The Sword On RIVPOLY

Let us agree that he will assist the school. But is it not bad that somebody is calling a dog and still holds a stick in the hand? Would the dog come? Is it not also very bad to deride somebody in the public, whom you know that is not performing very well, before promising to assist the person? Would it not have been better to first assist the person and if the person is not performing as is expected then you can come public to condemn the person?



This is what we read in the news that Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State did to the authorities of the Rivers State Polytechnic (RIVPOLY), Bori, Rivers State. He lambasted them during the institution's 14th–17th convocation ceremony, for what he described as “churning out haft-baked graduates” into the societies. But if we may ask, what is the parameter used in measuring “half-baked graduates” when perhaps many of them had excellent points and came out with better certificates? Was Amaechi telling the world that because out of the 9,000 graduands, perhaps some had no knowledge of the computer, as a result they are “half-baked” graduates?



To be honest, education is beyond what many in Nigeria think education is. Education is beyond well furnished schools and lecturers' offices, riding children to school in state-of-the-art cars, education is an unending process, but school is. It could be recalled that some years back, in a Sunday edition of The Nation newspaper, Professor Wole Soyinka said that “Mama Ogbomosho” taught him Economics. This woman besides had no formal education but was proficient in the Economics of her road petty trade that a Literary Icon as Soyinka still saw education in and learnt from her.



If Amaechi insists that the management of the school should provide his office in two weeks with the inventory of the entire polytechnic's lecturers with their qualifications, this is fine. But why should he specialize much in paper qualification? It may surprise him that some of the lecturers might have gigantic paper qualifications but are just empty, because they went to school, and are yet to come in racing bike with education in the real sense. In Nigeria, do many people not go to school for want of certificate? Is this not why the country inhabits a very primordial people in the way some of us think?




To make that point home, there was an interview where people with Masters Degrees held sway, speaking big grammars and all that. Behold, when the interviewer asked some of them to spell scissors, admonishment, somnambulism, pandemonium, kleptomania etcetera, you will not believe what these Masters Degrees holders did: Some took excuse to go home and come back, while others said that they were not English Language students, because they could not spell the words. Are these also not people with “better qualifications”? Hogwash Degrees!



Education should be verified in practice, not in pronunciation. To a limited extent, education is the commendation from Amaechi to the beleaguered Vice-Chancellor of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Nkpolu–Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Professor Barineme B. Fakae, whom he used the opportunity at the convocation at Bori to inform, was reappointed due to his pathway records both at RIVPOLY and the UST, and not about his paper qualifications, which we know he might have. It is on this ground that the Academic Staff Union of Universities got it wrong when it accused Amaechi of interfering in the running of Rivers State University of Science and Technology, because ASUU wanted the “intimidating qualifications” it can see, not the quality in Fakae, as told by Amaechi.



The ASUU's stance that Fakae's selection by Amaechi in 2008 was illegal and the “undeserved and illegal” re-appointment of Fakae are not only in line to debase Amaechi, but also, an overstatement. If it was not the responsibility of the governor to do so, but that of the university's governing council, then who appointed the “university's governing council”? This does not mean to say that the University Law should not be upheld. Let people stop seeing education with the periscope of politics, as we have always seen in the activities of this ASUU.



However, these unnecessary attacks from Amaechi to Bori Polytechnic, and the ASUU attacks to Amaechi, are nailed to politics, not education. Educated people hardly fail to spell such word as scissors, but most schooled people do. This is a sensitive issue. Where Amaechi would have been wrong was if the tenure of the VC was not renewable. Fakae, as investigations reveal, has performed creditably, and that was why he was returned. Is it no longer the person who pays the piper that dictates the tune? Though, Fakae may have his shortcomings as VC of the school, just as everybody has.



It was noted that detractors are fighting Fakae because of his resolve that students must prove that they deserved their certificates by merits through 'education' and not through 'school'. In school, one can wangle his or her way to get the certificate, but in education, there is not shortcut. Either you know it or you don't. There is no whitewash. So, any traducers saying that Amaechi appointed Fakae whom they claim is without qualities for VC, please, what are the qualities for becoming a VC? Is it to issue unmerited degrees immediately a student is seen to have completed his or her studies within a period of time or in making sure that a student merits the certificate?



Let us agree in education outside politics, even though that politics is also part of education. Amaechi should however fulfill the promise that he made during the RIVPOLY's 14th–17th convocation ceremony. It may take politics to be schooled, but it takes principle to be educated.

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Articles by Odimegwu Onwumere