Column
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| By Martins Oloja |
SOMETIMES, as a young person, I wonder why the Yoruba elders are so complacent or complicit these days about the Yoruba century that is fast disappearing without any impact in an age that education quality shapes daily, no thanks to the power of disruptive technologies. I do not mean to be disrespectful here but since I write in English under a fourth language situation, I beg to be tolerated, if I sound quite immodest.
I also wonder whether it is too much learning that has made most of the public intellectuals and philosopher-kings in the Yoruba nation to be so quiet and unconcerned about so many values and ideals that are disappearing in one of the most populated ethnic homelands in Africa. It is written that the Yoruba-land is highly urbanized, holding about 40 per cent of Nigerian settlements with over 180 million people, although there is also a very large rural population like the rest of Africa. It is worrisome that there are so many academics (of Yoruba extraction) in journalism once dominated by them, yet there is some conspiracy of silence.
At the moment, I am quite worried that too many things are not adding up in Yoruba-land that used to be a pacesetter nation. Was it not on account of what used to happen in Ibadan the old capital of the Western region that Oyo State’s name-plate number is tagged “Pace Setter State”? Apart from infrastructure decay all over the southwest states including Lagos named “centre of excellence”, but now a crowded mega “centre of mediocrity”, (we can debate that), even education quality, which used to be the industry of the Yoruba has relocated to the southeast zone. This is what the West African Examinations Council, (WAEC), National Examinations Council (Nigeria) NECO and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) tell us with their very reliable data all the time. It was in response to the parlous state of examinations results from southwest schools that The Punch wrote an editorial titled, “WASSCE: Danger in South West” on February 24 this year in which it noted the following points:
“Education is in a terrible mess in South-West Nigeria. The incontrovertible proof is the May/June 2015 West African School Certificate Examination results, which established a growing pattern of failure in the area, except Lagos State, that was placed in the sixth position nationally. This indicates that things have changed in worrying ways for a region, which was hitherto the citadel of lofty educational pursuits that paved the way for its people to attain greatness in several areas of life…
“The sad news is that out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Osun placed 29th. Oyo was 26th, Ogun 19th and Ondo 13th. Ekiti placed 11th with 8,954 of 21,333 candidates passing. From Osun, only 8,801 of 48,818 candidates passed with five credits and above. In Oyo, 16,588 (or 21.03 per cent) out of 78,896 passed; Ogun recorded 25,006 passes out of 75,994 candidates or a success rate of 32.89 per cent…”
The point has since been well made that while the southwest zone, which has produced many firsts in many significant areas of human endeavour through quality in education dozed off, the south-east and south-south states have overtaken before our very eyes. Former Governor of Anambra state, Mr. Peter Obi on October 1, this year on The Platform revealed how he invested heavily in education and how that investment has been consistently bearing good fruits. In the 2015 examinations, Abia State led with a pass rate of 63.94 per cent (those who made credits in five subjects, including English and Mathematics); Anambra was second with 61.18 per cent. Imo (fifth) was not too far behind in 2015. 2016 details have not been fully published. It was the same pattern in 2014 led by Anambra state.
This was what Chief Awolowo achieved in the West. And that was why the late Babs Fafunwa, an eminent education scholar and former minister of education, once described Awolowo’s education policy as “the boldest and perhaps, the most unprecedented educational scheme in Africa south of the Sahara.”
For the young ones even in Ikenne, Nigeria who know Obafemi Martins well better than Obafemi Awolowo, what made the Yoruba nation a house on a hill that can’t be hidden, is its antecedent in education quantitatively and qualitatively.
And as it has been well noted, the blame for the current failure lies with the state governors. Since 1999, when democracy returned, they have mismanaged their priorities and abandoned education for frivolities.
What is more, they all lack the excellence spirit of Awolowo, and his colleagues who pioneered free education funding in 1956 and sustained it during the second republic (1979-1983). Lest we forget, it is really shameful that at the moment, there is no state in the southwest that can boast of a world-class university. The Lagos State University established by Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande in 1983 is still work in progress in terms of research infrastructure after 33 years. The Ogun State University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University) was founded in July 1982. It is still struggling as a University 34 years on.
The Ekiti State University was established in March 1982 (as Ondo State University) by the then Governor Adekunle Ajasin when Ondo state comprised Ondo and today’s Ekiti State. It is not an insult to say that the University in Ado Ekiti is still not a “centre of excellence”. It is the same for its replacement in Akungba Akoko, (Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo State. Instead of equipping the University in Akungba to a world class, governors founded two other state universities in Okitipupa and Ondo town (University of Medicine). This is where most Ondo State Governors including the outgoing one always get their priorities mixed up.
How on earth can a state that cannot pay workers’ salaries for eight months maintain three universities at such a time like this? The Osun State University established by Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola in December 2006 is not a University of first choice. Certainly, the state in a poor financial state as it is now can’t fund the University well just as their stake is suffering in the jointly owned Ladoke Akintola University in Ogbomosho established in 1990 as Oyo State University of Technology. The University in Ogbomosho has been convulsing from the pang of joint ownership by Oyo and Osun states. This is really a sad story about the South West that built the Great University of Ife that the federal government seized in 1975.
The South-West Road to Kigali
As I was saying, apart from falling from grace to grass in education, the Yoruba nation is at the moment suffering from paralysis of analysis of its politics. Now it is appearing to many observers that the impact of the crisis in the two major political parties, the APC and PDP are becoming more visible in the South West where the tone for the fall of the First Republic was set in 1964 when crisis erupted in the major Parties that were in cruise control of politics in Nigeria: The NPC, NCNC & AG.
We are beginning to see a recrudescence of politics with bitterness we thought we had stabilized since 1999 when the nation queued up behind Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and elected him peacefully as President. That was to be an atonement for June 12, 1993 presidential election mandate the military stole from the South West. We may not have noticed it, but last week’s rally in Akure by the APC leadership smacked of some unpleasant political events that truncated the First Republic.
There are four APC Governors in the six South West States controlled by the two political parties, (APC & PDP). Of all the four governors of Lagos, Osun, Ogun and Oyo States, only the Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, was with the Party and the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Akure campaign for the APC’s candidate in today’s election in Ondo State. Ekiti and Ondo states are PDP-controlled. But here is the thing, even the leader of the APC in South West who against all odds, took the then ACN into the grand alliance that formed the APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu and three governors stayed away. That was a significant development in the zone, which was not sufficiently captured by political reporters. That development portends that something disruptive will soon happen in the polity.
It has been speculated that a new Movement will soon be announced in the South West where Governor Amosun is already being tagged as the old “Ladoke Akintola” and former Ekiti State Governor and Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, Power, Works and Housing Minister are being called the old fox, Chief Remi Fani Kayode an ally of Akintola who had in 1962 aligned with the powerful Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto. Now, Asiwaju Tinubu is being portrayed by his supporters as Awolowo who spurned the Northern establishment at the time and thought that his historic rally in Kano was enough to win election in the North… Let’s recast the sordid story that killed the First Republic:
As a result of the 1959 parliamentary elections, the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) from the Northern Region led by Sir Ahmadu Bello (the Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region) became the country’s leading political party with 134 seats out of the 312 seats in the Parliament. National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC) based in the Eastern Region of Nigeria under the leadership of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe obtained 89 seats in the same election. Chief Obafemi Awolowo led Action Group (AG) in the West, elected 73 members to the Parliament. The NPC and NCNC (Chief Nnamdi Azikwe’s party) coalesced to form the first government of the newly independent Nigeria with Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (the deputy leader of the NPC) as the Nigerian Prime Minister.
Soon after Nigeria got independence the Western region was in turmoil. Premier Ladoke Akintola and Chief Obafemi Awolowo (the federal parliament opposition leader) became embroiled in a protracted crisis. The leadership of the Action Group (AG), which formed the official opposition in the federal parliament, split in May 1962 as a result of the rift between the two party leaders.
In the same May, 1962, the Western House of Assembly was set to remove Chief Akintola after the party had earlier passed a vote of no confidence in the premier in a party meeting. Crisis erupted on the floor of the House. The majority expelled Chief Akintola from the party. The then Governor of the Western Region, the Ooni of Ife, Sir Adesoji Aderemi demanded Chief Akintola’s resignation as Premier and named Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro as his successor.
We will continue with the history lessons next week and beyond. But I hope that Yoruba leaders and other stakeholders in today’s election will remember that political crisis that followed allegations of rigging and betrayals ended the First Republic on January 15, 1966. In the same vein, another political crisis that erupted after allegations of rigging in the same Ondo State where the ruling NPN allegedly rigged Chief Akin Omoboriowo into office as Ondo State governor set the tone for a spate of events that ended democracy on 31 December 1983. Here we go again in Ondo State where anything is possible when there is injustice.
***Grammar School returns next week.
— Nov 29, 2016 @ 18:35 GMT
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