From FRED ITUA, Abuja
Professor Ango Abdullahi was former Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello Univerisity (ABU), Zaria, and the current Chairman of the Governing Council of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi. When it comes to national issues and critical matters that affect the North, the spokesman of the Northern Elders’ Forum has never hesitated to speak up.
In this interview with Daily Sun, Professor Abdullahi claims that former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, under-developed the North. He also bares his mind on the dwindling economy of the region, the Boko Haram insurgency, the state of the education sector in Nigeria, among other issues. Excerpts: Rot in education sector Recently, I have taken some keen interest at the state of education in the country.
That propelled me to write to the Honourable Minister of Education on two aspects of educational development in the country. The two levels I chose are closely inter-related and critical. Secondary education is key. Nigeria has continued to record almost 90 per cent failure rate in WAEC and NECO. It’s a major disaster.
You cannot hope to put these children into tertiary institutions with a view to finding them various areas of academic endeavours, which will lead to various areas of manpower that will be critical to the development of this country. Modern day development as we see all over the world today is very much anchored on the level of education the students are getting out of secondary as well as out of universities.
The rate of growth, taking place in China and India is largely because of the intensity with which they pay attention to the development of technical education. We are having a serious crisis in Nigeria as far I can see. Unless something is done without delay, we will continue to slide backwards. You may see so many universities coming up.
What we are doing there is simply addressing the quantum rather than the quality of education. I am the Chairman of the Governing Council of Abubakar Tawafa Balewa University, Bauchi. The allocation for research for a whole university every year is less than N20 million. You don’t expect serious research to happen in this kind of school.
Without research, there is little you can teach students. What is happening is that, teachers and students have to rely on researches from other universities in the world. I see a serious decline in the quality of education in the country from bottom upward. Unless something is done quickly by all the stakeholders, we will continue to have serious problems David Mark statement on Boko Haram unfortunate I didn’t realize that I was coming hard on the Senate President.
All I wanted to do was to remind him that as far the constitution is concerned, he is the number three citizen of the country. He happened to come from the northern region. Given his position as the Senate President, he is the number two political leader from the northern region.
One expects naturally that he is one of our leaders. In fact, he should be in the forefront of leadership together with the Vice president. For him to unfortunately come up with that kind of statement, it portrays him as somebody trying to pass through the back. He ought to be part of the solution in view of his special position in the north. But he is saying that northern leaders are not doing enough.
That means that, if he is part of the northern leadership, he should include himself as not doing enough. But if he has excluded himself from being part of the northern leadership, then he can pass on the blame to those who should take the responsibility. So, this is what I reminded him about.
It was misread that I was being hard on him. Addressing poverty in the North Let’s be fair to Nigeria and let’s start from the basis. If you look at the most recent report based on the indices that have been accepted world-wide, you will discover the hardship faced by Nigerians daily. These indices are called human development indices.
They are not just used to measure economic development, but social development as well. The recent reports claimed that over 100 million Nigerians live in poverty as defined by the international scale. The North is not 100 million. That means there is poverty in every part of the country.
I agree that there is no even socio-economic development in Nigeria. There are reasons. Poverty is more pronounced in the northern parts of the country. One can easily arrive at a reason for this disparity. The north has been educationally disadvantaged. It is the decision of the region more or less. I remember back then in the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo put education first in the region.
So, I will be right to say that the South-West states are the most educationally advanced states in Nigeria. This is the disadvantage the North was in particularly at the point of independence. Education still remains the main disadvantage of which the north still remains today. That explains the inability of its people to actively participate in the economic process of this country. People may argue that the North has been in charge of the political control of this country for years.
Today, I can produce a book which we researched to show you that in the federal employees’ structure, the north is represented by only 18 per cent. The remaining 82 per cent comes from other parts of Nigeria. If you extrapolate that in budgetary terms, the recurrent budget of the federal government on personnel cost for example, 82 per cent of that goes outside the north. You can translate that into various parts of the economy.
For example, take the banks. Out of the 25 mega banks, only one is owned by northern investors. So, it is quite clear that the north is socially and economically more disadvantaged than the rest of the country. There is no way the country can develop with the current disparity. Even the allocations northern states get are insufficient in tackling the huge gap. We must review current revenue sharing formula Revenue sharing is only one aspect.
There ought to be a deliberate federal policy that will address specific areas of need in various parts of the country. There has been a specific policy to deal with the problem of the Niger-Delta which started from the first republic. This led to the development of bodies like OMPADEC and others to deal with the problem of the Niger-Delta specifically. Why can’t they do the same for other parts of the country where you can identify some of the causes of economic disability and environmental degradation?
A whole ministry in addition to OMPADEC, NDDC and derivation of 13 per cent has been created for the Niger-Delta areas. These are some of the things that indicate that people in positions of authority are not serious in dealing with the developmental needs of all the parts of this country. Curtailing pervasive insecurity You are absolutely correct.
This is the mistake some highly-placed officials always make. They have assumed that the issue of Boko Haram is a problem of the North. This is absolutely irresponsible and short-sighted. Where are the Igbo shop owners in Borno, Yobe and in some substantial parts of Kano State? People are afraid because they don’t know who will be attacked next.
Trying to achieve peace is a major requirement for anybody in a position of authority. There are various claims as to who should be responsible for what. Book Haram for me, started as a simple religious group. I wouldn’t even call them a sect. They have been in existence for about 11 years. From time to time, you will always find people who are reading their scriptures slightly different from their mainstream counterparts. There are other groups.
This is what has always been. This very group I think, their situation was badly handled in 2008/2009. From then on, instead of quickly nipping whatever problem it was in the bud, the matter took a totally different colouration. I think it was badly handled by law enforcement agencies. If it was a religious sect, it should have been kept that way and dealt with accordingly.
Unfortunately, politicians started employing them against their perceived opponents. This matter has been politicized. Coming down to Jos, what we have had in the Plateau was more or less ethno-religious crisis. I am glad to know what retired General Jerry Useni said recently.
He said Governor Jang is the problem of Plateau State because he has refused to handle it as the governor of the state, but pandering sentimentally towards his own tribe. This is the real cause of the crisis in Plateau State as of now. Boko Haram to me was something that would have been nipped in the bud early, but was allowed to assume a dimension it is today. The question now is, who is going to stop it? Everybody has a role to play.
Some are more responsible than the others. Government has a larger role to play. The primary responsibility of who to find a solution to this problem is the government. From community leaders to traditional rulers, everyone has a role to play. We should start asking questions as to why this is happening.
Dealing with the matter by force is not the solution. They are now learning that using military might will not solve the problem. We even reminded the government in our recent submission to President Goodluck Jonathan. Government at all levels should enlist every stakeholder they consider important to come out and find a way of reaching out to these boys in the bush. They always give the excuse that they don’t know them, but they are not fictitious.
We believe that with the current approach through the communities, they will be able to reach out to them. The North and 2015 The position of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) on 2015 is that there should be free and fair election. As I told you, I was in the constitutional conference for three times.
In 1994/1995, the question of power sharing was a major discussion at that conference. Eventually, it was argued that the north by virtue of its size had dominated politics at the centre and this will continue unless special concessions are made. The delegates reluctantly accepted that power should be shared between the north and south. There were no geo- political zones then.
The agreement was that power should rotate between the north and the south. We put it in the constitution and the government said no, because the constitution is a permanent document. They said at some point, Nigerians will trust themselves and will not care where the president of the country will emerge from. They said the parties could use it.
That was how it was incorporated into the constitution of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). It was a major attraction to all parts of Nigeria. That was why the PDP was generally accepted by many Nigerians. The argument was where the rotation would start. That was how Obasanjo emerged. It was agreed that after 8 years, the presidency will come back tothe North.
The Sunnewsonline.com
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