Education as catalyst for electoral reforms

It can rightly be said that in the last 51 years, when in 1958, the British created the first electoral commission – the Elections Commission of Nigeria, nothing has improved in the administration and management of elections in Nigeria. The only change or improvement in our elections may be is the sophistication with which election rigging has reached. The quality of elections in Nigeria, as other parts of our lives, has always been affected by the character of politics in the country. What became clear is the fact that we have a very long way to go, before we can have a free and fair election.
This is why majority of Nigerians are sceptical about President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s promise to reform our electoral process. Himself, a beneficiary of fraudulent election, many including this writer doubt if Mallam Musa Yar’adua will ever accept the reformation of the nation’s electoral process. According to political commentators and analysts, the Justice Uwais committee report on electoral reform has provided all control measures to stop electoral rigging and manipulation; however, these were removed by the government. And the way it is now, there are many indications that the 2011 elections will be worst than that of 2007.
In a democracy - the power to choose, change and remove political leaders rest with the electorates. Elections serve as an opportunity for citizens, who are the determinants of their own destiny, to exercise the power of choosing leaders, who they believe, can affect their lives positively through the provision of basic infrastructure. Failure to do this will result in the emergence of bad leadership and poor representation. The most basic and important principle of good governance is that a nation’s political institutions – elections, political parties and the police to have a semblance of democracy.
That is why many, argued that unless we have political parties with a clear ideology, an independent (a truly independent) electoral commission and a neutral police force, Nigeria will never taste a free and fair election. We are all living witnesses to what happened in recent years, in the 2003 and 2007 elections. Our politicians in these two elections displayed arrogantly their lack of faith in democratic process. From the primary elections within political parties, to the general elections, it was a do-or-die affair.
But the question is can Uwais report help in reforming our electoral process? I doubt much, because the issue rest with the citizens to say no to all forms of elections manipulations and rigging. Nigerians are not ready to do that because there is no trust between the citizens and political leaders. Why should Nigerians sacrifice their time, resources and to some extent their lives to defend their votes when they know fully well that the person they are voting for might dump them after winning the election? This might sound pedestrian but is the reality. The Bauchi case is a clear example.
Secondly, as a nation we lacked national culture. As everyone knows, Nigeria has a vast and varied cultural heritage considering the fact that it has more than 250 ethnic nationalities. Culture is an ever-evolving subject, however, little effort has been made by governments at various levels to ensure that all different kinds of cultures get support. This is where a good policy has a role to play. It was Frank Fannon who said ‘if the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then that bridge ought not to be built and the citizens can go on swimming across the river or going by boat’. Do we as Nigerians have a national culture? The answer is NO! This is basically because our school system or curriculum does not have anything like that. Was it not because of that that nationalism, as a course was introduced in the first year of our university education.
National culture is what gives citizens a sense of direction and hope. The development of good citizens and the establishment of a nation’s identity, its outlook, its values and goals can be attained through the family, school and religious leaders. Indeed the task of instilling national culture was a sacred one, because of its far reaching consequences for the security and survival of the soul of a nation. However, the government, which has the sole responsibility of ensuring that, has through deliberate policies allowed our school system to crumble. Any society whose school system is non functional can have no solid identity, no impressive institutions and no core values, this is a hard truth that any educationist or sociologist will tell you. It is time we recognised at all levels the importance of revamping our educational institutions to allow the society to regain its traditional status and its power to effect positive change.
No change or reform can succeed when majority of the beneficiaries of the reforms are ignorant of it. Nigeria as a nation has suffered a lot that we can’t afford to continue like this. We cannot continue to ignore the current deterioration of our school system which is glaringly evident in the quality of graduates the nation’s universities produced and in our leadership at all levels of the Nigerian society. We need to inculcate clear programmes of civic education into the school curriculum, citizenship and leadership development, youth empowerment based on regenerative work ethics and motivational reward system.
Electoral reform as important as it is can not succeed when we ignore these basic realities staring at us. Change in our attitudes and value system is very important and can only be achieved through an educated an enlightened citizens. I am not in support of handling our education to private enterprise; it is very, very dangerous for an underdeveloped nation like ours to do so. Governments at all levels should take education serious.
Democracy as a system evolves when we demonstrate our capacity to enthrone good governance; this can easily be achieved through the school system. It is what other countries of the world did, like China, India and other countries to succeed. And even USA that we claimed to be copying attained its democratisation through deliberate policies of providing opportunities for the less privileged. As Dele Olojede put it the greatest danger we face as a nation today is not the noisy politician trying to buy his way into the presidency or governorship or the Senate with stolen money but the Nigerian citizen, who needs reminding what it means to be a citizen all over again.
This is what our policy makers need to look into. Virtually all institutions driving the nation are either dead or do not function properly. The civil service, the police, school system, the economy, democratic institutions, and the family and so on and so forth – the list is endless.

Nigeria: our children, our future

Nigeria: our children, our future
A popular adage, the statement above is the subject of our discussion. Our children are our future if we give them a solid foundation from which to build a better society. We owe our future to our children and as long as we want our society to be better, then, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to make sure that they are given good care. All over the world and in every society in history, education is regarded as the basis upon which future generation is built. And for any society to develop there has to be a connection between its present and its future; children serve as a bridge or a transition through which this is accomplished.
However, in our country this fundamental issue is neglected and relegated to the background. Sometimes we are made to wonder as to what direction we are really heading to. Nigeria has a population of over 140million and 60% of this population are youth or children, however, there is no concrete policy or programme to my knowledge geared towards helping this set of people attain a quality of childhood today so as to prepare them for leadership responsibility in the future. It is pathetic and pitiable when one visits any of our primary schools in any of the local councils in Nigeria and sees how rotten these schools are and the state of their facilities. You will find children sitting on the floor or under a shade the teachers sitting under a tree chatting.
The situation is worst in the North, because of our attitudes towards western education generally and the lack of vision of our leaders in local governments. One of the greatest injustice one can do to his fellow being is to deny him access to quality education and today as we enter the 21st century majority of our children in Nigeria are either out of school or in this type of schools mentioned, which at the end may come out with no basic qualification to go further. Even in states where one would think the situation is better, since the states are considered to be educationally advantaged states, the situation is not different. Take for instance Kaduna state, which has the highest number of higher institutions of learning in the North, official statistics indicate that the situation is no better than other educationally disadvantaged states.
The state has over 1.6 million primary school going children with an enrolment of 900,000 children. Therefore over 700,000 children (43%) of these children that are supposed to be in schools are roaming the streets. What do you think will happen to these children in the next ten years? The situation of the schools is no different from any in other parts of the North. Teacher/pupil ratio in terms of qualified teachers in some local government is 1:231. The state has a total of 31,400 teachers in which 65% of them are under qualified. The state has 21,000 classrooms out of these 50% are unhabitable, which means there is a deficit of about 8,000 classrooms considering the school enrolment figure. Currently the number of qualified Physics teachers in the state is 37. With ABU at its door steps, Kaduna state does not have ten people reading Physics in the Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
The College of Education in Gidan Waya, which is the state’s owned institution, for the past ten years, the College has not been able to produce more than 700 graduates in Physics. This is Kaduna state, which is considered one of the educationally advantaged states in the North. You wonder how the situation is in Yobe, Zamfara or Gombe states.
Our future as a nation can only be secured if we ensure the wellbeing of children and youth in this country. We can do this not by organising jamborees or appearing in network news everyday at 9 telling people how good you are to continue to be their leader for the next six years, but by provision of standard educational facilities in schools, social amenities, conducive learning environment with well equipped school libraries, health and recreational facilities and qualified and well motivated teachers.
We have, for a long time neglected sectors that are the backbone for our development in this country, education inclusive. If government cannot provide quality education to its citizens what else can a citizen expect from it? Education is essential for the healthy intellectual and physical development of young people. It is through education that national culture is instilled and the commitment shown by our leaders to our children and the youth is what will infuse patriotism in them. The older generation should encourage the younger generation to take more active part in rebuilding this country into a virile nation that can take its pride of place in an emerging globalised world.
We cannot as nation develop or attain any vision until we change our attitudes, we have, either as individual or collectively contributed in destroying what was handed to us by our founding fathers. Today as a nation we have lost direction, purpose and are wandering in wilderness. Our leaders continue to show non-challant attitude to our wellbeing. Our leaders create the impression that education was no longer an important strategic tool in directing the country’s growth and development. The most dangerous aspect of all this all is that, our leaders, either in the national, state assembly, federal, state executives and local government officials, appear unperturbed with what is happening. They continue their open stealing of public funds; they continue the neglect of the very foundation of our national development. They insulate themselves from the rest of us. Instead they choose to take their children to Ghana, South Africa, Malaysia and UK for primary, secondary and university education.
Can the nation survive this madness? Can we pride ourselves as Nigerians, when what Nigeria offers is hopelessness and despair? Somebody has to listen; no nation on earth can survive what Nigeria is going through today. We have to change our attitudes, we have to do away with our greed, and we have to work towards these fundamental issues to our national survival, if really we love this country.

Media and the challenges national integration

Media and the challenges national integration
The media in Nigeria, even prior to the nation’s independence, constituted themselves into a potent opposition to bad governance, injustices and were very critical of the colonial administration. So it is very right if one describes the Nigerian press as an institution born out of struggle and the fight against colonial injustices. The press championed whatever is Nigerian from the pre-independence up to the independence years, though rivalries between politicians, who mostly founded these newspapers, has led to the use of newspaper pages to advance their political interests, especially after independence, which in most cases inflicted injuries to political opponents. The press found themselves used by these opposing groups to create enmity between various political groups, however that notwithstanding the press contributed a lot, one in fighting the colonial administration and second they helped in advancing democracy during the dark days of military era.
It is equally right to point out also that most of the political, ethnic, religious conflicts in the country and to a large extent the suspicion and resentment between the South and North was caused by the press. As Hydele observed, after Nigeria’s independence, the media, having chased their common enemy turned their weapons against each other. He said at times, harsh and biased press reporting led to increased partisan tension to the point where many leaders found it impossible to cooperate with each other after having accumulated scars from highly personal press attacks. While on one hand the press contributed in chasing colonialists and military dictators, they have, on the other hand, contributed a lot in causing divisions we are witnessing in various places in this country even today. Although we should not generalised and attribute this to the mainstream media, but in actual sense, especially the Lagos/Ibadan axis press contributed a lot in drawing a line and causing divisions among different ethnic groups in the country, due to actions of some armchair journalists from that axis.
Writing in his paper, ‘1914 and Nigeria’s existential crisis: A historical perspective’ a Nigerian born US academic Moses Ochonu said ‘At this time the Lagos press had acquired an unprecedented vibrancy through the addition of more publications and this new potency was deployed to prosecute the Southern campaign against political fusion with the North’. He went further to say that ‘the Chronicle in its editorial stated that the south was not Muslim and that the principle of Northern administration was anathema to Southerners’. On a similar note he also quoted the Times of Nigeria which in its editorial shortly after the amalgamation of South and North stated that the “unification was synonymous with a sell-out of the South. The subjugation of Southern Nigeria by Northern Nigerian laws, northern Nigerian land laws, Northern Nigerian Administration must be made to supersede every system in Southern Nigeria’. These and other statements coming from the Southern press even before the independence contributed a lot in creating a permanent division and resentment we are seeing today between the South and North.

Although the press in Nigeria are regarded as vanguards of democracy and good governance and they were at the fore front in exposing official corruption, however, as it is with any institution, the bad eggs among us continued to spread disharmony and became obstacle to national integration. These people were in the profession in the first place not to promote understanding among our hundreds ethnic nationalities and integrate them but, were out to promote ethnic and regional divisions. They are very dangerous and influential because they are seeing by their people as freedom fighters that are out to protect their people from the domination of an enemy. This led to general misrepresentation of history, distrust and social disharmony between the North and South on one hand and the various religious and ethnic groups in the other. Media analysts and commentators have in several occasions attributed our political, ethnic and religious crises to the reckless, sensational and sometimes irresponsibility of the media in the way they address issues of national importance. According to Sobowale, having gain political independence the press, went into petty jealousies, occasioned by political and ethnic differences. This beclouded the vision of media proprietors and media practitioners. He went further to say that ‘rather than promoting national integration and national consciousness, the media became sectional and a potent agent of disunity. They promoted inter-ethnic hatred as well as inter-ethnic distrust and acrimony that eventually led to the collapse of the first republic’.

And we can see even now the press or some individuals within the media circle find it very difficult to chart a new course for the profession so as to conform to democratic principles and address national integration rather they prefer to adopt distortions and attitudes repugnant to the unity of the country. No doubt democracy will and cannot function without education and enlightenment, and the media is a potent weapon to serve this purpose, however, if the media appear to be irresponsible and try instead to promote ethnicism, tribalism and championed sectional interest it can be a double edged sword, which can be use to destroy democracy, unity and national integration. Therefore, while we in the media try to ensure that the nation has good leaders and enlightened citizenry we have to also bear in mind that, any reckless or irresponsible act from our part may spell doom for the country. We have seen in the recent past how the media’s handling of crises in Kaduna, Jos, Aba, Kano and Lagos led to the destruction of lives and property in these places.

In a society like ours, with ten of hundreds of ethnic groups and where the institutions of societal control are weak, we need an objective, fair and fearless media so as to check the excesses of government on one hand and inform the citizens what is their rights and how to fight for it. Nigerians need to understand the governance process, role of security agents in a democracy, rule of law and the role of the legislative arm and the judiciary. They need to understand why their economy is not functioning, or why the government adopt certain policies and whether these policies are good for the country or are just out to serve the personal interest of the policy makers.

Journalists need to understand that looking at issues, policies of government rather than personalities is what will ensure our transition from a backward nation characterised by tribal and religious sentiments to a country where merit, qualification become the determinants of who is saddled with position of responsibility. Let us stop promoting sectionalism, tribalism and nepotism, let us try to address issues rather than personalities, let us stop looking at the governor of Central Bank as Igbo or Hausa or Yoruba but how far has he delivered. Let us try to increase understanding between Southerners and Northerners. I think changing the kind of mindset we have will go a long way in changing the course with which the country is placed on. It is very difficult, but we can start now. Can we take the challenge?