By Amb.Abdullahi muktar coma’

 

MOMENT OF TRUTH 
ACADEMICIANS!

Nigerians have always given Academic Lecturers the highest honour and respect. Academicians have been seen as the defenders of our institutions from collapsing. The average Academic lecturer is considered as repository of knowledge and wisdom. He is Mr. Know all, combines proffesion with politics and always looks after the politicians for what they are gaining through politics. Then complaining that Senators, House of Reps has higher salary & allowances more and more than them!

They are respected because in those days they did well and were referred to as learned gentlemen, even if by their actions were thug. So the Nigerian Lecturers built and nursed for themselves an image of a larger than life, pompous and overly egotistical being, whose very whims and caprices most be respected by everyone. That image has dominated the Nigerian population to the extent that, even though some lecturers have turned this honourable proffesion into an organised and legalised extortion into politics and some of them have become extremely rich through shaddy politics business deals, and they are still respected. 

Most Nigerian patriots and Diaspora are not been satisfied with our institutions posture, we have been educationally isolated for more than decades. Our Educational system process should be up-to-date with trends in modern day education, which has become too practical skills with less theory, computerize updates, Proffesional and Technology updates.

Nigeria has a peculiarly interesting Academicians Structure which has for a long time presented a difficult problem to our rulers. The independence movements led to the birth of ASUU and Co that served as vanguard of awakening of their institutions. But some of our leading Academicians lost national commitments when they were appointed as ministers especially {Education}, INEC Chairman's, INEC returning officers, MDs, SAs et cetera. Most of them play partisans politics and their loyalties were not to the nation but to individual aspirants to the national leadership. No one in this right senses can say Academic lecturer should not have feeling for his party or country. But Academicians should realise that they grow to become no more individuals but institutions. Failure to realise certain needed qualities in such people contributed so much to the calamities that befell us as a nation.

The fact is that Nigeria has produced some great Academic lecturers of whom the country can be justly proud as also produced some rotten and lousy Academicians. We have Academicians who write trash, what in their opinion is what the public wants. They are not interested in the truth. Such Academicians operate against the true spirit of the discipline and ethics of their profession, which is to champion the cause of social change for the common good, and reflect the true aspiration of the generality of the people. A greater number of our Academicians see money as the all and all. Many lecturers now a days are intentionally missing their classes for contracts, working with NGOs, engagement with politicians, et cetera. As long as they are paid, everything is okay. 

I do not know which of our universities or colleges and polytechnics can say, it is totally free from indisciplined acts, such as lecturers or tutors demanding sex as of right from their students, or failing students for reasons unconnected with their Academic performances. It is common knowledge that girls who summon courage to report the matter to the university senate most often end up the worse for it. All the affected lecturers had to do is to pass the information to their colleagues in other faculties and the girl fate is sealed.

We all know that University degrees mean to Nigerians. Immoral lecturers capitalize on that to impose themselves on their female students. Most girls submit to that type of blackmail because they believe they have no alternative. They see submission as the price they must pay to get their university degree. Only a few put down their feet and resist to the last.

We all know that universities are places where ideals should be pursued with vigour and honour. Being in a university is such a serious business that one in it is expected to rise above parochial sentiments of all descriptions. Unfortunately, that is not the position in Nigeria. Our universities are our most formidable centres of parochialism and tribalism and class discrimination. Indeed, it is in our universities that most Nigerians start having the feeling of superiority over their less fortunate countrymen who did not have the opportunity of getting admission to university end up at colleges, polytechnics, monotechnics or any education at all. To say that some Academicians have always pandered to governments is not to insult them. They praise governments when they have appointment with government and turn round to condemn them when they are out of office, some Universities Senior lecturers have prostituted their respects by begging or canvassing for promotions from; Senior Lecturer to Principal Lecturer and from Principal Lecturer to Chief Lecturer, appointment with federal government, et cetera.

When education is seen as both an institution and an instrument of social change; Attitudes, character, behavior, beliefs and so on, then it becomes obvious that universities lecturers and co, cannot be anti-government agents, for to be that is to be against the very essence of the profession. It is not only contradictory in terms, it is also unspeakably absurd. 

For Academicians to be true to their calling, they must be responsible citizens. That means they must be totally committed to the welfare and progress of the country and all its people; they must be patriotic and loyal to the government of country. Patriotism and loyalty are not synonymous with sycophancy. Criticisms and disagreements there must be, but they must be constructive and objective and must be expressed without malice or bitterness. Hard words, they say, break no bones. I will add the rider that they must be hard words genuinely and honestly uttered for the good of all. 

It is not going to be easy as ABCD to dismantle our colonial educational system. Most of those at the helm of affairs are still riddled with colonial mentality, still proud - and arrogantly so - of their Oxford, Cambridge, and LSE connections, and would find it difficult to spearhead the crusade for a new educational order to meet the realities of today. But sacrifices must be made by this generation in order that those who will come after us can live better and fuller lives, as complete Nigerians unfettered by oppressive memories of colonial associations.

It is a serious duty for all of us to come together by sacrifice to create a desirable nation which will truly become an example of others to follow in terms of quality education. This can be done by an ideological restructure of a useful and desirable society. In short, educational programme of restructure should not only embrace physical, and material needs, but also the remoulding of human character, the development of the personality, as well as the cultivation of the heart.