Dealing with corruption in Nigeria’s education value chain
Two weeks ago, precisely on
January 26, 2022, I wrote on this page about Nigeria’s tearful education
sector. Arising from that, I got invited by TOS Television, Abuja to discuss
how to reset Nigeria’s education system. Again, last Wednesday and Thursday, I
was a participant at a two-day national education summit organised by an NGO,
Human Development Initiatives. Most of the participants at the national
dialogue were drawn from the education sector and it was humbling and quite
revealing the extent of the rot in Nigeria’s education sector and the
imperative of fixing it.
There is no gainsaying that
education is the cornerstone of knowledge. According to a great philosopher,
Aristotle, “Education is the best provision for old age” while another
philosopher, Plato (428 – 348 B.C), says “The direction in which education
starts a man, will determine his future.”
A scholar, G.K Chesterton, opined that “Education is simply the soul of
a society as it passes from one generation to another.” Lastly, the fiery American
civil rights activist, Reverend Martin Luther King, characterised education in
these glowing words: “I dreamt of a new role in which every man or woman could
reach his or her full potential, irrespective of the colour of their skin, only
by recognising education as a powerful weapon against poverty and injustice.”
It is because of the
importance of education to every society that made me decide to weigh in again
to expose some of the corrupt practices, which now permeates the sector. It is
important to note that corruption is more than stealing or collecting bribe.
According to Transparency International, corruption is the abuse of entrusted
power for private gain. This manifests a lot in Nigeria’s education sector. I
recently watched a drama skit in which a school headmaster negotiated with a
photographer to come and take passport photographs for pupils of his primary
school. The agreed sum was N150 per child. However, the headmaster informed the
class teacher to ask each child to bring N200, the class teacher in turn
informed the pupils to bring N250, the child on getting home told the mother
that he was asked to bring N300 for the passport photograph while the mother in
turn notified her husband that their son has been asked to bring N350
unfailingly the next day for passport photograph. Imagine how corruption
festers on an item!
It is important to note that
cheating in an exam is corruption. This is an age-long practice. Students
writing on their bodies, some smuggling prepared answers on a sheet of paper
into the exams hall, some even buy questions from some of the administrative
staff, who are in charge of typing and packaging the questions, while some hire
‘mercenaries’ to impersonate and write the exams on their behalf. I know for a
fact that there are agents who recruit these ‘mercenaries’ from tertiary
institutions and deploy them to helping willing students who can afford to pay
to write the examinations. There are also those who bribe invigilators to allow
them cheat in exams.
It is an open secret that
there are a lot of corruption in the admission of pupils and students to some
of the much sought after schools, be they primary, secondary or tertiary
institutions. This phenomenon known as admission racketeering is very pervasive
so much so that many qualified students have been denied admission to schools
because of the heinous activities of this racketeers who sell admission slots
to the highest bidder and not necessarily to the most qualified applicants.
Another corrupt practice in
Nigeria’s education sector is the sex-for-admission as well as sex-for-marks
and grade phenomena. Recall that on February 20, 2020, an Ikeja High Court
sentenced a former part-time lecturer in the University of Lagos, Akin Baruwa,
to 21 years’ imprisonment for raping an 18-year-old admission seeker. In a
similar fashion, a Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo on December 17, 2018
sentenced a former lecturer of Obafemi Awolowo University, Professor Richard
Akindele, to two years in prison. Justice Maurine Onyetenu sentenced Professor
Akindele at the end of his trial for demanding sex in exchange for marks from
one of his students, Miss Monica Osagie. Despite the stiff punishments meted to
these two scapegoats, there are still many sacred cows in Nigeria’s education
system, exploiting their pupils and students.
In the years gone by,
scholarships were given to brilliant students from poor families; these days,
it is the sons and daughters of the rich and those willing to pay to be on the
list of beneficiaries that now get the scholarships. Only a sprinkle of
students gets scholarships on merit nowadays. On many school campuses ‘sorting’
is a slang used as euphemism for bribing of lecturers. Students individually or
as a group now contribute money to give their teachers and lecturers so that
they can pass their exams. Some lecturers have also debased themselves on the
altar of making money to negotiating with their students on a fee in order to
enable them to help such willing students to write their long essays, dissertations
or thesis. Can you beat that?
Another ugly phenomenon in
Nigeria’s education sector is certificate forgery. I have seen situation where
some of the students who procured forged West Africa Secondary School
Examination certificates in order to get admission to tertiary institutions were
expelled from their schools after the verification exercise of the certificates
at the West Africa Examination Council or National Examination Council offices.
It’s not just petty or retail
corruption that takes place in our academic institutions, there are also mega
corruption. Take for instance the case of former Vice Chancellor of Federal
University, Gusau, Zamfara State, Prof. Magaji Garba, who last October was
arraigned in court on a five counts of fraud including obtaining money by false
pretence and forgery. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission dragged the
former VC before a judge of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Jabi,
Abuja, Maryam Hassan-Aliyu. Prof Garba was accused of extorting about N260
million from a contractor on the pretext of awarding him a N3 billion contract
for the perimeter wall fencing of the university. Garba is not alone, several
school administrators from headmasters of primary schools, principals of
secondary schools, provosts of colleges of education, rectors of polytechnics
and Vice-Chancellors of universities are all in the game of mismanaging the
funds of their institutions.
The list of corrupt practices
in Nigeria’s education sector is endless. However, what are the implications of
these malaise? One is a lack of trust in Nigeria’s academic institution’s
certificates. Many Nigerians wanting to study or work abroad are made to write
rigorous qualifying examinations because those institutions do not believe that
the Nigerian graduates genuinely earn their certificates. The situation has
also led to ‘unemployability’ of many Nigerian graduates, especially by the organised
private sector. Imagine, graduates of tertiary institutions with woeful oral
and written English; graduates who could not write job application and cannot
defend the certificates they parade. The situation is dire for Nigeria’s
future. How will the nation replace the aging and retiring workforce if those
who are being recruited to take over are low skilled? This is the reason why
many engineering graduates, even of polytechnics and technical colleges cannot
repair anything; this is why many of our young professionals like medical
doctors, architects, builders constitute dangers to their professions.
Indeed, it is high time
Nigeria’s education authorities reset the sector by weeding it of this litany
of corrupt practices. It portrays the sector as being mercantilist, ‘cash ‘n’
carry’ where scruples count for nothing.
A stitch in time, saves nine!
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