By Mohammed Bello Yunusa
The educational system in Nigeria is bedeviled by several wounds; many are policy inflicted and healable. The man on the job has the capacity to heal the wounds. One, Adamu Adamu has for long been an associate if not confidant of Muhammadu Buhari, the President. As, a minister, he can always have the ears of his principal, and more, as the purpose is to do the right thing and build the nation. This is a noble and patriotic mission. Two, Adamu Adamu has the education sector as his pet area. This is as he sojourns from Steer Motors, through New Nigerian Newspapers to the Federal Ministry of Education, Adamu Adamu, as an accountant turned journalist has shown the inner drive, honour, and enough administrative abilities to set things right including a revolutionary turnaround. Two things need to be set aright as we drift to May 29, the terminal date of this administration.
The first is the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund), an institution that you superintend. It is pedestrian to say that the institution is the brainchild of the almighty nuisance but diligent and tenacious Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). If all citizens defend their sectors the way ASUU does, Nigerians would have been better for it. In all practical sense, the Trust Fund has yielded great results. The contributors have yielded to the law and are just raining pure cash in colossal amounts. The institution is not by any means bereft of what the public universities desire. This notwithstanding, the institution is heading to a point of no return. It is but a few metres away from the edge of the cliff. It should not slip and tumble.
As the overseer, the first effort is to stem the tide and get it to refocus, away from the current blurred direction. The first step in the right direction is to review and nullify the recent appointment to the position of Executive Secretary. This is a good case of what Haruna Adamu then of Sunday Times called a disappointing appointment in the 1970s. The appointee is qualified and deserves it, but does not meet the provisions of the law. The law is emphatic in section (3) that the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer of the Fund shall (c) be a person with good knowledge and cognate academic and administrative experience in tertiary education. I will not say the appointee has cognate academic and administrative experience in any tertiary institutions in or outside Nigeria. The best way to strangle an institution is to think anyone can lead it. If the fund desires a retiree, there exists an army of retirees that meet this condition from which you can recruit.
The other way to review the fund is with respect to bureaucracy. As it is, the barricades are excessive lacking in any trust and good faith and enough to frustrate the potential patrons of the institution and undermine realisation of stated mandates. The Midwest Professors’ Forum, made up of professors at home and abroad took a page in Vanguard of May 31, 2022, to advance their position. While not subscribing to their views, I certainly agree, and vehemently too, that there is the need to “Revert to the initial concept that inspired the setting up of TetFund, which is to guarantee a ready source of funding for tertiary institutions without favouritism, needless bureaucracies and red tapes that have become the hallmarks of TetFund”. These constraints have rendered the products of the Fund inaccessible for potential beneficiaries unproductive, who are simply hungry and thirsty for teaching and research resources. Needless to urge you to ease the bureaucracy and barricades within the Fund; and place of that cultivate trust and good faith.
The second issue has to do with scholarship awards. There are several public institutions that award scholarships either for undergraduate or postgraduate studies. The awards are highly profitable for other countries and tertiary institutions. Should Nigeria be a wholesome supporter and promoter of other countries and their institutions as the economy goes in tatters and our universities wallow in low international content? Imagine the quantum of naira being exported to other countries and the implications of such for their economies and institutions. Worse, some of the graduates of the scholarships never return home. Nigeria is one country whose major business is to train manpower for other countries. This undoubtedly can be rectified with a vision and determination.
The vision is to invigorate postgraduate studies in Nigerian universities and the determination is your own efforts. Already some universities in Nigeria have been designated postgraduate universities. This is a starting point for you. Public institutions that offer scholarships for all categories are not new to you. At the point of national formation, it was needful to massively train abroad. Now, it is no longer fashionable or needed. Investing big in education as the federal government insists on, does not translate to cash export.
Every scholarship applicant that is so granted, must be marched with an appropriate professor or group of professors, as supervisors, and should be given a sizeable research fund in the same area as the candidate. This is to synergise and motivate both scholars and professors to work together and produce results needed for our national development and global knowledge production. Indeed, funds should be set aside for foreign external examiners. Where such professors cum supervisors do not exist, a post graduate university should be required to outsource from across our borders a competent professor for a contract appointment with a mandate to produce a given number of well-trained specialists in the area as candidates from within and outside Nigeria. All monitoring and evaluation activities by the agencies will basically be within Nigeria. This will fulfill our university education in many ways.
One benefit is that we begin to once again attract international academics and scholars back to our universities. Let international scholars begin to bring money to our universities. Foreign scholars and professors have for long evaporated from our universities. Again, scholars and professors will be conditioned to research and contribute to national development. These legacies are for Adamu Adamu to leave behind. So, Minister, do something.
Yunusa is the Executive Director, Socioeconomic and Environment Advocacy Centre, Zaria
