Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Aboki FX: How speculators attack, affect naira value —CBN ex-deputy gov Moghalu by Kayode Oyero
A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Kingsley Moghalu, has said that currency speculators attack and affect the value of the naira.
Moghalu, who was a deputy governor at the apex bank from 2009 to 2014, made this known in a thread posted on his Twitter handle on Saturday.
He made the comments just hours after the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Friday, said that the Federal Government would track the owner of Aboki FX, an online platform that gathers and displays parallel market rates in Nigeria, and stop the operations of the website in the country.
The apex bank governor had also accused the owner of the website, a London-based Nigerian, Oniwinde Adedotun, of “speculative activities on the naira”, adding that he has to explain how he obtains his rates.
This is based on the rate of the rise of the naira on the parallel market which is currently trading at N570/dollar.
Following the complaints by the CBN governor, Aboxi FX said on Friday that it would no longer provide daily updates on foreign exchange rates for now and hoped that the naira would stabilise.
Commenting on the FX crisis in the country in a Twitter thread, Moghalu listed factors that affect the value of the Naira to include “supply and demand (if too much Naira is chasing scarce dollars, the dollar gets stronger relative to the Naira, and vice versa).
“Others are inflation (a high inflation economy such as Nigeria’s weakens the value of the legal tender), high government indebtedness ( again, our case especially relative to our revenues and ability to pay which will be stretched the more we borrow on poor revenues, and 90 kobo out of every N1 goes to debt servicing).”
Though Moghalu did not mention Aboki FX, he said, “Speculation also affects the naira value, as there are currency traders around the world for whom the weakness of a currency is their very good fortune. Such traders “attack” such currencies for profit, especially where the currency is using a fixed, official exchange rate determined by the central bank instead of the market.
“As the Naira is effectively pegged officially to a “reserve” currency (dollars, euros, pound sterling), speculators can attack such a currency for profit if the country (Nigeria in this case) is perceived to have insufficient foreign reserves to meet demand. Because our inflation rates at 17% are way higher than those “reserve-currency” countries, again we are exposed to possible currency attacks.
“If reserves are weak, and demand for dollars massively outstrips supply, currency devaluation is inevitable, and currency traders who mount speculative attacks profit from this devaluation.
“Such traders will borrow the Naira from Nigerian banks, convert it to, say, dollars, then buy short-interest paying Nigerian bonds. If, as the speculators anticipate, the central bank devalues the naira, the traders sell the bonds in the foreign currency, convert them into naira, and repay their original loan.
“The steeper the devaluation the higher the speculator’s profit. What should we do about all of this? As I have said before, and say again, we have two options. One is to let the Naira find its level in the market. In order, words, subsidizing the currency.
“While there will likely be an immediate spike in the price of the dollar, this move will have two advantages. The first is that, because Nigeria has a big, profitable economy and market, dollars will likely swamp the market seeking profits for investors.
“When this happens, the laws of demand and supply will work in favour of the Naira. Alongside this, maintaining different exchange rates for different kinds of transactions must end. This is called rate convergence.”
The former presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party in the 2019 election also said that one of the best ways to strengthen the naira is to make the “right trade policies to support and create such incentives for massive exports of finished, value-added goods from Nigeria”.
“The second, and more important benefit is that, since the current practice of the CBN pumping dollars in the FX market (from the reserves, which also depleted them) is essentially a subsidy for imports, which has made Nigeria more and more import-dependent, letting go of the subsidy on the Naira will refocus the economy towards exports.
“This will create an incentive for complex production of a quality that can be competitive in the international market. Accompanying this must be the right trade policies to support and create such incentives for massive exports of finished, value-added goods from Nigeria.”
Sit-at-home: Kidnappers, criminals have hijacked IPOB agitation, says Umahi by Kayode Oyero
Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, has said that the secessionist agitation of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra has been hijacked by criminals and kidnappers.
The governor also said that the proscribed group is no longer in control of the whole agitation as a result of the alleged hijack by unscrupulous elements.
Umahi, who is the Chairman of the South-East Governors’ Forum, spoke on Friday on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme monitored by The PUNCH.
According to him, the people of the South-East geopolitical zone are industrious people who don’t sit at home on Mondays.
The governor said though IPOB had announced the suspension of its Monday sit-at-home order initially issued by the group, Igbo businessmen and women continue to stay indoors on Mondays because of the lack of inadequate security personnel to secure their lives and property.
Umahi said, “The sit-at-home works to the average of 70 per cent in the South-East because of fear. It’s fear; our people are not the kind of people that sit at home – they hustle for their daily living, they go from one place to the other.
“The worst sit-at-home is the terrible state of roads in the South-East, it is worst than IPOB sit-at-home.
“But let me address the issue of IPOB sit-at-home to say that even IPOB themselves had come out severally to say, ‘Look o, we have suspended sit-at-home’, which is madness in the first place. You are not sitting at home in the North or in the West, you only sit at home in the South-East to destroy the economy of South-East.
“You can’t destroy your people and pretend that you are fighting for your people. These are youths and then the agitation of IPOB has been hijacked by cultists and criminals and kidnappers, so the whole show is out of their hands.
“So, it is out of fear that we don’t have enough security to protect the people, that’s why the people sit at home out of fear because many had been killed as a result of this and as a result of security people not being enough to protect them.”
The PUNCH had earlier reported that IPOB pronounced a weekly sit-at-home order in the entire South-East (Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia states) beginning August 9, 2021, to protest the continued detention of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who has been in the custody of the Department of State Services for over three months.
IPOB subsequently suspended the Monday sit-at-home order, saying it would be observed any day Kanu appears in court but the last seven Mondays have turned bloody in the South-East as “unknown gunmen” attacked travellers, traders, students, and other persons who came out for normal activities.
Many have been killed, injured and vehicles have been burnt while banks, markets, schools, and other public places continue to shut down every Monday as people stayed indoors out of fear of being assailed outside.
The case of Kanu, who is facing terrorism-related charged before Justice Binta Nyako, has been adjourned to October 21, 2021, for continuation of hearing.
The National Association of Resident Doctors has said it will appeal the ruling of the National Industrial Court by Deborah Tolu-Kolawole and Lesi Nwisagbo
Striking doctors kick against industrial court order, vow to appeal
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Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi
The National President, National Association of Resident Doctors, Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi
The National Association of Resident Doctors has said it will appeal the ruling of the National Industrial Court, Abuja which asked its members to suspend their ongoing strike action and return to work.
The association made its position known in a statement on Friday titled, “NARD/SG/2020-2021/170921/83,” jointly signed by its President, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, and Secretary General, Jerry Isogun.
The statement partly read, “As we are all aware, especially those that were present in court today, the NIC has given a ruling on the application for interlocutory injunction filed by the Federal Government. We are not satisfied with the ruling.
“After consultations with our lawyers, we have instructed our lawyers to appeal the ruling and file application for stay of execution.
“On September 15, 2021, the court reserved ruling on which application the court would take first. Our lawyers had argued in the court on that day that the court ought to hear and determine our notice of preliminary objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court before taking the application for interlocutory injunction or any other application.
“The court adjourned ruling on the argument on that issue till today (Friday). Today (Friday), the court ruled that it would take the government’s application for interlocutory injunction first and our NPO would be taken and determined along with the substantive suit.
“Also, our lawyers drew the attention of the court to our application for stay of execution of the ex parte order and that the court should take that application first. The court insisted that the government application would be taken first.”
NARD added that while the court had on September 19 ordered all parties to resume negotiations, the government refused to resume negotiations in line with the order of August 23.
It added, “Our lawyers reported this development to the court. We have demonstrated good faith and would continue to do so.
“By the refusal of the court to hear and determine our Notice of Preliminary Objection before taking the government’s application for interlocutory injunction, we believe we have been denied fair hearing which is a fundamental right.
“In the circumstances, we have instructed our lawyers to file necessary processes.
“We urge all members to remain calm and resolute. Everything depends on our firm resolve. We are committed to protecting your rights within the confines of the law. We believe justice shall be ours ultimately.”
During the Friday hearing, counsel for government, Tochukwu Maduka (SAN), had told the court that the parties ought to have given a report on the settlement reached but they were unable to agree.
But counsel for NARD, Femi Aborisade, accused the Federal Government of failing to call a meeting to reconcile the differences.
Aborisade urged the court to compel the government to go back to the negotiation table.
However, he stated that if the government wants to proceed in court, they were ready to match them.
Arguing Federal Government’s motion on notice for interlocutory injunction, Maduka urged the court to restrain the resident doctors from continuing with the industrial action pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.
He argued that resident doctors, as persons who provide essential services, could not embark on strike and continue to deny citizens access to health care.
But Aborisade vehemently opposed Maduka’s prayers, saying it would be unfair to force doctors who treat hundreds of Nigerians back to work without settling the issues they had raised.
But after taking arguments from the parties, the judge ruled in favour of the Federal Government and ordered the resident doctors back to work immediately and ordered the parties to go back to the negotiation table.
The judge said, “It is my firm belief that if the court does not intervene, many Nigerians will lose their lives.
“In view of the fact, I found the application meritorious, I grant the application.
“Members of the Defendant are hereby restrained from continuing with the Industrial action.
“I hereby order the defendant to resume work and enter negotiation with the claimants.”
PUNCH
Saturday, 18 September 2021
THE CHALLENGES OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
By Yemi Ogunbiyi
(Dinner speech on the eve of the 2019 Convocation of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria, on 7th August, 2019)
First, let me thank the Academy, and also its President, Professor Francis Egbokhare, for the honour done me and the other distinguished inductees for our admission into the Nigerian Academy of Letters. The honour of being considered an Honorary Fellow of this highly distinguished apex body for the advancement and promotion of scholarship and public interest in the humanities in our country is one that I cherish immensely.
When I was invited to address this gathering for no more than 40 minutes on a topic of my choice, my immediate impulse was, of course, to choose to share with you my experience of the past two years as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the Obafemi Awolowo University, and how that experience has reshaped my thinking about the future of university education in our country. Accordingly, I have titled my address: How to reposition our Universities: The modest example of the Obafemi Awolowo University.
When I first came to work at Ile-Ife in 1977, I was a young 30-year old who had just finished graduate work at the New York University, in the United States. At that time, the University of Ife was a huge beehive of intellectual and cultural activities. A robustly brilliant, nimble-witted academic, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, who had become Vice-Chancellor, I believe, the year before I arrived, embodied the bedrock of the fermentation of intellectual ideas that opened up the University to vistas of new possibilities. His influence and effort paid off handsomely and succeeded in attracting some of our finest academics to Ife. There was a joke at the time that captured the spirit of those moments, namely, that Professor Aboyade had given Professor Wole Soyinka an absolute free hand to institute any department he wanted in the Faculty of Arts, design for himself what courses he wished to teach, or do just about anything he wanted to do, provided his name featured prominently in the University’s teaching staff list! Other young academics, such as Dr. Biodun Jeyifo (as he then was), Dr. Kole Omotosho, Dr. Olabiyi Yayi, the late Professor Akinwunmi Isola, and a number of others, relocated to Ife.
From the collaborative effort and work of our internationally-endowed faculty, a very virile culture of learning and research thrived, leading to a string of various achievements. The atmosphere of those years was not just upbeat, it fuelled a healthy competition and a robust interest in research and learning. My own modest work as an academic is a product of those years.
By the time I came back two years ago, this time, as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, that is, some forty years after I first set foot on that campus, I encountered a slightly different scenario! While much of the architectural beauty of the campus remained relatively intact, there was abundant evidence that the system was encountering severe difficulties. Those difficulties, which are not peculiar to Ife, is the sad story of higher education today in our country. I speak here of very scarce financial support, inadequate infrastructural facilities, acute shortage of skilled teaching facility, a bloated administrative arm of the system, lack of research interests, lack of motivation to compete and collaborate internationally, and an almost zero industry collaboration, etc.
Perhaps, the most fundamental of these problems is that of the inadequacy of funding. Mr. President, I am reluctant to bore you with the history of higher education in our country. It is sufficient merely to state here that, in certain respects, that history is inextricably linked with the problems we face today. When the British invaded our shores in the middle of the nineteenth century and established the first set of mission schools in their trading posts in Lagos and Calabar, their interest was in commerce, not education. As we all now know, the idea was not to provide education for development, but to educate the elites that would assist them in administering the colonies.
So, when, following the recommendations of the Elliot Commission of 1943, the University College, Ibadan, was founded in 1948, it was conceived as an affiliate of the University of London, which was itself founded by Royal Charter in 1836 to function, like its brother institutions, Cambridge and Oxford, as a haven for the training of British professional elite to assist in propping up the Empire. Quite unlike the American model, for instance, where in 1862, the Morrill Act created a uniquely American model, one in which, in principle at least, universities were designed from the beginning “to prepare the masses of young people in a participatory arrangement,” the British model was something akin to the medieval concept of the university, where the Church and the State funded universities in full. The new University College of Ibadan inherited the University of London's structure, its curriculum, its funding mechanism and its broad objectives, essentially, as I stated above, to enable it to cater to the elite class in Nigeria.
That structure appeared to have worked, at least, for a while. Then following the Eric Ashby Report of 1959, other regional universities were established, such that two years after Independence in 1960, there were 60,000 undergraduates in Nigeria’s six universities, usually referred to as the first generation universities, namely, Ibadan, Nsukka, Ile-Ife, Zaria, Lagos and Benin.
Then, in the mid-1970s, our problems began, albeit, gradually. In September of 1976, General Olusegun Obasanjo, as Head of the military government, launched the Universal Free Primary Education Scheme (UPE), clearly the most gigantic educational project ever in the history of Nigeria, at least, up until that time. During the first session of the scheme, that is, the 1976/77 session, 8 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools throughout the country. During the 1980/81 session, that figure rose to 15 million. In the same year, 1.2 million children enrolled in secondary schools and another 75,000 students gained admission into universities. By 1985, the undergraduate admission figures went up to 125,000. And even though those figures represented a tiny proportion of the population, it was clear, even at that time, that the fierce competition to get into the limited available spaces in higher institutions had begun. Obviously, the rapid enrollment into primary and secondary schools had started to create a deficit between the number of students seeking higher education and the amount of slots available in the universities. As at 2018, according to the National Universities Commission, there were over 2 million full-time undergraduates and graduates enrolled in our existing 170 Universities today.
As these nascent problems of our universities began, they were compounded by other global challenges that were way beyond the capacities of these institutions. First, there was the transformation in the global political economy and the significance of information and knowledge to production and management services, known as globalisation. Then came the global economic meltdown of some two decades ago, coupled also with the burgeoning population explosions of the period, which took a greater toll on Africa than the rest of the world. This situation was compounded even further by the rapacious greed of the African elite, whose corrupt practices robbed the continent of valuable resources that would have gone into infrastructure, social services and human capacity development. Then, just as we were beginning to negotiate our relationship with the long period of military rule and its effects on higher education, the HIV/AIDS pandemic struck.
These global challenges led to severe crunches in practically every sector of the economy, from governance, to social services and, of course, education. These also meant that our universities were incapable of taking full advantage of the opportunities and benefits of globalisation. And as the State, which had been the main source of funding retreated, our universities, buckled under the strain. This major challenge, that is, lack of adequate funding, led to the decay we now face today.
Meanwhile, some key stakeholders in the sector, seemingly oblivious of these challenges, appear stuck in the mindset of the past and insist that state funding of universities is the only viable way forward for our universities to survive and thrive. Without question, adequate funding is key to university education. That view is not open to debate. Without adequate funding, higher education, anywhere, is doomed. But how should higher education be funded? Given regard to the peculiar nature of our history, can the state afford to continue to fund higher education? Are there lessons to be learnt from how universities are funded elsewhere?
My contention, Mr. President, is that higher education in Nigeria can no longer be funded entirely by government. Let me restate this differently for emphasis. With all due respect to the position of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, its contention that Government can fund higher education entirely if all the leakages in the system were plugged, is unrealistic. In my view, no government of Nigeria, now or in the future, can adequately fund higher education for a number of reasons which I shall show presently. Not even the laudable effort of such intervention funding institutions as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) can fully reverse the current deterioration in the system, to enable us to maximise learning outcomes and contribute efficiently to the workforce here at home or abroad. Even if we were to emulate the example of Ghana, which has consistently, during the last two decades or so, allocated about 15% of its annual Budget to education, we would still not be there. And the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said that much at the last Convocation ceremony of the University of Ibadan, when, while admitting that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), may be correct in some of its demands, insisted that sole government funding for universities was an invitation to repeated failures.
The existing funding details could not be worse than what is in place at the moment. Take the Obafemi Awolowo University, for instance. With a students’ population of close to 30,000 and a staff strength of some 4,800, we require over N65billion annually to run the university as a modern, top-ranking institution. The annual budgetary allocation for salaries from the federal government is N11billion. When you add that to the various capital Project intervention funds from TETFUND, and the NEEDS ASSESSMENT which come to about N1.5billion, we are looking at an annual maximum income of no more than N13billion That situation is further compounded by the fact that we cannot charge proper fees for tuition and accommodation. Even if all our 30,000 students pay their average of N26,000 fees annually, that is, for tuition and accommodation, it comes to a paltry N780 million. What this means is that we receive less than 25% of funds required to effectively run the university. Even a number of private universities that charge proper fees are finding it difficult to remain afloat without the intervention of other revenue sources.
And as Dr. Wale Babalakin, the Chairman of the Implementation Committee of the Federal government and the Unions has brilliantly pointed out, the existing funding demands of our staff unions are not sustainable. Let’s do the sums. ASUU’s demand for N2Trillion to fund university education exceeds in value the total amount of money available for all capital projects in the country, including for Works and Infrastructure, Health, Security, Transportation, Housing and others. Referring to the 2018 Budget, which was N9Trillion, Dr. Babalakin said: “If you look at the break-down of the Budget, after debt services are removed, you remove recurrent expenditure, all that is left for the federal government is about N2Trillion. Last year (that is, 2017), the former Minister of Finance celebrated the fact that in 2017, we spent N1.5Trillion on capital Projects, which was the highest we have ever achieved in Nigeria”. In other words, if we spend an average of about N1.8Trillion annually on capital projects, ASUU’s demand for N2Trillion is unrealistic in its extremes. Recall also that in the 2019 Budget, a paltry sum of N620billion, representing 7% of total expenditure was allocated to Education.
Faced with these realities, the Babalakin team has come up, in my view, with a number of well-thought-out proposals, among them a call for a huge increase in the number of scholarships provided for students of federal universities, a rapid implementation of a Student's Loan Scheme, presumably, under the rubric of an Education Bank and the introduction of internally-driven and self-regulating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), to ensure maximum return on investments. Implicit in these proposals, of course, is the assumption that universities, under a climate of full autonomy, would be allowed to charge proper economic fees for tuition and accommodation and that students in need of assistance would be able to avail themselves of the services of an existing Education Bank and a robust Loan’s Scheme.
But Mr. Chairman, even these measures, laudable as they may seem, would not be enough to get us to the Promised land. To be sustainable in the long-term, our universities would need to meet the full economic costs of teaching and research and these include proper staff remuneration, cost of research, costs of field trips, costs of equipment, cost of services, cost of replacing infrastructure and the cost of investing in innovation. Indeed, universities, by their very nature, need surplus income, because without surplus income “universities would be unable to deliver the scale of investment required to meet students' demand, remain internationally competitive and continue to be financially sustainable”.
Again, let me, by way of emphasis, restate these facts somewhat differently. Our universities would need to creatively source for additional alternative and sustainable revenue streams to enable them to survive, thrive and compete internationally. In the absence of a robust tradition of endowments, which, for instance, is a key funding source for many American colleges and universities, our universities would need to do a lot more for them to join the league of the world's top universities.
I contend further, that if we do not do this now; if we do not come up with fresh, creative ideas on how to survive, the future would be bleak for higher education in our country. Indeed, at the risk of sounding like a doomsday Prophet, I predict that if we fail to look inwards now and fail to see our current challenges as symptoms of an impending larger crisis, and continue to rely solely on government for funding, some of our current universities might not be around in twenty-five years from now to tell their stories. In the concluding section of this presentation, I would attempt to share with you our modest effort at Ile-Ife to confront this challenge, head-on. But before I do, let me quickly share with you two other aspects of the Higher Education debate that are relevant to the future of our universities, namely, the question of whether we should or should not establish more universities, and the perceived quality of our university education.
The funding debate had led some to argue, not without justification, that in the face of the huge scarcity of funds, which has led to serious decay in the system, government should put a freeze in the establishment of new universities. But that position is unrealistic and obscures a different, and perhaps an even more fundamental problem, in the face of unfolding realities. Again, let’s look at the figures. The World Bank estimates that at an annual growth rate of close to 3%, our population could be close to 500 million by 2050, which is only 30 years away! That would make us the most populous nation on earth, after China and India!! Close to half of that population, some 200 million young people, would be between the ages of 15-30, the age bracket that would most be in need of higher education. Bear in mind also that as at today, we deny close to one million young persons access to higher education because we cannot find spaces for them in our existing 170 universities. This exclusion confirms the World Bank’s figures that state that access to higher education in Africa remains, at 5%, the lowest regional average in the world, where the global average is 25%. So what would happen, thirty years down the road, when we hit the 500 million population mark?
The economic implications of these realities are grim, especially for a country such as ours. If our current institutions are incapable of responding to our immediate skills’ needs to support productivity-led growth, what would happen when we are 500 million people? Put differently, how do we reap the demographic dividends of a huge growing young population in a way that enables us to plug the huge deficit in human capital development, while at the same time responding to our immediate skills’ needs?
What these realities suggest is that we cannot afford to ignore the huge demand for higher education. The viable way forward, in my view, should be an expansive two-track approach that compels us to meet the yearning demands of higher education by establishing more universities, while at the same time striving continuously to improve on the quality of existing institutions. The example of India comes readily to mind here. With its 800 universities, 45,000 affiliated colleges, and 315 million student population, it could not shut its doors to the establishment of new universities, because India is acutely aware that it still has a huge exclusion problem of persons seeking admission to universities. What India did was to devote its time, resources and assets towards improving on the quality of some of its key institutions, while allowing at the same time for more universities to be established to cater to its 1.3 billion population. Even inspite of its many problems, India’s technological advancement today bears testimony to the fact that this model has paid off. We must make huge investments in the quantity and quality of our higher education. There are no two ways to it.
By quality of education here is meant the quality of teaching, learning and research. The questions that arise from this phenomenon are simple, but varied. Are our current university curricula responsive enough to the evolving demands of students and society? Are these curricula achieving the important aims of undergraduate education in an era of globalisation and the emerging age of Artificial Intelligence? Do our current patterns of skills production, as embodied in our curricula, match our labour market demands and developmental needs? Do we have a robust tradition of applied research that would drive and generate intellectual property, develop technologies needed to grow our economy in a way that ensures social mobility for our students? Are we doing enough in the area of ICT development for teaching, research and learning? Do our current curricula help develop greater intellectual competence in our students in ways that help them acquire such basic skills as critical thinking, critical reasoning and even basic writing? In today’s highly competitive world of digitalisation, developing such competences as critical thinking in an atmosphere of collaborative work is more valuable than merely acquiring information, facts and figures that are transmitted in passive lectures.
While not ignoring the Liberal Arts and the Social Sciences, our focus must now be on the Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, Agriculture and the new frontiers of the study of Science such as Robotic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. It is now abundantly clear that ICT systems will, with time, become more complex and indispensable, based essentially on the exponential amount of data that is constantly collected, transmitted and utilised today. By now, it ought to be mandatory that undergraduates of our universities, in whatever discipline, must be equipped, ab inito, with basic digital skills as a prerequisite for a degree.
Let’s face it: the brave new world is here! Without question, the fourth industrial revolution is on us, with its focus on artificial intelligence, robotics and big data. And as society changes, we must change and adapt, otherwise, we become relics; we become the odd typewriters in the age of smartphones.
Mr. President, I am the first to admit that the issues I raise here are far more complex for a short forty-minute presentation. How do we find trained, suitable teaching staff for these new institutions which are bound to be established in the face of our growing population? How do we fund and equip them? But, then, what do we do with 250 million restive young Nigerians, yearning to go to universities? How do we strike a balance between the skills’ needs of a society of 500 million people, the yearning desire of some 250 million young persons for higher education and the ability to fund these institutions?
In our effort to create a more inclusive and less unequal society, perhaps, we should be looking at a different, more cohesive higher education model for our country. Perhaps. But, at least, let the process of addressing these problems begin in earnest. For instance, the federal government should establish, as a matter of priority, the much-talked about National Research and Innovation Foundation (NRIF) as contained in the Science and Innovation Policy of 2011. As conceived, the Foundation would start the conversation by mapping out a cohesive policy for the quality of higher Education generally, and of Research and scholarly output, and ultimately point the way forward in developing research areas that are critical to our economy.
I should quickly add, Mr. President, that these concerns about the quality of our university degrees are not peculiar to us in Nigeria. There is an ongoing debate even in better-funded university environments about just how much undergraduates are made to benefit from university education. Nowhere is this debate more vigorous than in the United States, where, in the face of rapid scientific evolutions, faculty review of curriculum has become an annual event in most colleges and universities. My good friend, Biodun Jeyifo, himself a former ASUU President and now retired Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, put his (Marxist!) finger accurately on a variant aspect of the problem when he asked in one of his weekly columns in The Nation newspapers: “Are the graduates we are producing now and that we will be producing in the future; are they being taught, being trained by academics and professionals who are themselves trained and good enough for a modern technology and science-driven capitalist economy?”
THE EXAMPLE OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE
The old University of Ife has a unique history. As conceived by its founding fathers, the university was designed to chart a new direction and orientation in higher education in Nigeria. In his brilliant history of the university’s first ten years, Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye documents how “from the beginning, a major objective was to step away from the pattern of university development designed by the British colonial rulers… to provide university education for only a small number of young Nigerians”. The university’s founding fathers dreamt of a novel community-based institution that would be self-sufficient and self-sustaining.
So, when the current Council of the University assumed its assignment, it decided to go back to basics and seek to secure alternative funding sources in the hope of making the university virtually self-sustaining and self-sufficient. Armed with an expanse of some 10,000 hectares of University land and the support of the university’s Vice-Chancellor and his team, Council decided to establish an Industrial Farming Park that would put the land to industrial commercial use.
Under the scheme, a privately registered limited liability company, the OAU Integrated Farms Ltd, has obtained a Lease of some 10,000 hectares of land from the university. Backed almost entirely by the Afrixexim Bank, the OAU Integrated Farms Ltd has entered into partnership with a number of foreign and local-based companied to stimulate the industrial development of agronomic production, processing and distribution on a single unit of the agricultural land in Ile-Ife.
In more specific terms, there will be six components to the project: a massive industrial Poultry Farm with a 600,000 holding capacity of broilers and a cold room storage facility of 80 tons of chicken; a 500 capacity cattle feedlot and a dairy farm of 300 cows, with a capacity of 100,000 litres of milk a day; a large scale production of crops such as maize, soya beans, alfalfa, sunflower and cassava as impute into an industrial feed mill for the farm’s livestock and sale to other farmers; the production of high-yield vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, egg-plants in green houses and open field and a 1,700 hectare of hybrid coconut plantation for the production of coconut oil and other by-products.
The sixth component of the programme that deserves a special mention is the students’ Internship/Work-study Scheme, where students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines can, in their free time, not only earn money from working on this farm, but would also end up picking up skills that could change the courses of their lives after their graduation. In other cases, undergraduates of the Agricultural Sciences could be allocated hectares of land, supported with a lot of facilities to ensure the success of the scheme.
It is unnecessary to go into the financial details of this project here. Nor is there time to analyse its numerous and extended benefits. Again, it is sufficient merely to state that after several meetings and consultations, over a one-year period, with financial experts drawn from the Africa Development Bank, Afriexim Bank, in Cairo, the Governor of our Central Bank and the immediate past Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, we are certain that this $65million venture, which is already operational and (which, by the way, is the single largest investment of any Nigerian University, since Ibadan was founded) would turn our financial fortunes around at Ile-Ife. And when they do, 40% of the total profit from the venture would be assigned to Research, Teaching and Training, 25% to Infrastructural development, and the other 20% to Human Resource Development and Staff Support, 10% towards community development and the final 5% retained as an Emergency Relief Fund.
Again, there is not the time here to explain our effort at Ife to undertake a thorough review of our curriculum, which we are determined, would remain a continuous exercise. Neither am I able to explain our modest efforts to establish effective links with industry to enable us, among other things, to guarantee the employability of our graduates. But these processes are already in place and are beginning to yield results.
CONCLUSION
In discussing the challenges of university education in our country, I hope that I managed to convey a picture that is complex, varied, but not insurmountable. Again, because of the constraints of time, I have left out other key areas that could form the bases of a discussion at another place and time. However, one area that I shall touch up on, if only in passing, is the question of the leadership of our universities as embodied by our Vice-Chancellors. I speak here of the transformative power of leadership to create new possibilities, because, ideally, our Vice-Chancellors should be in the forefront of reshaping the debate about higher education in our country. Mr. President, I do not make this point lightly. I say this with considerable insights today into the problems of our universities at that level. Being a Vice-Chancellor is a tough job, with its mounting challenges, both inside and outside the university. But to be a Vice-Chancellor is also a privilege, because it offers an opportunity to shape young lives and contribute in many ways to shaping society as a whole. But without principled, courageous and creative men and women who have the character, vision and behaviourial skills to match the task, as well as the instincts and experience to understand and respond to the complexities of the job, no amount of funding from anywhere can transform our universities. Yes, it helps a lot to put in charge as Vice-Chancellors outstanding academics, with administrative experience. But it helps even more if such persons have integrity in a ways that elicit respect and elevate the ethos of a University.
But in concluding, let me state again that in the effort to reposition our universities, there would be no short cuts, no quick fixes. As we are discovering at Ile-Ife, some difficult choices will have to be made about the broad policy framework of higher education, which will be deftly negotiated by all stakeholders in the entire education gamut. Without impinging on the broad framework of our educational objectives, we must be prepared to take the bold steps of making cuts where necessary, of eliminating wastes, creating shared services, utilising assets more efficiently and renewing the relationship between administrative and academic functions. But our solutions must be united by one common thread, the focus on innovation. Our new normal in our battle to save our universities must be continuous innovation, characterised by flexibility and creativity. We must adapt and innovate, or we would become irrelevant.
For instance, in our ‘new’ curriculum choices we must seek better frameworks to advance all the important goals of a well-rounded university education. In deference to developmental needs and labour market demands, we must come up with curricula that is not only robustly structured to accommodate a theoretical ability to think systematically, but also one that can confront our acute shortages of higher skill labour. And we must be prepared to put in positions of leadership men and women of integrity who can drive these changes.
But in all that we do, let us remain clear that the purpose of university education is to train and graduate students to meet our demands for higher skills, to generate world-class research that would transform lives, drive innovation and support local and national economic growth and well-being.
The way forward may be tough. But I know that within us are to be found dedicated, committed and exemplary leaders who can respond to these challenges.
Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Hushpuppi: Buhari will determine Abba Kyari’s fate, says minister by Sodiq Oyeleke
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), will take the final decision on the indictment of suspended former Head of the Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police.
The Minister of Police Affair, Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, made this known on Tuesday while featuring as a guest on Channels Television programme ‘Politics Today’.
He explained that after investigations had been concluded recommendations would be sent to the president for approval.
FBI’s indictment
The Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint lodged at the United States District Court in California had listed Abass Ramon, aka Hushpuppi; and Kyari among six suspects indicted in a $1.1m international fraud conspiracy.
The other suspects include AbdulRahman Juma (Abdul); Vincent Kelly Chibuzo (Kelly); Rukayat Motunrayo Fashola (Morayo); and Bolatito Tawakalitu Agbabiaka (Bolamide).
Kyari, who is popularly known as ‘super cop,’ had been under fire since the FBI, last Wednesday, unsealed a 69-page court document showing that he had been under investigation by the Bureau for his alleged link to Hushpuppi, who had pleaded guilty to fraud.
In the case marked 2:21-cr-00203, USA VS Abba Alhaji Kyari dated April 29, 2021, the FBI asked a US District Court in California to order the arrest of Kyari for 10 days.
Kyari suspended
The PUNCH had reported that the Police Service Commission had on August 1 announced the suspension of Abba Kyari, over his indictment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for bribery allegation.
This came a few hours after the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, recommended the “immediate suspension” of Kyari, from the Nigeria Police Force.
The IGP had said Kyari’s suspension was expected to create an enabling environment for the NPF Special Investigation Panel to carry out its investigations into the weighty allegations against him without interference.
Buhari to give final approval, says minister
The minister explained the Nigerian police would follow due process on Kyari’s matter.
According to him, legal advice will also be sought from the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation before a decision is reached.
This, he said, is important because two countries are involved, adding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would also be concluded.
He said, “The issue of Abba Kyari has become a public domain and I think by now everybody has heard that the police in their very wisdom, in their usual way of becoming transparent and fair to all have set up a committee to investigate all these allegations.
“We have also reported that the committee has submitted the report to the IGP. We have also submitted this report and recommendations to the Attorney-General of the Federation for legal opinion, thereafter, we will take it to Mr.President for final consideration.
“So, you can see that even though this matter is a local matter here, it has some international connotations. We have to do some due diligence to ensure that we do the right thing. We have to do some consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice before a final decision will be taken.
“But what is important is that Nigerians should know that the police management is up and doing and they have done what they are supposed to do. I hope people will wait and see what actions will be taken on this matter.”
Boko Haram: Why Nigeria can’t end up like Afghanistan -US envoy by Sodiq Oyeleke and Solomon Odeniyi
The United States has assured Nigeria that a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan won’t happen in the West Africa country.
The US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, gave the assurance on Monday during a meeting with journalists in Abuja.
The ambassador explained that Nigeria and Afghanistan’s situations are not the same.
Some Nigerians had warned the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), against a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan, where the Taliban took over the country.
They expressed fear that the situation in Afghanistan may serve as a morale booster for Boko Haram in Nigeria to take over the country.
After over 20 years the US military announced the departure of the last US troops from Afghanistan Monday, with the Taliban seizing control of the country.
US troops led a NATO coalition to eject the Taliban from power in 2001 after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by Al-Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan and protected by the Taliban.
Leonard noted that Nigeria has had a strong bilateral relationship with the US, saying that the situations are not the same.
While allaying fear that the US partnership with Nigeria might end up like that of Afghanistan, she added, “I hear people making the analogy with Afghanistan a lot, it does not match up.
“When you listen to what President Biden said on how troops went to Afghanistan in the first place, it was because they were in a horrible tragedy, over 3,000 Americans were killed.
“That is a different construct. The sovereign nations who have had strong bilateral relations. I don’t actually think the two match up.”
Boko Haram: What’s happening in Nigeria today first happened in Afghanistan -Omokri
Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, had warned the Nigerian Government to guard against a repeat of what happened recently in Afghanistan to happen in Nigeria.
Omokri, who prayed to God not to allow Boko Haram to achieve in Nigeria what Taliban achieved in Afghanistan, warned that the foreign country first witnessed what is happening in Nigeria before the insurgents took over.
In a post on his Instagram, Omokri said like Nigeria “rehabilitated” Boko Haram terrorists, Afghanistan did the same to Taliban fighters.
He wrote, “75, 000 Taliban soldiers defeated 300,000 Afghan government troops. A four to one disadvantage. How did it happen? Many lessons for Nigeria. Soldiers who believe they fight for God eventually defeat soldiers that fight for salary. Yet, we continue to spend billions rehabilitating so-called repentant Boko Haram. There is absolutely no discernible difference between the ideology Taliban and Boko Haram.
“May Boko Haram not achieve the same in Nigeria. May what befell Afghanistan not befall Nigeria. Because what is happening in Nigeria today first happened in Afghanistan.”
21-day notice: Strike dangerous now, FG begs doctors, NMA, ministry disagree by Adelani Adepegba, Dayo Ojerinde and Deborah Tolu-Kolawole
The Federal Government, on Sunday, expressed concern about the 21-day strike notice issued by the Nigerian Medical Association over the alleged failure of government to meet the demands of the striking resident doctors.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, while responding to an inquiry by one of our correspondents on the threat by the NMA, said doctors should stop embarking on strikes at dangerous times and appealed to the resident doctors to call off their strike.
Ehanire said these as the Federal Government and the NMA disagreed on the 21-day ultimatum issued by the umbrella body of medical doctors in the country.
The NMA, in a statement on Saturday after its National Executive Council meeting in Benin, Edo State, said its affiliates, including the Medical and Dental Consultants of Nigeria, the Medical and Dental Doctors in Academics and the National Association of Resident Doctors, had resolved to commence a nationwide strike after the ultimatum.
In its statement on Saturday, the umbrella body of medical doctors noted that the Federal Government had not met the demands of resident doctors, who began a strike on August 2.
Before embarking on the strike, NARD had accused the government of failing to enrol its members on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and not paying some of its members on residency training.
Efforts by the NMA to resolve the disagreements between NARD and the government have so far failed. Also, both sides disagreed on the ruling of the industrial court, which ordered the doctors to call off the strike.
At its meeting in Benin, the NMA expressed anger about the no-work-no-pay order of the government against the resident doctors.
In an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, the health minister said doctors should not be seen to be going on strikes at a time when the citizens were facing dangerous threats to lives.
One of our correspondents had asked him if there were plans by the health ministry to invite the NMA to forestall the looming total strike by all affiliates of the association.
Amid rising COVID-19 cases, which hit 189,715 on Saturday with 2,298 deaths, and the upsurge in cholera cases in the country, Ehanire stated in a text exchange with our correspondent, “The Ministry of Health isn’t the employer of the doctors. The Federal Government of Nigeria is and it pays doctors by a central Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
“The Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Labour engaged the Nigerian Medical Association to mediate in the NARD talks.
“Doctors shouldn’t choose a time the citizens face such dangerous threats to lives to go on strike. I appeal to doctors again to resume duty while talks go on.”
But the National President of NARD, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, said despite the strike notice issued by the doctors, the Federal Government had yet to reach out to them.
Okhuaihesuyi told one of our correspondents that health workers usually resorted to strike as a result of the government’s failure to meet their demands.
He stated “As of now, the government has not reached out to us since the ultimatum was given by the NMA. The government pushed us into taking this decision. It is not our fault.
“Their failure to meet our demands pushed us into taking this decision. Even at that, no demand has been met.”
FG rejects NMA’s 21-day ultimatum, says it’s against MoA
The Ministry of Labour and Employment, in a statement on Sunday, faulted the 21-day ultimatum given by the NMA.
The statement by the spokesman of the ministry, Charles Akpan, said the Federal Government “is religiously implementing its own side of the agreement with effective monitoring by the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment,” adding that the NMA had yet to “move a needle” on the roles assigned to it in the agreement.
Reacting to the NMA’s threat in the statement titled, ‘Labour ministry to NMA: Your 21-day ultimatum in collision with our MoA’, the government argued that the body’s position was at variance with the timeline stated in the Memorandum of Agreement.
It said, “First is that the NMA communiqué in Benin, which issued a 21-day ultimatum, is at variance with the timeline in articles II, Vii, Vii and X of the MoA.
“Importantly, Article II on the payment of the outstanding hazard allowance from the 2020 Medical Residency Training Fund states that the fund will be paid after verification and reconciliation of figures from the BOF. Till now, both NARD and the Postgraduate Medical College are yet to submit the validated application for the eligible doctors missed out in 2020 to enable this payment.
“Article Vii on the withdrawal of the circular from the Office of the Head of Service removing house and NYSC doctors from the scheme of service says, ‘The NMA should submit her position immediately to the FMOH PS for onward transmission to the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation with a view to processing and issuance of clarification circular within two months’. The NMA has yet to comply with this.”
Akpan submitted that the technical committee set up in article Vii to tackle the backlog of arrears on the government Integrated Financial Management Information System was given four weeks, effective Monday, August 31, 2021, to round off its assignment, querying if this was not a collision with the 21-day ultimatum.
He added, “Also, article X of the MoU also states that the Nigerian Medical Association should facilitate the withdrawal of suits by the Medical and Dental Doctors in Academics against the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission and the Accountant-General of the Federation to ensure the amicable resolution of the issues. The NMA has yet to do this, yet issuing a fresh ultimatum.
“It is, therefore, clear that the 21-day ultimatum will neither assist the NMA discharge the role assigned to it in the MoA nor facilitate the faithful implementation of the timeline, which the Federal Government has given every attention.”
The government advised the NMA to play its role “as the guardian of its affiliate associations instead of descending into the arena for needless fear of impeachment.”
“It has by the communiqué issued in Benin abdicated the main role assigned to it in the August 21 MoA,” the government alleged.
Ngige is wrong, says NMA
In its reaction, the NMA said the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, could not reject its 21-day ultimatum.
The association’s General Secretary, Dr Philips Ekpe, stated this in an interview with The PUNCH in Abuja on Sunday.
According to Ekpe, the ultimatum given to the Federal Government is for the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding and agreements signed by the two parties.
He said the association was still open to negotiations.
Ekpe stated, “We are still open for negotiations despite their rejection.
“They can’t even reject it. After all, they made promises and by now, these things should have been done.
“In fact, the 21-day notice is too much. It is like giving them the latitude to do so many things.
“They have three more weeks to actualise all the things in the MoA and MoU and you are rejecting it?
“If they don’t actualise it within that period, then they hate Nigerians, because if the resident doctors are not at work, the healthcare system will collapse.
“Can you see the healthcare system working? Don’t joke with NARD; it is a very important body. The resident doctors are the engine house of the medical profession.”
Return home, MDCN appeals to Nigerian doctors abroad
On its part, the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria appealed to doctors outside the country to return and practise in the country so that Nigeria could meet up with the World Health Organisation’s recommendation.
The Registrar, MDCN, Dr Tajudeen Sanusi, made the call in an interview with The PUNCH on Saturday.
The MDCN, which is responsible for the registration of medical practitioners in the country, stated that the country had a total of 74,543 doctors for over 200 million residents, which gives a doctor-patient ratio of 1:3,500.
Sanusi said, “If they (doctors) must go abroad, they should go for further training and then return so that we can meet up with the WHO ratio of 1:600 doctor to population. We should also encourage them to give back to the society. If they return, it is also a form of giving back to the country.”
Rot in health sector more than what doctors are saying – JOHESU
Meanwhile, the Joint Health Sector Union has said the rot in the country’s health sector is more than what the doctors are saying.
JOHESU’s spokesman, Mr Olumide Akintayo, in an interview with one of our correspondents on Sunday, said the issue of brain drain was not peculiar to the medical profession alone.
He said, “It is obvious that we were always going to get to this point someday. For too long, government at all levels had encouraged doctors to become spoilt brats.
“The situation may get worse, because we need people, patriots in this country, to know that the rot in the health sector is more than what the physicians are saying.
“People are talking about the brain drain in the health sector; on a general note, every young Nigerian, as high as 80 per cent, want to leave the country, because the environment is too hostile for anyone to thrive. So, brain drain is not exclusive to doctors.”
Akintayo added that JOHESU might also embark on a strike action if the Federal Government failed to meet the demands of the union.
He added, “It is a bad thing to allow health workers to go on strike anywhere. There is a pending five-point demand of JOHESU and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations.
“We have alerted the Federal Ministry of Health; we have reminded them about a meeting we had with them in the first week of July, where we raised those issues again. In the days ahead, we are going to review these positions of JOHESU and if it becomes necessary, we may be forced to serve the government an ultimatum.”
PUNCH.
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