Uche Okorie: Nigerian scientists are critically endangered species (Y! FrontPage)

by Uche Okorie

But for a late spurt of teenage rebellion I most probably would have been a medical doctor today or perhaps some form of scientist. You see, growing up as a teenager in the nineties in an upwardly aspiring family that belonged to the middle class or class of ‘decorated poor men’ as some refer to them, I had come to, prior to my very late rebellion, accept a career in Medicine as inevitable. My father had from a very early age drummed it into my subconscious. I acquired the sobriquet ‘Doctor’ before I turned three (3), from my Dad, his friends and relatives. So everywhere I went with my Dad, my name was Doctor. I never questioned it. Never had reason to. I mean I loved the sciences despite my Dad’s shenanigans. I was naturally curious and had a keen thirst for experiments and knowledge. I have proof I was. Before I turned 9, I had burnt my mother’s kitchen in Festac Town, just because I wanted to find out for myself what a lighted match can do inside a bowl of kerosene!

Dad was a civil servant with a near hysterical love for education. I had a Dad (and still do) who would not give you a farthing for anything considered luxurious including the occasional change of clothes, but would go out of his way including selling all he had to send you to school. I also fortunately had a head for school.

Then came that moment of rebellion. It was in Mr Anosike’s class – my very Spartan Chemistry teacher from SSS 1 to 3, who could flog the fear of Lucifer into Angel Gabriel. AnoPsyche! A passionate scientist with an uncanny head for balancing equations and unmasking chemical compounds and a dangerous if not pesky routine of making his Chemistry class extremely interactive with questions thrown left right and centre and his cane descending liberally on any skull dense enough to stutter. I recall how I had to be best friends with Osei Yaw Ababio’s Chemistry Textbook ‘New School Chemistry’ and how I listened to AnoPsyche’s lecture until my ears throbbed so as not to fall on the wrong side of his notorious cane. I remember how the glorified Chemistry labs where we held some of our classes had equipment’s which were outdated and non-functional. Mere decorations as it were. I remember how Mr Anosike, great teacher that he was, struggled to ‘practicalise’ our learning. There were so many esoteric names and potentially fascinating experiments to be carried out, but zilch resources to do so.

So there I was one day in his class. He was discussing something esoteric which I cannot readily recollect and apologising yet again about not having the facilities required to carry out the sample experiments. I remember my teenage mind being pissed that our labs didn’t have the materials required for experiments. I recollect becoming more and more infuriated about the situation and my circumstance as I thought about it, until the class became unbearable for me. I vividly recall getting upset at a system that wanted to produce doctors and scientists but had no functional labs. Then directing my angst towards my Dad who was insisting I become a Doctor. Then from nowhere I thought what if…?
The class ended and I walked out of that class never to come back, rebellion in full gear. It was SS3 second term, just few months to our Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination with submission of forms due that week. I rebelled big time. I took a decision that would radically alter my life and the rest as they say is history.

Today I am a lawyer. Do I have any regrets? No. None.

I have recanted my personal circumstances at great length to highlight three major reasons why the Nigerian Scientist is a critically endangered species today. I will also highlight other general reasons and state in the spirit of constructive criticism that the solutions lie in taking urgent reverse actions.

Another bothersome issue is the unjustified bias that the only science career worth pursuing is Medicine. A lot of parents I know, like my Dad, insist till today that their science inclined children study Medicine.

Three reasons for the rapid decline and near extinction of the Nigerian Scientist rear their heads in my tale.

  1. Infrastructural decay and deficit: I mean, Mr Anosike was as seasoned as they come. He had been a senior tutor in Federal Government College, Okigwe my alma mater for years. In retrospect, I can say he was passionate about his discipline and motivated to excel in the given circumstances. Yet Mr Anosike’s scholarship was severely limited by the apparent lack of a functional lab among other deprecatory factors. This was the situation around 1997-1999. The school was barely 20 years then, having been founded in the late 70’s. What about the effect this unsavoury situation had on students? We had students like me whose natural inclination for science suffered a devastating stillbirth. For some others who stuck to it, I’m sorry to say that as events later proves, they mostly wasted their time. They also got seriously short changed.
  2. Career de-motivation: Educational pursuit is essentially dream chasing. Thus a great system should be a dream enabler. Unfortunately our system is a killer and slayer of dreams. Everything from the archaic way science is taught to the pains of learning without meaningful, relevant, up-to-date practicals is literally a dream killer. A sad prologue to my story is that a good deal of my peers that I left in science class, ended up far from science labs and institutes. Most ended up in banks after suffering the malaise of unemployment for some time. I do not blame them. Neither should you. By the time we first entered the labour market in the mid/late 2000’s, most of our parents were financially exhausted and with younger ones still in school, money was the overriding consideration and banks were simply where the cash was. Today go to the banks and other places and you will shake your head in dismay at what could have been. Brilliant young men and women-Microbiologists, Chemists, Virologists, Neurologists, Pathologists, Nurses, Pharmacists, Dentists, Geologists etc. all in banking halls, Telcos, entertainment and businesses, careers mortally hibernated, most chasing the only shadow left-money.
  3. Societal/Parental Bias: Another bothersome issue is the unjustified bias that the only science career worth pursuing is Medicine. A lot of parents I know, like my Dad, insist till today that their science inclined children study Medicine. There is an unstated societal disdain for the other equally crucial and important subdivisions of science. Even worse, some subdivisions are suffer a sustained gender bias. For example the male nurse is viewed with scepticism and sometimes pity in Nigeria. He is simply a failed Doctor. Not the consummate professional he is in his own right. What a generation of this sort of flawed parenting and societal bias has resulted in, is a preponderance of doctors who could have excelled at other science disciplines and hence a net deficit in science professionals. Societal bias is particularly irksome as only issues pertaining to Doctors and Medicine would invariably be on the front burner thereby depriving the public space, the robust debates that could bode well for other branches of science. When bias becomes institutionalised as in this instance, it becomes extremely difficult to instigate reforms and changes in order to flow with global trends.
  4. Other general factors threatening the existence of the Nigerian scientist include:
  5. Governmental abdication of responsibility: Successive governments have continually paid lip service to creating the enabling environment to breed internationally competitive scientists. This is more so in recent times. We had a world renowned Festival of Arts and Culture in 77. We just didn’t deem science important enough to warrant splashing our petrodollars. Successive Government’s approach to science has largely ignored the basics of a vibrant curriculum, well equipped labs, well-motivated and remunerated science tutors and has instead chosen to chase shadows. We under fund education, but spend billions of dollars hoisting a monstrous and irrelevant satellite incapable of detecting the movement of an elephant in Sambisa. Several other instances of gross abdication include badly managed labour relations leading to incessant industrial disputes and strikes, corruption, nepotism, lack of political will and a host of other negativities too numerous to mention.
  6. Outdated Science Curriculum: This is a general malaise of education in Nigeria. It is particularly so in science education, the advent of the internet notwithstanding. A lot of secondary school age science students and (I hope not) teachers would still blatantly repeat the stale assertion that there are nine planets in the solar system.
  7. Corporate Nigeria’s snub: Do the major multinationals, telcos and wealthy Nigerian businesses really care about science? Perhaps only NLNG with its sumptuous $100,000 prize in Science. Which Corporate Nigerian Science Prize targeted at aspiring and budding scientist has the glam and razzmatazz of a reality game show or talent show? Which plays on the ‘spirit of the Nigerian hustle’ promising millions of naira in prizes in its quest to uncover patentable scientific innovations and spark science career interests in the next generation of Nigerian scientists? Your guess is as good as mine.
  8. Colonial Mentality and Intellectual Indolence: In case you are wondering how this is an issue, consider the fact that the Chinese integrated a study of Chinese Medicine into their Medical programme. Chinese Medicine being their ancient medical practices. Consider also how other non-western societies have varyingly embraced western science with a touch of their own ‘spice’ playing to their strength. Then consider the fact that we largely disdain our own herbal or ancestral practices. Do we have a National Institutes for Herbal Medicines? Do we even care about the wisdom of the ages? Is it not funny that a society that is influenced and believes so much in Juju and flying enemies seeking to do harm is not in any way inclined if not out of curiosity but at least of sheer preservation to use scientific methods to investigate these phenomena, so that in the process new knowledge can be acquired, or previous knowledge integrated or corrected?

We ought to be concerned for the plight of the Nigerian Scientist. The greatest nations are invariably the ones who take their science seriously. It is the key to prosperity, procreation and posterity. We ought to take our science seriously. It is really important we do so urgently. Apart from the likes of Alexander Animalu the Emeritus Professor of Physics in UNN who is a pioneer of solar energy in Nigeria; Grace Alele-Williams Mathematics Professor and First Female Vice Chancellor in Nigeria; Deborah Enilo Ajakaiye a geophysicist and the first female physics professor in Africa whose work in geophysics has played an important role in mining in Nigeria; Emmanuel Babatunde Alo a professor of applied biology, ecosystems, entomology and parasitology noted for his research work on the transmission patterns of the HIV virus in certain blood groups; the late Oliver Udemmadu Ogbonnia Mobisson a Professor and Entrepreneur often regarded as the father of the African Computer Industry and the first person in Black African history to design, build and produce indigenous personal computers; Professor Ibrahim H. Umar former VC of Bayero University Kano; the late Professor Chike Obi first sub-Saharan African to hold a doctorate in mathematics and a few distinguished others dead or aged, where are the next generation of Nigerian scientists? Where are they? If we do not reverse the slide, in a few decades, the Nigerian Scientist reminiscent of Australopithecus africanus may become Naijapithecus scientistus, an extinct species.

May the heavens forbid.

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Uche Okorie is a lawyer and poet. He holds an LLM in Global Business Law from New York University and an LL.M in Maritime Law from the National University of Singapore. He is currently a PhD candidate in Maritime and Logistics at the Australian Maritime College, a specialist Institute of the University of Tasmania, Australia where he was awarded a Tasmanian Graduate Research Scholarship. He tweets from @uchekorie

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

One comment

  1. UCHE OKORIE a very brillant student. He always comes out with 1st position,despite the fact that he left science for art class few weeks before SSCE. He came out with a good result(he cleared his papers). We used to compare our report cards when ever he comes home for holidays, i gave up and owned up that he is BRAIN itself

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