by Funke Aboyade, SAN

The greater irony is that all this is happening under the watch of a president who is himself an academic.

30 years ago, along with 745 others, I was called to the Nigerian Bar. It seems just like yesterday, Tempus Fugit, how time flies!

With the Nigerian Law School celebrating its Golden Jubilee this year, the set of 1983 decided it was as good a time as any to have its maiden reunion dinner, and what a blast it was as we marked our 30th year at the bar! Reminiscences are below.

Prior to that a list serve of members (organised by class co-ordinator, Wemimo Ogunde SAN) was in circulation and what a hoot! It was pure reversion to our growing up years and friendly rivalry, and we had fun pulling each other’s legs and aligning with our various universities, each group convinced that THEIR university was the bee’s knees.

Given that – at least, for those of us who took our first degrees from Nigeria – we, at the time of our graduation from university the year before, had enjoyed the best of university education comparable with the best in the world (indeed, many of us right after Law School proceeded straight to the world’s top universities – Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, U Penn and the like – without any difficulty, question mark, challenge or askance about our suitability, qualification, character or learning), it is an irony that just 30 years on, we are in the midst of the worst crisis ever to beset our universities! As I write this, the gloves are off and the Federal Government has just issued ASUU with an ultimatum. If the lecturers are not back at work tomorrow December 4, they should consider themselves sacked. I think not. Clearly, that statement was not properly thought through before it was announced, it is fraught with too many challenges, legal and otherwise. If ASUU decides to call the Federal Government’s bluff then we are headed into an educational abyss. Everyone will lose – the students, their parents or guardians, their lecturers, the Federal Government, employers of labour and indeed, the entire country. If ASUU on the other hand are sufficiently cowed back to the classrooms and research centres, it’s only a matter of time before the next strike comes along. And everyone loses, still.

The greater irony is that all this is happening under the watch of a president who is himself an academic.

Given that I am the product of two eminent university professors of days gone by, and having spent my childhood years in a university environment, I can only say that unless and until we accord education its prime of place in the scheme of things, we may never emerge from the abyss into which we are clearly headed.

When we graduated in 1982, we believed the world was our oyster and that we could compete – indeed, we did compete – with the best anywhere in the world. The education we had received was not inferior in any way, in fact, students from other countries in Africa and beyond gladly attended our universities.

Issuing military type fiats to the striking lecturers is not, I would say, the way to go. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. On the other hand, a restive and idle student populace is a ticking time bomb the end of which no one can tell.

Government cannot afford our lecturers’ demands, or so they say. But, pray tell, how do they expect those lecturers to believe them when all they see around them is waste and profligacy? If government can afford armoured vehicles at scandalous costs for just one official (and God knows how many others), if government can afford the large presidential entourage on every foreign trip (of which there are legion), if government can afford to pay an over-bloated executive, as well as the legislature, unimaginable amounts in remunerations and perks, if government is not leading by example, then government should realise it’s going to be a hard sell to those lecturers when it says it simply cannot afford their demands.

Despising our children’s teachers and the days of small beginnings simply doesn’t cut it. Given the rise amongst young people (many of them frustrated, angry and mad at society) in social deviancy, armed militancy and crimes like 419, kidnapping, rape and ritual killings, it is in our best interest to do whatever it takes to keep our children in school AND ensure they have a future upon graduation. WHATEVER IT’S GOING TO TAKE.
The alternative does not bear thinking about…

Et Tu, Adams?
The video which immediately went viral last week of a so-called peoples’ governor, Adams Oshiomhole, harshly dismissing a grovelling widow with these egregious words ‘you’re a widow, go and die!’ is a lesson to all (and more particularly otherwise popular ‘grassroots’ public office holders) that power corrupts just about anyone and no one is immune from that corruption.

Am I disappointed in the governor? No. This is Nigeria where you get to behave like Lord of the Manor and play god with peoples’ lives once you hold public office. Good governance is a favour you bestow and when the led are ‘lucky’ enough to get it, you expect obeisance and obsequious fawning of the worst kind.

Public outrage was immediate and the governor has since retraced his steps and apologised. But. Too little too late. I’m not sure he will ever wash himself clean.

Our public office holders would do well to always remember that they are there at the behest of the people. Just one tiny incident, after all, in Tunisia sparked off the (still ongoing) Arab Spring…

 

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.