LAST week, I opted to write on the way the Federal Government was “dashing” out universities in various parts of the country. The Tinubu administration even moved further by “adopting” a state-owned university, the Tai Solarin University of Education in Ogun State. Already, Ogun State is the university capital of the country. There are about 10 universities, private and public, in Ogun already. Establishing another federal university there will seem out of place, hence the “adoption” of an existing one. Good thinking? Perhaps.
But I am worried about the development because it is a reflection of the quality of thinking that guides the management of public affairs in our country. In the same country where the famous East-West Road remains uncompleted, it was deemed appropriate to begin a N15 Trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, without appropriate budgeting and tendering process. If that is the case, there can be no problem if we leave existing universities in various stages of their physical development to build new ones. It is also not a matter that should bother us that existing ones remain chronically under-funded.
If we are thinking about our future and that of our children, which one demands emergency attention more, between Rivers State and the education sector? I will not second-guess your answer.
On Rivers State, it was obvious that sooner or later, something will have to give, in order to resolve the political logjam foisted on the good people of the state by their political merchants. From what we have seen so far, slamming emergency rule on Rivers appeared to be the best middle-of-the-road option to top political managers; they preferred impeachment of the governor. With emergency rule, both the governor and his un-understandable House of Assembly lose. At least, they join the unemployment queue for the next six months.
But looking at it critically, was that the best option that could have been exercised by the president when a House of Assembly is at loggerheads with the governor? Wasn’t the situation similar to what obtained in Lagos, about which we may not have heard the last word?
In fact, the Lagos case was one of the greatest political shows of shame in our democratic history experience. Is the president, who finally imposed his writ of peace on the Lagos Assembly unaware of the allegations made by the members against their speaker, which prompted them to remove him? That apart, the Sunday before Obasa was reinstated, the information from credible sources was that Obasa would resign as speaker after his reinstatement. Monday morning came, and the story changed: nothing like that was decided.
It made me wonder about the age-old maxim in Yorubaland that “elders don’t lie.” When did elders start lying in Yorubaland? Under this president?
Let me go back to the issue of raining universities like confetti. Five years from now, all the newly-established universities will be lamenting because of the funding problem. We have a government that is perennially unable to mobilise the resources it needs but keeps budgeting for them. When the funds don’t materialise, government resorts to what we now know as the “envelope” system. MDAs then have to make do with what they get from the Minister of Finance who starts rationing funds, in a bid to keep government running. Universities will be at the bottom of the rationing ladder. And ASUU will not keep quiet, and will also not go to sleep. So, we are looking at university and polytechnic closures in the years ahead when the folly of dashing universities out for political reasons begins to stare us in the face.
So, for me, while government has declared emergency rule in Rivers State, let the same government reconsider, opt for political and legal solutions; but it should, in the interest of generations unborn, declare emergency in the education sector. If emergency couldn’t be the solution in Lagos, despite the president saying he saw the hand of the Lagos governor in Obasa’s removal, why should there be emergency in Rivers.
All the same, I’m for emergency. Not in Rivers or elsewhere, but in the education sector. Though I particularly favour emergency in the tertiary sector, I’d prefer emergency declaration from primary to tertiary level. In the interest of our children. TGIF.
The post Between emergency in Rivers and in education sector, by Adekunle Adekoya appeared first on Vanguard News.
