Before expressing my opinion on possessing a University Degree in Nigeria these days, let me hurriedly advice possible rejoinders that I don’t mean acquiring a University Degree is meaningless or does not add value to any system. It does add value but not as believed. I mean those genuine University Degrees not the Toronto or Chicago State University types. Let that be clearly understood by busybodies and roaming attack dogs.
Leadership as we all know is more of an art than science. It is hard to set rules, theories and formulae for good leadership. Despite their differences in background, weaknesses, strengths, personal habits and styles of leadership, good leaders tend to have some qualities in common; vision, courage and strong-will. They have a sense of mission and a belief in the ability to change the course of history. They are also usually knowledgeable and intelligent in a few cases.
But it is completely wrong to think that knowledge is only acquired from formal education, either in the university or other tertiary institutions.
Several globally recognized knowledgeable and distinguished individuals, including some very successful leaders, had never been to any university or tertiary institution but distinguished themselves as respected and adorned leaders.
I can vividly recollect how some ‘bad’ students who repeatedly failed entrance examinations into Nigerian universities were rated by their communities. Many that I know as brilliant students who got admitted into the universities rated themselves high above sea level. They told exaggerated stories on the demands and rigors of acquiring university education. In those old good days, when men were men and women used to go to those who deserved them, university graduates were generally haughty and snobbish, and behaved as though they were all knowing. So, most of the people expected exceedingly much from university education. They thought it would automatically transform those who acquired them to all knowing intellectuals. But with time, university education seems to have disappointed most of those who acquired it for failing to transform them into polymaths. Although it taught a number of things but there is still so much to be learnt outside the university wall.
Over the years, from general study out of interest, university graduates realized that actual learning was not within the university premises alone. Yours sincerely after his tertiary education became a wild reader of books on different subjects which availed him more than the university required prerequisite: it is not part of the requirement that you must have a university degree to be able to read, write and understand. In other words, it is possible, without university education, by reading and studying out of interest and curiosity to become more knowledgeable, skillful, innovative and brilliant than university graduates with Bachelors, Masters and even Doctorate Degrees.
Not surprisingly, there have been many self- taught men and women renowned for their achievements and contributions to humanity; with some being the greatest leaders in history, for example, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, prime minister of independent Nigeria, Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Jameel Abdul Nasser of Egypt, Sheikh Al-Sabbah of Kuwait, James Callaghan of Great Britain, Indra Ghandi of India and Fredrick Douglas of United States among others.
Churchill was a bad student and unable to gain entrance into the university. However, by reading and studying on his own, he became an orator, author and statesman. He was two-time British prime minister. In his frequent meetings with the United States officials during the Second World War, the then president of the United States, the Harvard-educated lawyer, Franklin Roosevelt, and his entourage were awed by Churchill’s resounding oratory, encyclopaedic memory and prodigious learning. As one of the greatest political leaders of all times, he was named the Man of the 20th Century.
Indira Ghandi attended a number of prominent schools, including the famous Oxford University but her weak academic performance prevented her from obtaining a university degree. Later, as two-time prime minister of India, she demonstrated magnificent abilities as a leader of the world’s most populous democracy.
The most important Black-American leader of the 19th Century was Fredrick Douglas. An uneducated escaped slave, he, through self-education and natural gift for self-expression, became a leading orator, author, publisher, and civil rights leader. Like Martin Luther King Jr, the foremost Black-American leader of the 20th Century, he towered above other civil rights leaders of his time because of his ability to write with power and speak with passion. He was a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War and later served as the United States Minister and Consul-General to Haiti.
Funny enough, the 2014 Nigeria’s National Conference cobbled by the Jonathan administration had proposed a law mandating candidates for almost all political offices in Nigeria to have at least a university degree as requirement for contest. That law was fundamentally flawed because it presupposed that knowledge and ability for political leadership come only from university education and nothing less. That is far from being correct, real and workable.
Secondly, it was an intended gross infringement on the Constitutional Rights of Nigerians to elect their leaders because the law has limited, by academic qualifications, those that Nigerians could vote for. In addition, it strayed beyond the sphere of the law. The law regulates behaviors not attitude. The law can shape a behavior towards others but cannot dictate an attitude (love, hate, respect etc) towards others. The peoples’ attitude (trust, confidence, respect etc) towards contenders for political offices is beyond the purview of the law. Ordinarily, it is people’s attitude towards political candidates that decides their vote. We vote for contestants because we like, respect and have confidence in their credibility and ability to lead and deliver positively.
The National Conference lacked the moral or Constitutional authority to dictate to Nigerian electorates who to vote for. Nigerians should be allowed to continue to vote for their preferred candidates irrespective of their academic background. The people are the ultimate repository of power and the choice of who leads them should be left to them, uninhibited by any imposition from any conference or law-making entity. We have seen how university professors trusted with political party assignments (conduct of primary election) messed-up the entire process with corruption as they compromise to rig elections for a fee. Look at the mess heaped on Nigerians by INEC led by a Professor that a secondary school drop-out gifted with intelligence could have done much better.
Today, we have several university graduates that can hardly write down an error free application seeking for employment. We have even Doctorate Degree holders that hardly communicate fluently in English as the language they used in writing their thesis etc. We have more of corruptly obtained university degrees than genuine degrees obtained by sweat from reputable, first class public universities the likes of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Lagos, University of Nsukka, University of Ibadan, University of Ife, University of Jos, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Bayero University Kano, University of Benin and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.
There are many potentially super leaders with no university education in Nigeria. And to preclude them from running for elective offices for lack of a university degree amounts to flagrant breach of their rights to vote and be voted for as citizens, and denying the people the benefits accrued in good leadership.
To drive my point home, in the 2014 controversial Ekiti State gubernatorial election, did the people not dramatize their electoral ‘preference’ for a homespun, rough-hewn, street-savvy politician, Ayodele Fayose, over a decent, scholarly, and gentle Kayode Fayemi? They preferred Fayose’s degree-less, rollicking, earthy politics to Fayemi’s Doctorate Degree honed coolness, eradition and urbaneness. It would have been a staggering blow to Nigerian democracy, if a law had denied the Ekiti people that electoral alternative: two sons of the soil of conspicuously different temperaments, academic qualifications and styles. It would have been a gross violation of the tenets of Nigerian democracy.
A critical analysis of the present crop of leaders piloting affairs at various levels speaks volumes. Most of those that passed through the universities are not performing creditably. Majority rely more on claims than reality. We have seen Doctorate Degree holders performing below West African School Certificate holders. Those armed with university degrees on the corridors of power are mere claimants, talking parrots lacking the required capacity, experience, vision and zeal to perform creditably.
Many were tested but failed woefully and still several others are failing but deceiving and masquerading as performers with university degrees. The late premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello Rabah and his entire cabinet members, the late Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and several other first and second republics politicians had no university degrees but till date, they are respected in national politics from their past record of good leadership devoid of performance failure.
What we have today as leaders are political merchants, rubber stamps, and sycophants, visionless and get-rich-quick brain-dead politicians armed with suspicious university degrees and professional certificates to steal and fan corrupt practices. Their only quality of claim is that, “We have a university degree” but with neither the capacity for good leadership nor the sincerity for positive deliverance other than an inbuilt stealing mechanism as ‘professional’ certificate. So, why do we support such characters to leadership?
If a university degree is anything to go by in leadership, Jonathan could have navigated Nigeria to safe coast, with ease. He owns a Doctorate Degree and lectured at University of Port Harcourt. But he ended his leadership almost a disgraced and disappointed Doctorate Degree holder who piloted the affairs of Nigeria allegedly on reverse gear and allowed corrupt practices and stealing to flourish unchecked. That was a proud university graduate.
Look at it, most of those facing corruption charges in Nigeria today, are proud owners of university degrees who made their ways to high government positions only to transform to heartless thieves of public funds, stealing in style and maintaining their penchant for ostentatious living at the detriment of service to the people. Should we then continue to need those characters in leadership? Look at how our cream of today’s professors continues to mess up our electoral system. They serve as returning officers in most elections, including party primary elections, but end up returning compromised results against the good of the democracy. We should fashion away out of the quagmire for the good of the country.
Are our Vice Chancellors managing our universities as Saints? Most of them are agents of corrupt practices and other immoral behaviors. What we churn out from our universities today are more of cultists, yahoo boys, swindlers, scammers, praise singers, political touts, trick and fraudsters as graduates with some transforming to fake religious preachers to eke an easy living on the ignorance of their followers. The madness must stop because it has pushed some Nigerians to the brink of forging university degrees to access elective or appointed offices for egocentrism.
My guardian who nurtured me to maturity was a brilliant and intelligent public servant with only a certificate in veterinary inoculation but was a respected and adorned traditional ruler who encouraged and supported western education to flourish in his domain. He served in the Gambia and in the service of Northern Nigeria Government as a veterinarian without a university degree and duly recognized and honored by the Queen of England for his dedication and output in service. That was a great man blessed with vision, intelligence, discipline and commitment to unity and to the plight of the oppressed. May his gentle soul continue to rest in peace!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues.
