NORTHERN LEADERS SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON EDUCATION, NOT THE PRESIDENCY
The North has ab-initio emerged as Nigeria’s political power house, as a numero uno, as the nation’s ordained ruling class due to its permanent hegemony over the south. Northern Nigeria has an immutable faith in its born-to-rule mentality buoyed on its population superiority which was enshrined by the Colonial Masters to protect the educationally impoverished North.
In the era of regionalism, the west invested prodigiously on education and is today reaping fruits of the seeds planted by Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ingenious free education programme.
Eastern Nigeria concentrated on commerce and manufacture and today is the hub of commerce and local manufacturer in Nigeria.
But for the North, it was not an easy battle to catch up with the West and the East. The premier of the then Northern Region and leader of the Northern Peoples Congress and also the Sarduana of Sokoto, saw the education problem coming and was proactive and pragmatic in his thinking. The Sarduana who was a very patriotic and providential figure in a pre-corrupt Nigeria, established strong educational infrastructures and incentives for the development of Northern education. These incentives included free books and writing materials free daily meals, free daily milk and extra wheat meals for the more impoverished, transport fare to and fro school for boarding students. They also got a small weekly allowance and also for the females free distribution of sanitary wares. The Ango Abdullais, Adamu Baikies, Ishaya Audus, Jubrin Aminus were all products of this glorious era. But when the military came, all these incentives withered away via corruption and this fabulous educational infrastructure collapsed.
Another problem with Northern Education is cultural. In most areas of the North and even the south, it is almost a taboo to “expose” the girl-child to Western education. The girl-child was seen as a veritable commodity to be traded off in early marriage to either pay off some outstanding family debt or to invest in some venture.
However, there is multiplicity of other cultural factors that pose as disincentives to education in the North. These will not be mentioned here.
The statistical figures on education coming from Northern Nigeria are both devastating and frightening. In first week of July 2013, the Director-General of the Nigerian Teachers Institute (NTI) in Kaduna, Dr. Amin Ladan Sharehu shocked the entire world when he said less than 20% of teachers in the North are qualified to teach. In other words more than 80% of teachers in the North are themselves illiterates with mainly certificates in Islamic studies.
The figure also reveal that 10 million school age children were out of school even before the massacre of innocent children in a Yobe State boarding school. This brutal and animalistic murder of innocent children by sub human Northern boko haram members only goes to confirm Aristotle, the Greek philosopher’s dictum that “educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead” and, Horace Mam adds that a “Human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated”
With the above postulations it will be grossly unfair for homosapiens to include boko haram and members of the murderous and rampaging Northern herdsmen as real human beings.
What! With such gruesome murders like plunging a long sword into a pregnant mother and murdering both the unborn baby and mother. Or slicing the throat of a Christian who is unable to recite the Quran. They are just animals parading in human form.
This trend of ignorance and crass illiteracy is not restricted to Nigeria alone but to places like Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Taliban have openly campaigned against western education especially the education of the girl-child. The Malala case is a very pertinent example here.
In some Muslim countries rebellious factions have openly and hypocritically jettisoned western education branding it as a corrupting influence on Islam.
These hypocrites use the latest and most scientific and sophisticated of western inventions and yet reject western education as the products of infidels. They use western guns and bombs, cars, clothes, eat western food in their hide outs and yet in their self-deceptive dreamland western education is haram (poisonous).
But the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III has severally denounced boko haram as derailing from the tenets of Islam. Remember the Sultan is the Head of the Sokoto Caliphate and the UMMA which also makes him the Head and spokesman of all Muslims in Nigeria.
boko haram Taliban and aqaeda etc are rebel groups in Islam. On the contrary Islam is a very peaceful and knowledge-based religion. The prophet Mohammed (May the peace of Allah be upon Him), the founder of Islam believes that the true muslim must be the best among mankind and most excel in all human qualities including wisdom morality and education”. One of Prophet Mohammed’s daily prayers was “O Lord increase my knowledge”. According to Imam Bakir al-Ulom, “the Imam is the treasure of knowledge”. Imam Musa al-Kazim was a great Islamic scholar and he postulated that “Learned believers are fortresses of Islam like the protecting wall built around the city”.
Islam as a religion is built on deep learning and knowledge. Listen to the 20th Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, “Leaders must not only be educated and knowledgeable but must also be guided by knowledge and understanding to manage efficaciously the affairs of the citizenry”.
But the North which has ruled this country for 41 years since self government in 1957 has not produced any such leader to manage the affairs of this country efficaciously.
In fact the North has for 41 years chased the shadow of politics, corruption and ego-aggrandizement at the expense of the real substance which is education and good leadership. Leadership without intellectual depth and acuity is Vain, unproductive and ineffectual. The North has rested on the conviction of an unshakable political dominance and hegemony without building enduring infrastructural pillars of education and knowledge.
Professors Ishaya Audu, Adamu Baikie and Ango Abdullai were all Vice Chancellors but what peculiar curricula did they fashion out to take the particular and peculiar needs of the Northern child into consideration.
Prof. Ango Abdullai is today at the driving seat of Northern politics. His cares and worries are not for the improvement of education or other infrastructures. He stands for the maintenance of the status quo and further impoverishment of the wretched of the earth. In
2010, Adamu Ciroma gathered the North’s “best Presidential materials” but none of them could make it through the primaries. They were all disgraced and fell by the wayside like the biblical seed that fell by the wayside.
I will advise Prof. Ango Abdullai to drop politics for now and learn from Prof. Jibrin Aminu on what further ways to improve educational structures in the North. The Prof. may not have known that the easiest way to overcome your enemy is to deprive him of education. Absence of education gives rise to ignorance, which in turn gives rise to violence, which also gives rise to wars, anarchy, chaos disintegration and finally extinction.
If the “learned” professor as at a loss on how to revamp and revive education in Northern Nigeria, I will introduce him to the Singaporean model.
Professor Ango Abdullai should dump politics and build a broad-based and holistic learning system of education that will develop the Northern child to enhance an enduring core strength of competence, values and character for him to thrive and earn a place among other children in the comity of advanced nations.
The tiny country of Singapore had its independence forced on it by Malaysia on 9th of August 1965, five years after Nigeria. Everything in Singapore was in shambles including their education.
But the least educated of the 3 linguistic groups of Singaporeans were the Muslim Malays who are minorities and even poorer. The Chinese population of Singapore is a whooping 75% while Malays follow with 14% and the Indians are the least populated with about 11%.
The Malays were mainly Muslims and their ascendancy rate in education dropped over the years in comparison with the Chinese and Indians who were rich enough to sponsor their education.
By 1980, the level of education of Malay students fell disgracefully to its nadir. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew then called Malay community leaders and laid the facts of Malay Students under achievement bare to them.
Lee Kuan Yew showed the community leaders a survey of 15-20% improvement when both students and parents were motivated for excellence. The Muslim community reacted positively and with government support formed an association called MENDAKI (Maji lis Pendelikon Anak-Anak Islam-council on education for Muslim children). Mendaki consisted of representatives from Malay’s social, literary, and cultural bodies including Malay members of the Ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). The cooperation of Muslim workers was unbelievable. Government deducted 50 cents from each Malay worker’s Central Provident Fund (CPF). A few years after, MENDAKI showed a steady increase in the number of Muslim students passing their examinations in Mathematics, the Sciences and the Arts.
In 19991, some young Muslim graduates formed the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) with financial support both from Government and wealthy community leaders, and with extra evening tuition, the results increased tremendously. This gave extra fillip to an excited Muslim student community and their supportive parents.
In 1995 Muslim Students scored more that the international average. In 1987 only 7% of Muslim Students made it to polytechnics and universities. By 1999, 19 years after MENDAKI and AMP the figures had quadrupled to 28%. In 1999 a Muslim girl graduated Summa-Cum Laude in Berkeley –California. Another Muslim Student topped his graduating Architecture Class winning a gold medal also.
Another obtained 1st class Honours in physics in Cambridge and a PHD in 1999. This sterling and outstanding performance by the Muslim Malay Students encouraged the Indian Community to form the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) in 1991 and in 1992 the Chinese formed the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) to help their weaker students as the Muslim Students were already topping the Chinese and Indian Students in the Universities.
(a) In 2006 Singapore was ranked “among the top” in literacy
(b) In 2007 Singapore students “ranked among the top in Mathematics and Science”
(c) In 2009 Singapore Students again “ranked among the top in Reading, Mathematics
and Science”
(d) In 2010 Singapore was identified as one of the world’s best performing school
system
(e) In the Global Competitiveness Report of 2011-12, Singapore was 2nd in “Quality of
Educational System” globally.
The greatest tragedy of Northern Leaders is that they all believe in personal aggrandizement. Some of their former military rulers are even richer than the whole nation. All northern governors especially the “rebellious 5” want to be president because they are so ensconced in the euphoria of their born-to-rule mentality and a vow to become billionaires.
Northern politicians have taken politics to very unhealthy and unsustainable limits at the expense of education and other developmental infrastructure. Northern Nigeria is lucky to have produced the Richest man in Africa according to the Forbes list of millionaires/billionaires. Community contribution is very vital to this experiment because additional funding and resources enable schools to create innovative teaching methods.
The North should leave politics for now and create “future schools” to partner with industry players of Northern origin to use their resources to kick start a state-of-the-Art technology that will pilot new teaching and learning experiences in the 21st century.
Professor Ango Abdullai and the 5 rebellious Northern Governors should rather encourage the North to vote massively for President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 to enable him concentrate on the education of the Almajiris and take Northern education to the next level.
Written By Ben Nanaghan
E-mail: [email protected]