The Question of Greed

Earlier this year, with tremendous joy, I ran into Jim Igbinedion. 

When I entered Edo College in 1969, he was the Head of School.  To us as younger students, his last name might as well have been “Please:” in the tradition of our school, we called older students by their last name and appended “Please.” For our mates, friends, we simply used the last name and, in some cases, did not really learn their first names until we were out of the school.

Mr. Igbinedion was the ultimate “Please.”  He was the lead student not simply by appointment but by deportment.  He was always sharply dressed, always clearly spoken, and always dutiful and punctual.  His dignity traveled miles ahead of his arrival.

He was also the Head of Eweka House, which was my dormitory, so I saw quite a bit of him and marveled at how he always seemed to be in control of his considerable responsibilities.

Mr. Igbinedion would go on to become an agricultural expert, following his studies at local and foreign universities, including Ohio State University in the United States, where he earned a Ph.D.  He served in the civil service of Edo State, rising to the position of Permanent Secretary.

I remember Dr. Igbinedion and many other senior students from my teenage years.  Naturally, I remember my classmates even more, and today, I am happy to share social media reunion with them.  On that turf, as sexagenarians, we are happy to reminisce on our youth, reflect on the state of our lives, and remember those of our friends who have died.

I do not have as close a bond with my university contemporaries, but each of them is usually just one or two colleagues away, as someone normally identifies or recalls someone else.

In other words, a school is not always about the certificate or diploma a student seeks.  It is perhaps even more of those relationships that individuals forge and the skills they develop.  That is why a student may learn nothing, in theory, but is always—if he adequately applies himself—enhanced by the experience of spending the prescribed time in an institution of learning.

The time together enables the institution (including its history and its body of knowledge) as well as the students’ colleagues, to make a better person of him when he departs.  I think that is why we remember our contemporaries well and are filled with nostalgia when we interact with them or visit our former schools.

Sometimes, a student falls short and fails to graduate.  Or he may have transferred to another school.  That means he would not have qualified for the privilege of the diploma he had sought in that first school, but it would not deny him the ‘diploma’ of his friendships.

Sometimes, that student merely drops out of the process, for some reason, and does not earn that diploma after all.  Unless he has health or character problems, he would still be able to count on his friends, and some of them could be extremely valuable to him.

But under no circumstances does a normal person go through life without going through a school or a community where he has no imprint or a track record or one certificate or two.  In writing, those would comprise his curriculum vitae or resume.  That is why, should the law or a news reporter—or an opportunity—be looking for such an individual, they would track him through his communities, including schools.

It is why, when anyone asks me, I am proud to refer them to any of the institutions which raised me.  I believe that this is the same thing that most other people do.  “Ask of me by name,” we seem to say, no appointment required.

I can only dream of what it would be for one to say he graduated in First Class (never mind one person I will always consider a Fourth Class not simply because he used someone else’s toothbrush in my home but helped loot an institution at his first opportunity).  To graduate in First Class would be a monumental achievement, and it is a pleasure to see such people honoured publicly.

A First-Class graduate is the cream of the graduating class.  He holds a golden ticket.  He basks in the knowledge that his achievement will always be recognized and honoured.

Indeed, some such people hurl humility aside and proclaim their status by themselves.  In a way, it is the equivalent of saying, “Ask of me by name,” in reference to the school in which such a triumph occurred, but also elsewhere. “Ask of me, no appointment required…my achievement will speak for me.”

Something else is implied: “My name will be instantly recognized and respected.  And because of my name, you will be warmly welcomed…”

That is true.  Such a person’s children can visit the school one generation later and they are accorded the dignity which that parent earned.

The reverse is what is difficult to comprehend: that such a “star,” his amazing achievement in any way questioned, shakes his head and loses sleep as he contemplates the prospect of the world seeing his record.   That such a “star’—the pride and joy he had previously celebrated publicly now required for routine verification—awakens every night screaming in agony as he assembles layers of lawyers to provide 24-hour, pillar-to-post, court-to-cloud protection of his academic file.

Something is seriously wrong, even for a country in which all has been wrong.  How is it even conceivable that a man who only months ago was declaring himself to be the “Only One,” and that he was deploying a  ”Grab-Snatch-Run” approach to winning presidential power is suddenly wriggling in an international political tunnel in which he says that the disclosure of his student records would inflict upon him “severe and irreparable harm?”

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the identity of the man who is currently Nigeria’s ruler.  The legitimacy of his election has been questioned since it was announced five months ago. “Severe and irreversible harm” simply from the disclosure of his records?  What horrors could possibly be in it?

Last week, Tinubu’s political and legal chaos was gaining traction in the US media, CBS News reporting Chicago, and headlines emerging such as “Nigerian President’s CSU Diploma is a Fake” by J. Coyden Palmer, a former CSU student.

“The signature of the CSU president shows Elnora D. Daniel,” he wrote, pointing out that Dr. Daniel became president only in 1998.  As a student reporter, Mr. Palmer covered her inauguration and her first two years.

As for Dr. Niva Lubin, who is listed on Tinubu’s document as the President of the Board of Trustees, he wrote that she joined the board only in 1996.  He has known her since his student days and she is “a lifelong resident of Chatham where I grew up,” he said.

Perhaps Tinubu has an earthshaking denouement to this story that would reassure the billions of people who travel through life and places and communities and institutions, leaving them uncompromised and unsoiled.  Nigeria should not travel through the “severe and irreversible harm” that is continuously inflicted by unfettered ambition.