Buhari is a human being; please let’s see him as one

In the year 2003 during the registration exercise for the National identity card in one of the villages of my local government, a man came for registration. The NIMC official asked for his name, age, occupation and other personal details and he gave. He was then asked to put his fingers, one after another on the biometric scanner and he did. Finally he was asked to pose for a photograph after which the officer said, “that is all, you can go”. The man reluctantly stood up, walked a few meters away and came back. He looked into the eyes of the ID card officer and said, “Mallam, nifa Buhari na zaba” meaning, “Mallam, I voted for Buhari”. The officer and other people around responded, “Baba, this is not an election. But when the election comes we too shall vote for Buhari”. They then explained to him what a National ID card was meant for and the difference between what was being done there and an election. The man left satisfied.

Fast forward to 23rd February 2019. When villagers in the far North came to the polling unit, if they were not previously guided on the Buhari’s broom by an enlightened APC man in their village they asked to be shown Buhari’s party. They will vote for him even if their village was sacked by bandits. But Buhari did not help them. No, they believe it is not the fault of Buhari. It is people around him who are collecting money from him but they are not doing the work. But since he gave out money to fight banditry, is he not supposed to check and make sure that the work is being done? “I think Buhari should remove those bad eggs around him”. Thus, heads or tails Buhari is innocent and blameless. Drag farther you are an enemy of Buhari. You know what that means.

But those are villages who are distance away from Islamic and western education. So their behaviour is not totally unexpected. Ironically, even many educated people think that way. Buhari does not make mistake. If you mention his mistake you must be a PDP man, only that you don’t want to say it. There is a friend (a real known friend in and out of Facebook) who always responds to almost any post I make either by way of reaction or comment. However, when I started making posts on the banditry taking place in my local government he boycotted me. He only came back the day I said my family and I will vote for Buhari and Shekarau.

Two days ago when I faulted the power sharing formula of APC another friend sent a private  observation  that the PDP power sharing I mentioned was for looting not for National unity. But, we must always separate the wheat from the chaff. Looting is bad but power sharing that will give each of the two main religious groups a sense of belonging is noble. So if someone is doing it to make stealing easier for him why can’t we do it for the noble purpose?

This type of approach may make Buhari himself to believe that he is always right. Afterall power corrupts and when advisors are not helping matters it corrupts dangerously. I know of Islamic scholars who are close to the President but I don’t know the kind of truth they tell him, if they tell him any truth at all. Otherwise, how can anyone imagine that the killings we witness on daily basis in Katsina and Zamfara will continue for so long without any new strategy to address it from the Federal Government? Does Buhari know that Allah will ask him about every drop of innocent blood spilled while he is in charge? Don’t the scholars continuously remind him of the relevant Qur’anic verses and traditions of the Holy Prophet? Or do they behave like the scholars we saw paying a visit to Kwankwaso who simply mentioned his contributions to Islam without preaching to him on his blunders? But I respect the leader of that delegation, I believe he later met him and discussed the mistakes in private. Similarly, I believe those well known scholars who are close to Buhari are telling him the truth. Please let them continue and insist. We have lost a lot of innocent people who love Buhari more than they love themselves.

Please tell the President that he is not infallible. He is just another human being answerable before Allah on his stewardship as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Professor Abdussamad Umar Jibia

Power sharing: Mistakes APC must not repeat

Nigeria is a great country with a complex history. Our unique history has left us with a very large population, the largest in Africa and one of the largest in the world. To say that we are heterogeneous will be an understatement. We have at least 250 tribes with two main religious groups. Despite being multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious we have been able to live relatively peacefully. This is not by accident. We have carefully managed what makes people in many other African countries fight – power. This, we were able to do by adopting federalism in which each federating unit is carried along in running the affairs of the nation. Our constitution is clear on the appointment of ministers. Each state must produce at least one.

When our colonizers decided to bring us together in what is known as the 1914 amalgamation, little did they know that what they hitherto called Northern and southern protectorates were going to be a blessing for us in disguise. Today we have established the culture of power division between North and south to such a level that if the President is coming from the North the vice President will be produced by the south and vice versa. The same rule applies with respect to the religious affiliations of the President and the vice president. Although these rules are not written in our constitution, any political party that breaks them is not likely going to make it at the polls.

But the office of the President and vice president are not the only important offices in Government. The Government as we have it in Nigeria is made up of three arms, viz. the executive, the legislature and the Judiciary. I will talk about the executive and the legislature; appointments into the judiciary are only for the learned who have gone through formal law institutions and party politics play very little role in them.

Three pairs of offices can be identified in both the executive and the legislature for which, if power is to be truly divided in such a way that Muslims and Christians, Northerners and Southerners will have a sense of belonging then regional and religious factors must be considered. These are President/VP, SGF/Head of Service and Senate President/Speaker. The first two pairs are in the executive while the last is in the legislature.

As bad as the PDP may be, it has been able to share these offices among the two parts of the country and the two religions over the 16 years it was in power. Thus in 1999-2007 we had Obasanjo/Atiku, Ekaete/Yayale and Igbo (a good number of them)/Buhari- Naabba- Masari.  When ‘Yaradua took over we had Yaradua/Jonathan, Kingibe -Yayale/Okeke and Mark/Bankole. The same formula was maintained after Yaradua except for 2011 – 2015 when there was no acceptable Muslim candidate for the office of the speaker from the South and Tambuwal was supported to become the speaker. Many saw it as a compensation for the North West after Buhari was rigged out at the polls.

Of important note in PDP’s power sharing is the rotation of the offices of the President, SP and SGF with power shift. Thus when Obasanjo was in power these offices went to the south and when power shifted to the North, Northerners occupied them. We can also remember that the six offices mentioned above were distributed among the six geopolitical zones.

It is noteworthy that PDP has never announced or debated their sharing formula in public but Nigerians including people like me who are not in partisan politics could see what was happening and were largely satisfied.

What we saw over the last four years was President/VP (N/S, M/C), SGF/HOS (N/S, C/C) and SP/Speaker (N/N, M/C). This is vividly a wrong arrangement for a number of reasons. One, there are three Christians in the four most important offices in the executive. That is why when the President was away for medical treatment, there was visibly no Muslim in the executive corridor. But Nigerian Muslims are easy going; they did not make noise. The question here is, would the Christians ever accept that? Of course it would not happen in the first place. No Christian president will appoint Muslims to occupy the offices of the SGF and HOS at the same time. Secondly, both the speaker and the SGF are Christians from the North East where Christians constitute a minority.

Yes, the Chief of Staff is a Muslim from the North East. But he is only an aide to the president. That he is allowed to become prominent is not good for the personality of the President. Not many of us can remember the names of Chiefs of staff of past presidents even though they were always there.

If APC wants to retain power beyond President Buhari, and many of us will be happy it does, it has to put its house in order and take care of our diversity at the highest level of power play. There is no better time than now that the incoming Federal legislators were supposedly carefully selected to be loyal to the party.

I do not derive any pleasure in pointing at these mistakes and wish the APC had taken care of them and saved Nigerians from public discussions on things that divide them. 

Almajirai: Where PMB got it wrong

On Wednesday the 16^th of January at exactly 9 o clock in the evening I tuned to the NTA to watch the network news. Watching the NTA news is a practice I developed over the past 30 years. Instead of the news, however, I was confronted with a programme called ‘The Candidates’ anchored by one Kadaria Ahmed, a fellow undergraduate in the late 1980s in Bayero University Kano. The interviewees were the Presidential candidate of the APC who doubles as the incumbent President and his running mate, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. 

Like most Nigerians, I respect and love Muhammadu Buhari not only for his character but more for his integrity, his frankness and the no-nonsense approach with which he handled Nigeria as a military leader. The poor Nigerians who continuously voted for Buhari since he joined politics many years ago actually expected that kind of approach when he got to the presidency. Most of them have since been disappointed. The reasons he has always given are understandable. The platforms are different. As a military leader he could dictate a statement and ask his legal aides to turn it into a law and it was done. That is not possible in democracy. In addition, age is not on his side. We can recall how he promised not to contest any election after 2011 but came back to do it in 2015 obviously due to the many politicians prodding him to do so.  Most of the elected officers under APC today couldn’t have made it if not for Buhari’s popularity. That if Buhari is subtracted from APC it would be reduced to AD or at best another PDP is also not in doubt. But this is not my topic of discussion today, so please don’t be annoyed.

I began to watch the interview from the point I met it to the end. The Kano-trained journalist was bold and the duo of PMB and his deputy courageously responded to her questions. As I usually do, I later shared my observations with the 5000 friends I have on Facebook. My first observation was to ask my followers to understand why Osinbajo was more eloquent than his boss. Osinbajo is a lecturer who had to spend a number of years talking to students and at seminars and conferences before qualifying to become a Professor. Later the Vice President himself added his experience as a practicing Lawyer to the reasons why he was more articulate than Mr. President.

Another point of attraction in that interview was the President’s response on the Ganduje saga. Politicians opposed to Buhari want him to punish Ganduje or at best disown him for allegedly being caught on camera receiving bribe. Ganduje is a serving Governor who enjoys constitutional immunity from prosecution. The allegation was already being investigated by the Kano state house of assembly the only body vested with the power of removing Ganduje from office. The case is also before the court. These are the reasons PMB gave for not being in position to punish Ganduje and they are genuine. The insincerity of PMB’s opposition becomes more glaring if we note that they do not ask the President to distance himself from some governors in the North West who allowed security situation in their states to deteriorate through their amnesty programme for thieves.

In sum, the response of PMB and his vice were satisfactory for the part of that interview I watched that night. I celebrated that with my friends in the social media even before I went to bed. Many of them call me Pro-Buhari when I mention the positives of the President and his party and anti-Buhari when I mention the negatives. The truth is that I belong to neither group. I am not a politician and I am yet to get sufficient reasons to make me become one.

I was wrong to have celebrated that interview so early. I only realized that this weekend when I logged onto YouTube and watched the interview from the beginning. A particular question was asked by a young man on the problem of almajirai and the response of the President is enough to spoil his chances at the polls if the Nigerian voters were adequately enlightened. It is also enough to be used against PMB by his opponents if we had a serious issues-based democracy. 

“Your Excellency, I believe this is a major challenge for us in the Northern part of this country. Now, I am sure many don’t believe that it something we should continue to do. So what’s your opinion on that? I strongly think that it is important if you can do something about it. This is because you are one of those who can make difficult decisions and it can be accepted in Nigeria.” Said Usman Sulaiman Jahun, a lawyer from Jigawa state.

Hear the response of the President. “I think we have to look at the three tiers of Government responsibilities, the Federal, the state and the local government and the allocation of resources, revenue allocation formula, and so on, relative to the resources available to the country... so the question of almajiri makes up the basic education and are all local government problem. So even if the centre has extra money it wouldn’t take it and build classrooms, equip them, employ qualified teachers from the Federal revenue while it is the duty of the local government... “

First, the issue of child begging is a National crisis involving millions of underaged children across the majority of the 36 states of Nigeria. I do not know of any country in the world with a crisis of such magnitude. It is thus an issue that must be addressed at the centre by the Federal government. That the President would reduce it to the question of building classrooms by Local governments and get applauded by an audience comprising of ministers and other top echelons of his party smacks of our level of irresponsibility as a nation. 

Most of the boys roaming the streets begging for food are sent to the cities by their parents in the name of attending Qur’anic schools. To stop the menace of child begging, therefore, this critical factor has to be looked into and comprehensively addressed by the central Government. At present there is no comprehensive Government policy on Quranic schools. Formulating such a policy would integrate Qur’anic schools into the mainstream educational system and it does not imply in any way that the central government would use Federal government allocation to build such schools. Afterall, like the anchor of that programme pointed to the president we currently have a Federal agency overseeing basic education even though the central government does not build primary schools.

But why is the President avoiding this responsibility? Is it because the children involved are mainly Muslim children and he does not want to be accused of Islamizing Nigeria? Let me remind the president that currently Federal allocation is used to run the National Hajj Commission and the National Christian Pilgrimage Commission even though there are Nigerians who do not belong to either of the two main religions. Federal allocation is also used to pay salaries of religious teachers in Federal Government colleges and run religious studies departments in our tertiary institutions. In all these cases no one has accused the Government of religionizing the country. Why then would a popular government like that of President Buhari be shy to come up with a policy that will remove millions of Nigerian children from street begging for fear of being accused of Islamizing the country? Is the president expecting each local government to come up with its policy on Qur’anic schools? I do not expect that kind of thinking from a person of the calibre of PMB. 

Further, the President may wish to note that his predecessor built schools for the almajirai in which both Qur’anic and western education are taught together and no one accused the devout Christian of Islamizing Nigeria. And the Jonathan initiative was in order unless the Buhari Government is saying that Qur’anic education is not a form of education. 

Or is PMB hesitant to address the problem of child begging (aka almajirci) because it is only in the Northern states and southerners will be against it? Here I would like the president to note that many policies of the central government in Nigeria only favour a few sections of the country because of their peculiarities. A handy example is the National commission for Nomadic education which oversees the education of nomads even though they constitute a very tiny segment of the Nigerian population. Other example Federal agencies include Border Communities Development Commission, Niger Delta Development Commission, etc. What then prevents Buhari’s Government from initiating a policy on Qur’anic schools to be implemented by an agency or at least a department in the Federal Ministry of Education? That this eludes his Minister of Education who has written several articles on Qur’anic education in his days as a Newspaper columnist is one of the wonders of this government.

On a final note, I would like to remind Mr. President that Nigerians voted for a bold and courageous person who rose through the ranks to the highest level of his calling as a soldier. We never voted for a timid person who is afraid of confronting National issues regardless of whose ox is gored.

Why we should thank Mathew Kukah

Muslims of Northern Nigeria are a wonderful people. For long we have been singing Islam and using it whenever it is to our advantage. Our Islamic scholars use their positions to get close to people in power. It pays handsomely. They are made members of Islamic related committees, be they committees on Hajj, Shariah, Zakkah, hisbah, Da’wah, etc. Opportunities became even greater with the coming of this fourth republic when every Northern Governor began to launch and relaunch one kind of Shariah-related programme or another to help improve his popularity. Scholars who were hitherto fighting in the name of aqeedah differences came together as Shariah champions to work for the "progress of Islam".

Our emirs who are the officially-recognized leaders of the Muslim Ummah have been getting their allocation from the budgets of local Governments in their domain and serve as umbrella for retired civil and military officials who pay to get crowned with one traditional title or another. They go with every Government and their relations and cronies are favoured in Government contracts and appointments.

Our politicians use Islam as an opportunity to get to power. If you doubt this ask Yakubu Dogara, for example, to contest the Governorship of Bauchi state or any Christian to try contesting such an office in any of the predominantly Muslim Northern states. Buhari is only popular because he is a Muslim. Should he renounce Islam before February 16, we don’t pray for that, he will lose the presidential election. At a point in time, every politician who wanted to win an election in the North had to lie that he will enforce Shariah law if elected.

The rest of us are either working or doing one legitimate business or another. Yet, despite what Allah Has done to us and our use of His religion to get what we want, I don’t know of any formidable initiative to solve the problem of almajirci in the North. Even our leaders only condemn as the rest of us do.  

All of a sudden, the Christians came up with an idea. That since we don’t seem to care about these our underaged children roaming the streets with plastics begging for food, the Church will create a centre for them, in which they will feed, clothe and shelter them. In addition, they will teach them vocation alongside the Qur’an with whose teaching they will not interfere. To kick-start this project is no other than Reverend Mathew Hassan-Kukah. Mathew Kukah is a Northern Christian intellectual who has lived in the North and interacted with all manners of Northern Muslims from the most ordinary commoner to the Sultan who is his close friend. In fact, if you say Mathew Hassan-Kukah was posted to Sokoto diocese because of his relationship with the Sultan you would be right.

As a Northerner, an intelligent one for that matter, Mathew Kukah understands the sensibilities of Muslims and would thus do his best to hide any proselytization agenda at the initial stage.

Now, with the announcement of the Christian intent, everybody remembered that the almajirai are Muslims and that they will end up becoming Christians if such centres are established. Great, we now remember that we should not allow these innocent children to be converted to Christianity. What should we do? 

What one would expect of a responsible people faced with this type of challenge is to thank the Church for reminding them of their responsibility and come up with a more comprehensive programme than that of Mathew Kukah. Unfortunately, the kind of sentiments being expressed and the fact that more than a year after Kukah mooted this idea nothing has come up from our religious leaders and our “Shariah compliant” politicians portray us as a people not serious.

 “The almajiri system has outlived its usefulness and should be banned” says one commentator. “Jabir, Sudais, Husary and other world renown Quranic reciters did not attend tsangaya, so we should do away with it” says another. Others say after banning the system, Government should be advised to improve schools in the rural areas so that the would-be almajirai will now have sound education. Plus many such funny ideas. Perhaps the most responsible comment I read on the Kukah initiative is the one by Prof. Ishaq Akintola in which he requested Northern Muslims to empower Islamic NGOs to cater for the almajiri.

For those calling for the total banning of the almajiri system, let’s weigh the options.

Leaving the tsangaya system will maintain the almajirai on the streets. As it is now, very few of them will end up being scholars but many of them would end up being petty traders, business tycoons, bus conductors and drivers, motorpark touts, Hausa musicians, etc. Others will be in Kukah centres (He promised to train 10 million almajirai to acquire skills) and there will be many of them. Some of the products of the Mathew centres will be sponsored to study abroad and come back to integrate with their communities. They will be Christians and since they will have money with them they will attract villagers who are their blood to Christianity. With this, Sokoto state may have a Christian governor in future.

Banning the tsangaya system will return the almajirai to their parents in the villages. The most lucrative business in the rural areas now is banditry and kidnapping. They can kill anyone to get money. Those who think politicians will establish good schools to cater for these children are probably not aware of the conditions of the existing Government schools.

Like the Hausa man will put it, “gaba kura baya sayaki”. Neither option is sweet. The only thing left for us is to come up with another alternative. The best option as far as yours sincerely is concerned is for the Muslim Ummah  to come up with a comprehensive programme to cater for the almajiri child. 

Meanwhile, many thanks to Rev. Hassan-Kukah for the wake-up.

Fredrick Faseun: The death of a tribalist

Saturday the 1^st of December 2018 will be remembered as the day one of the foremost Nigerian tribalists passed away. Reports say that Fredrick Faseun died at the age of 83 after many years of battling with diabetes. 

Unlike other leaders who are followed by encomiums and prayers to their graves from all parts of the country, Fredrick Faseun is only mourned by OPC thugs and of course politicians looking for votes. Politics is such a detestable game that will make men of integrity like Buhari to stoop so low as to mourn an acclaimed terrorist like Fredrick Fasehun. 

Fredrick Faseun was a medical doctor who was supposedly trained to save lives. But because saving lives was not in his blood he abandoned medical practice to found one of the deadliest criminal gangs in Nigeria’s history. He did so in 1994 under the pretext of fighting the military out of power after the annulment of June 12, 1993 election. 

The Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) which Fasehun founded has nine primary objectives stated in its constitution. These objectives revolve around uniting the Yoruba people, educating them about their history and mobilizing them for the achievement of self-determination and finding their place in the world. There is nowhere allegiance to the Nigerian state is mentioned or that the objectives shall be achieved peacefully. Democracy is not mentioned anywhere in the objectives of OPC.  This dispels the notion in some quarters that it was Ganiy Adams that militarized OPC and that Fasehun was a peace-loving democrat. It also shows that annulment of June 12 election was only used as a smokescreen by Fasehun for the realization of an ulterior motive which was exposed by the activities of his gang in the years that followed.

The Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization, has accused OPC of being “responsible for numerous acts of violence and its members have killed or injured hundreds of people.  While many of their most serious attacks were directed against Hausa, or people suspected to be northerners, their victims have also included Igbo, Ijaw and people from other ethnic groups.”

And The Human Rights Watch is right. The attacks are many. But perhaps the most deadly ones took place during the first term of Obasanjo (1999-2003). After taking over as the civilian president in 1999 Obasanjo took many decisions to sideline northerners especially those of the Islamic faith. That, no doubt, emboldened the OPC to launch its many attacks on Northerners living in Lagos and other parts of the southwest. The first major attack took place in Sagamu on the 17^th July 1999. According to official reports, over 70 northerners were killed by the OPC militia. No OPC member was arrested for the massacre. 

The Sagamu attack was followed by another on the November 25 of the same year in Ketu/Mile 12 market. Over 100 people of Northern extraction including women and children were killed by the OPC militia. 

What followed the Mile 12 attacks was very sad for any Northerner with an iota of pride. First, corpses of slain Northerners were prevented from being taken to the North for fear of reprisal attacks on Yoruba who had already sought refuge in various Military barracks in Northern states. The decision to bury the victims in the south was said to be on the advice of Northern elders, whatever that means. That would have been alright if the ‘elders’ had a plan for their people, at least a plan to go to any length to make sure that the OPC leaders were paid in their coin. Alas! There was nothing like that.  Many of them were busy looking for favor from their killer regime. 

Secondly, for the same fear of reprisals, Obasanjo Government arrested Fredrick Fasehun among other OPC leaders. They were taken to court but after sometime the case file was said to be missing and Fasehun was released, no thanks to Lagos state Government under Ahmad Tinubu and the Obasanjo-led Federal Government.

OPC owes its survival to the goodwill it enjoys from the leaders of Yoruba land for even after being declared a terrorist organization by the United States and banned by Nigerian Government, OPC continued to operate without let or hindrance with the full protection of Yoruba elders and the state Governments in the southwest. For example, when along the line there was a misunderstanding between Fasehun and Gani Adams it was one of the state governors in the southwest who reconciled them.

From our experience with OPC, CAN, IPOB, MOSSOB, etc. one would expect the Northerners to learn their lessons. We don’t. The person who killed our brother yesterday is the same person we shall be selling today when he joins one of the contraptions we call our political party. There are today many of our killers or their protectors in those political parties we blindly join and protect in the name of democracy. 

The creator of Faseun is a just lord. As Fredrick goes on to meet Him, we pray to Him to give the appropriate treatment to the founder of the deadly OPC. Of course, He will.

TETFUND: How an obnoxious policy is undermining scholarship in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions

Two weeks ago I was visited by a young lecturer who is working in a Federal university different from mine. The young man is on a PhD programme in one of the Malaysian universities. He is worried, however, that he is studying in a university he was forced to choose because he is on TETFund sponsorship. He obtained a Masters degree in Universiti Utara Malaysia but because it is now outlisted by TETFund he cannot go there as the Fund will not approve it. This put me off as I began to ask him questions after which I made calls to other students I know to be studying in Malaysian universities. After confirming the way TETFund choice universities are overpopulated with Nigerian students I came to the conclusion that it is better to raise an alarm and set myself free and here I am.

But even before I make my points, the bias of my discussion towards Malaysia must be explained. Foreign exchange has made it unrealistic for heads of institutions to send their scholars to Europe and other parts of the western world. A vice chancellor of a second generation university was telling me that this year only sixty million Naira was allocated to him by TETFund for foreign scholarship. With over thirty departments, his problems are better imagined if he were to send his staff to Europe where his allocation may sponsor only a maximum of 3 persons. This made the choice of a third world country imperative. As things stand, the number of TETFund scholars in Malaysian universities is more than those in other countries put together. Thus, Malaysian universities are universities that TETFund cannot afford to give ‘any other university’ treatment. 

Let me also state that the current executive secretary of TETFund is a colleague of mine with whom I have a very good relationship. But personal relationship should always give way to collective interest especially if the fate of current and future generations of Nigerians is at stake. I also know that I can always meet and discuss with my good colleague on issues like this but I opt to make it public so that other Nigerians may contribute to the discussion and those who are in position to call the Fund to order may do so if there are such people at all. This is more so since a similar discussion on this issue in the past did not yield any good result. 

Tertiary Education Trust FUND (TETFund, formerly ETF) was set up as an intervention agency in the education sector following ASUU and FG agreement in the early 1990s. Since then, typical of Nigeria, the Fund has served as the main source of funding for our tertiary institutions especially in the area of infrastructure and staff development. Almost all public Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education including state government owned now depend on the Fund for the training of their staff and major projects.

Funding of staff development by TETFund began proper in the year 2007/2008. The procedure was that staff will obtain admission to study programmes of their choice whose relevance will be confirmed by their Heads of Departments, Deans and the institutions central committee in charge of staff development. The institutions also finally determined the university to which the staff will go and it would depend on the programme and cost of study. Recommendations were then sent to the Fund for approval and funding.

This was the practice until sometime in 2017 when confusion was created in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions due to a new policy that restricts the foreign universities TETFUND scholars can go for their postgraduate programmes. Many things were said about the new policy but because I normally don’t comment on things I do not properly understand, I decided to see the new Executive secretary, the man behind the policy. I did so along with two friends who were also interested in the issue. We had an informal friendly discussion during which he explained to us the new decision. We in turn pointed to him some of the inadequacies of the new policy and how it will undermine scholarship especially in certain areas. The chief executive noted our concern and agreed to look into it. More than a year after, nothing has been done. 

The controversial policy is contained in section 9.1B (ii) of the Guidelines for Accessing TETFund Intervention funds:

a.       Public fund would only be expended to train Nigerian scholars in the top ranking Universities around the world;

b.      Choice of country of study must be guided by the World University Ranking of Times Higher Education. Scholars should seek for admission in countries that have Universities ahead of the best university in Nigeria (based on the ranking of that year);

c.       In those countries, scholars should be guided by the University league tables of the countries to ensure that they are seeking for placement in the top-of-the-league Universities.

Specifically

Choice of country of study must be guided by the World University Ranking of Times Higher    Education. Scholars should seek for admission in countries that have Universities ahead of the best university in Nigeria (based on the ranking of that year);

Only Universities that are among the top 20 percent on the league tables of Universities in developed countries would be approved for the purpose of TETFund scholarship;

Only Universities that are among the top 10 percent on the league tables of Universities in developing countries that satisfy (b) above, would be approved for the purpose of TETFund ASTD scholarship.

In sum, by this TETFund now uses Times Higher Education (THE) ranking to determine the country to which it can sponsor scholars. Any country that does not have at least one university above the highest ranking Nigerian university in THE ranking (currently Covenant university) will have all its universities disqualified by TETFund. That is how all the universities in Sudan, for example, were disqualified.

Secondly, the country’s national ranking determines the specific university Nigerian academics under its sponsorship can go.

Many Nigerians, including some involved in training, do not know that the so-called world university rankings are not conducted by an organ of the United Nations and are not covered by any international treaty. Few of them are aware that most university rankings are conducted by newspapers and magazines and that there are many of such outfits publishing annual university rankings with lots of inconsistencies in their methods and results. This has led to a situation whereby a university that is highly rated by one magazine may not even be worth mentioning by another. For example, this year two Nigerian universities, Covenant University and University of Ibadan made it to the first one thousand (specifically 601 – 800) universities in THE ranking while neither they nor any other Nigerian university made it to the first 1000 in the QS ranking. No Nigerian University is mentioned in the Shanghai ranking. Similarly, no Nigerian university made it to the first 1000 in US News magazine ranking or any other major ranking I have come across.

Another difference is in the scope. While QS provides ranking by subjects in 72 areas, the THE provides for 11 general areas, making it harder for a prospective student to choose the best in specific areas. On the other hand, the Shanghai ranking provides for 46 areas while the US News ranking provides for 22 subject areas.

But why the discrepancies? There are many reasons. They include ability of the outfit to obtain enough data on all universities which is near impossible, the instruments used to arrive at the ranking results and their biases which are influenced by their experiences and cultural issues. These have made it difficult for any Government to impose any of these rankings on its citizens except, of course, Nigeria through TETFund.

The THE ranking which is imposed on Nigeria by TETFund is conducted by Times Higher Education (THE), a weekly magazine based in London, owned by TES Global Limited. THE has outlined their methodology which is available on their website. It includes, among other things, seven criteria a university must satisfy to be included in the rankings and thirteen weighted indicators whose weights add up to give the overall percentage score for each university. 

Perhaps the faultiest of all their indicators is citations (research influence), which carries 30 % of the overall score. THE solely relies on Scopus to provide the citations data. One of the problems with Scopus is that it is biased towards English sources to the detriment of other languages like Arabic. This puts to a disadvantage many key universities in the Islamic world that conduct their teaching and research in Arabic. A survey of the THE inclusion criteria shows that the same class of universities are badly off. 

Although THE claims to rank universities according to their percentage score based on the stated weighted indicators, the independent assurance carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PwC") for TES Global limited covers the universities ranked 1- 200 only.

One of the criteria of inclusion in THE rankings is that a university supplies and authenticates data on itself. In addition, any university that asks not to be included in the ranking is not included. THE does not state the universities excluded in their ranking or at least those included based on their inclusion criteria. This gives the erroneous impression that all universities have been evaluated and ranked accordingly. 

An inquiry I made on some universities was not replied. Instead, THE referred me to their methodology on their website.

Of course, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PwC") have absolved themselves of any liability  in relation to the use of their report (which as mentioned earlier covers universities ranked 1 to 200 only) and they stated that it is provided “for information purposes only”. I thus wonder if TETFund sought any legal advice before relying on THE ranking and imposing it on our nation.

For the league tables of national rankings, TETFund relies on a website whose contents have since been disowned by the National Universities Commission (NUC). This is very shameful. There is no such website, newspaper or magazine to which every country sends her national university rankings for dissemination. Thus the only source for knowing the national ranking of universities of any country is the Public agency like the NUC, overseeing university education in that country. So if TETFund were serious about truly knowing the National ranks of various universities in their countries, it would have taken its time to write the relevant Ministries/Agencies in the different countries. A check at TETFund revealed that nothing like that took place. In addition, the inputs of National Universities Commission and the Committee of Vice Chancellors were not sought. Polytechnics and Colleges of Education were not consulted either. In fact, there was no internal committee within the TETFUND set up to give advice before this policy was introduced.

Each country has its way assessing and ranking her universities. For example, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MMOH) annually releases the star ranking (SETARA) of all universities in Malaysia and it is not in the usual league table style. MMOH ranks universities as 6 – star (Outstanding), 5 star (Excellent), 4 star (Very Good), 3 star (Good),  2 – star (satisfactory) and 1-star (weak). The universities are further categorized into mature (15 years and older), emerging (less than 15 years old) and university colleges. 

The age of the university determines how it is scored using the four instruments. They are Institutional profiles (Lecturer’s capability, academic’s staff recognition, students’ quality and diversity, etc.), teaching and learning, research capacity and services and income generation. According to the MMOH, “University College and Emerging University are expected to consolidate institutional profiles and teaching, while a Mature University is expected to engage in more research and service activities.” 

                     

In the 2017 ranking, which is the latest, out of 71 universities, eight universities all of them matured made it to the 6 star category while 21 universities, nine of them matured made it to the 5 star category.  I thus wonder where TETFund got its national ranking of Malaysian universities which it uses to restrict its sponsorship to four Malaysian universities. The implication of TETFund policy is that majority of our young academics are restricted to four universities which, certainly does not portend a good future for our educational system.

The best body to determine where a scholar should go for a higher degree is the university, Polytechnic or the College they are working. Every university, and indeed every institution of learning, has its own uniqueness determined by the needs of the environment in which it is located. This uniqueness is what determines its teaching curricula and types of research and by implication the university abroad or at home it may want her staff in specific areas to go. 

Of recent, Nigerian universities have been signing memoranda of understanding (MOU) with sister universities across the globe that enable them to collaborate in areas of mutual interests. These MOUs cover mutual visits by researchers and students and joint researches which generate PhD degrees. The obnoxious TETFUND policy does not promote collaboration as the institutions are forced to send their staff to specific universities whether or not it is in their interest. I know of a Federal university which has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with University Teknologi Petronas (UTP) Malaysia where many of her staff members are following PhD programmes in different areas. However, they cannot get TETFUND scholarship even though UTP is a 6-star university by MMOH ranking.

It is a pity that Nigerians have now been politicised to such a level that even the best of opinions is read through political lenses. Thus, even as I am writing my observation I know it is more likely to fall on deaf ears than given any consideration. But if I may ask, do we now have a situation in which nobody is there to check the excesses of anybody?