education is out of reach of the poor but brilliant students without the kind of support my generation enjoyed and the National Universities Commission (NUC) is doing nothing. That is failure number three.

   The ripple effect of the bad education policy by old generation leaders is still with us. University, Polytechnic, and College of Education lecturers go on strike now and again .The last strike by ASUU  was nearly one year. Same with Polytechnic academic and non-academic staff and lecturers in Colleges of Education all as a result of neglect and non-implementation of agreements. Lack of motivation has ruined education at all levels in Nigeria. After my NYSC in 1979, all the universities I applied to for masters degree in the USA and UK offered me admission to enroll directly for my course on arrival. Not anymore. Today, even with first class honours, graduates of Nigerian universities are subjected to internal tests which, if they pass, are allowed to go straight to their programme unlike my own time. That is failure number four. We can go on and on.

   President Goodluck Jonathan inherited a polarized country, a country held hostage by a constitution not agreed upon by her citizens in a referendum as is the case with nation states. A constitution that brought poverty and unemployment to Nigerians with General Obasanjo’s Land Use Decree of 1978 that took mineral resources that rightly belonged to the communities away from them and vested them on a federal government that lacks the resources and capacity to exploit them for the benefit of her citizens. That is failure number five because unemployment was a strange phenomenon in the first republic when the regions controlled their resources.   

   The old generation of leaders failed to create an equal opportunity for the country, and seem not to have the courage, nay the sincerity, to correct all the identified unjust policies which are outside the dreams of the founding fathers of the Nigerian nation, like Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Herbert Macaulay, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Anthony Enahoro, Adegoke Adelabu, Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam etc, whose vision of one Nigeria is freedom to treat anywhere you decide to settle in Nigeria as home, has been truncated by the old generation of political leaders. That, to me, is the message Mr. President was passing to the youths in contradistinction to the position of The Guardian Editorial opinion. 

  To say the least, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan  as a leader is truthful to a fault. Indeed in terms of nation building, the old generation has failed if after 100 years of staying together there is still mutual suspicion and disaffection among the people of Nigeria. The youth must speak with one voice until we have an egalitarian society. God bless Nigeria. 

• Chris Enyinnaya, a Chartered Banker, wrote from Ikeja, Lagos State.