nation0428

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015 21
COMMENTS
“Ema ba won wi o, funra won no ma
funra won loogun je! [Never mind them,
they are fated to self-destroy] — Yoruba
cynical saying
I
MPUNITY makes, impunity takes,
chikena!
That appears a fair epigram on the
eight-month tenure of Suleiman Abba,
the briefest-serving Inspector-General of
Police (IGP) in Nigerian history.
But mocking Mr. Abba’s fall, as sweet,
tempting or even well deserved as it is,
completely misses the point.
Well deserved? Yeah. More than any
other, IGP Abba epitomised the visage
of the security forces as shameless
conspirators in looming fascism, with his
invasion of the House of Representatives for crass partisan
causes. But he, as a responsible Police officer, ought to have
been sworn to neutrality and strict legality.
He not only abysmally failed on that score, with hubris, he
armed himself with power he never had by law.
One, he summarily stripped Speaker Aminu Tambuwal of
his security details. Two, he bragged before the very
committee of the House of Representatives — incense upon
incense! — that he (and who the hell was he — the courts?)
did not recognise the Speaker because Mr. Tambuwal had
defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All
Progressives’ Congress (APC).
That was not only a rude affront to the House, by the
Constitution an independent branch of government. It was
also a violent rape of the doctrine of separation of powers, on
which presidentialism is anchored.
That, of course, was profitable careerism gone sour. That
bravado, after all, seemed to have earned the ousted IGP,
then acting, a confirmation.
Nevertheless, Mr. Abba soon ended with pelted eggs on
his face. The rotten morality of the National Assembly,
shortly after, resolved itself against PDP, its chief promoter.
A gale of house defections — which PDP had soullessly
pushed all its power years to subvert the opposition and the
Constitution — made Alhaji Tambuwal Speaker, de facto and
de jure, when his APC gained the majority. Mr. Abba therefore
ate bitter crow, and restored the Speaker’s full security.
But make no mistake. Mr. Abba was no devil any more
than any of his predecessors was — or indeed, any of his
successors would be — a saint.
His action — silly then, silly now and silly if repeated in
future — was only driven by the bad power socialisation of
Nigeria’s extant orders, to make an ass of the same law that
temporarily propelled over and above fellow citizens.
“Let security chiefs be appointed
solely on merit; not on their
perceived duplicity to subvert the
law against the political opposition”
ETIRED General Muhammad Buhari’s presidential
electoral victory of February the 28, has attracted an
admixture of favours and misfortune to both the lead-
Rership and citizenry of the Nigerian state. It is truly a fortune
to Nigeria for what such a victory portends for the
mental re-engineering of Nigerians most of whom have
unabashedly embraced corruption as a way of life. Yet it is
a misfortune for it altered rather destructively, albeit partially,
the political configuration of the country, which was
hitherto fragmented through the agency of political parties,
thereby beclouding the electorate’s senses of perception
in certain parts of the country, into voting sheepishly
and uncritically all in the name of pursuing the much desired
change through the instrumentality of Buhari. And
one wonders whether most of the candidates so voted at the
governorship and senatorial polls and subsequently declared
winners and returned elected or reelected have anything in
common with Buhari.
I thought it appropriate to contribute this piece in view of
the mono-dimensional nature of most of the comments and
contributions made so far to navigate before the General an
express way to fighting corruption in the country. Such contributions
seem to have promoted the perception that corruption
cannot but be economic in nature. I venture to call
attention to religious corruption or corruption in religion
and more importantly academic corruption or corruption
in educational settings. It may not be out of place to articulate
the rationale for my decision to address such an important
aspect of corruption that is hardly accorded its deserved
attention in our national discourse. I am a teacher trainer
with professional experience covering no fewer than four
universities, three at home and one overseas. I am actively
involved in teacher preparation in a number of universities
in Nigeria and have seized the opportunity of my engagement
with both students and lecturers to collect data across
disciplines, across universities and across the years, with a
view to conducting systematic studies on various dimensions
of corrupt tendencies in Nigerian colleges and universities.
Yet I shall, in the present article, restrict myself to
the teacher factor in tertiary educational corruption.
The incoming administration may need to show interest
in who teaches and how teaching is done in our tertiary
educational institutions. It certainly will interest the administration
to learn that not all those who teach in such
settings have any business with education. When a teacher
teaches what he knows not, the outcome of such an exercise
is better imagined than experienced. And when a teacher is
deficient in knowledge and skills, it may not really matter
whether students work hard to excel or not. Scientific stud-
R
epublican
ipples
lordbeek1@gmail.com, 08054504169 (Sms only, please)
Olakunle
Abimbola
So long, Abba
Not for them that flat dismissal by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
(God bless his rebellious soul!), which reeks of the lean-andmean
wit of John Donne, the English metaphysical poet:
Uniform na khaki, na tailor dey sew am!
Which brings the discourse to the fable that Nigeria’s
president is the most powerful in all of the universe. That
could be true by the way of hyperbole, to capture the sheer
depth and breadth of the Nigerian president’s powers under
the Constitution.
But to every power, there is a limitation — except you want
to breach the law. The Constitution says so. The presidential
system, on which the Constitution is built, with its rigorous
checks and balances, also says so.
But all too often, most of Nigeria’s extant orders believe
that costly power illusion, and expect their poor appointees,
especially top dogs in the security agencies, to read their body
language and merrily conspire to subvert the law.
That was the Genesis to Revelation of Mr. Abba’s loud thud
of a fall, in the presidential court of Goodluck Jonathan. Abba’s
tragic grandstanding to please raised him. But it also smashed
him.
Now, to the main point that must not be missed.
The cruel joke may be on IGP Abba for earning a sack from
vile careerism. But the overall shame is on a manipulative
President Jonathan, who shopped around for a pliant hand to
skew an election he knew full well, from his rotten
performance record, he deserved to lose — and with ignominy.
While Jonathan eyed four more years of undeserved
presidential power, Abba eyed no less than four years as IGP.
If that meant helping Jonathan to achieve his goal, it was
only a blissful marriage of two sweet dreams. Even if Mr.
Abba’s police would lose respect as a vicious PDP rod, the
end would justify the meanness (apologies to Prof. Wole
Soyinka) in career sweetness!
The gamey IGP proved his commitment to this dubious
cause, when he half-appealed, half-threatened voters to depart
the voting zone immediately after voting, despite INEC’s
Re: Ekiti, sick boy of Yorubaland?: Each time I read all the
negatives pertaining to Fayose’s rudderless leadership, I
chuckle not because we often forget to attribute his coming
The other corruption
Buhari must fight
By Saheed Ahmad Rufai
ies have revealed that a teacher with low academic quality
is not likely to have academic integrity. And where there is
no integrity, it may not be out of place for a teacher to give
marks for sex or for cash. Consequently, some lecturers are
ready to give you any score no matter how high, as long as
you are ready to pay. And now that such sub-standard teachers
are fast growing in number owing to our questionable
retention system, the academically sound and morally upright
ones most times feel unsafe and insecure. This is because
every scores inflator, marks manipulator or randy lecturer
has an academic godfather to protect him or her. It is
only in rare circumstances that a case concerning a lecturer’s
insistence on exposing his fraudulent colleague is decided
in favour of the ‘puritanist’ lecturer. Why is he trying to
expose him? Why is he always complaining about corruption?
Is there an incorruptible one in Nigeria? What does it
profit him to expose his colleague? These are some of the
comments that are normally generated by an anti-corruption
stance among lecturers, which is why our faculties are
now bereft of radical and outspoken academics.
The corrupt teacher finds a fertile ground in the lazy and
fraudulent students who are ever-willing to ‘pay’ for high
grades in whatever form. Accordingly, corrupt academic
practices have now become a joint venture between lecturers
and students. Given that every public university in Nigeria
has some percentage of sub-standard lecturers who
can hardly write or speak well and as such bribe, influence
or manipulate their way to even becoming professors, students
with tempting material or other forms of gratifications
find no strain in earning high grades and most of them
even end up becoming lecturers. This is so because once
they are assisted to graduate with inexplicably high grades,
they are encouraged by their academic god-fathers to proceed
to higher levels and within a twinkle of an eye, are
declared as having successfully completed their doctorates!
I dare not share with Nigerians how some lecturers navigate
their ways to doctorates within their departments and
how any lecturer attempting to shout ‘foul’ is horrendously
From Taiwo Osunsanya to Ekiti
countermand that such a
directive was alien to the
Electoral Law.
But as Jonathan lost, the
tactics exploded in Abba’s face
— and strategies must
logically change. But too bad,
Abba trundled on a
presidential snake that though
scorched, was neither dead nor
defanged. Hence, the fatal final
bite!
But in this brutal swish of
instant punishment for
perceived treachery, Fate
played a terrible double.
President Jonathan, still
savouring his newfound toga of “global statesman” for
conceding an election he soundly lost, by firing Abba,
relegated himself to yet another grumpy, vindictive African
Big Man, unwilling to expire without the last ugly roar.
But the more profound anti-Abba comeuppance was the
emergence of Solomon Arase as acting IGP. Reportedly Mr.
Abba’s senior, by year of entry (Arase’s 1981 to Abba’s 1984),
Mr. Arase’s putative reluctance to be engaged for dubious
causes reportedly led to his sidelining when Mr. Abba got
the job. Now, see who is going home earlier!
Yet, it is unclear if Mr. Arase should laugh or cry over his
temporary triumph. By virtue of his late emergence in an
outgoing administration, his career too could have been
adversely affected.
What if the new government decides to sweep away all the
service chiefs, and start on a clean slate? Perhaps the reported
lobby in his favour, by past IGPs, could somewhat come to
his aid? Maybe. Maybe not. He is due to retire in 2016,
anyway.
But the moral here is less for President Jonathan and more
for President-elect Mohammadu Buhari. Impunity almost
always comes back to haunt its perpetrator. Jonathan, for all
his advertised meekness, was not shy of playing God. Yet,
his own hand-picked IGP ditched him the moment he became
lame-duck!
Therefore, Gen. Buhari cannot, like most of his predecessors,
afford to play the misguided but tragic Leviathan that, at
whims, twists and turns the Constitution to partisan and selfserving
ends.
Let security chiefs be appointed solely on merit; not on
their perceived duplicity to subvert the law against the
political opposition. Jonathan and Abba fell flat on their
faces — good! But they were not the first to attempt such.
Neither will they be the last.
But Gen. Buhari must strive for a radical and positive change
in attitude. That is the surest way to deepen our democratic
institutions.
to right quarters. Ekiti deserves a better leadership. But we
should blame Fayose’s “progressive” predecessors who
unknowingly paved his way to power. Ilupeju, Lagos.
suppressed. Yet, there are brilliant lecturers virtually every
where even though the sub-standard elements are fast outnumbering
them.
When an empty-headed teacher operates in an educational
setting and attains the peak of his career one can imagine
how colossal his damage to the system is.
Nigeria’s educational system is fast getting predominantly
peopled by wrong sets of certificate carriers and such an
unfortunate experience flourishes unchallenged. One is constrained
to ask whether having a poorly trained pilot fly a
plane will not culminate in an immediate crash. One is
equally constrained to ask whether having a surgery performed
by a quack surgeon will not culminate in a death.
One is equally constrained to ask whether the legal profession
is not sensitive about the quality of legal professional
practice. Although not without their own degree of corruption,
the aforementioned professions place premium on professionalism
and are able to monitor and control their operations
through non-university based professional bodies.
Conversely, a lecturer can spend two hours teaching nonsense
in the lecture room, unchallenged, for there is no
monitoring. He can also make as much money as he wishes
and sleep with as many students as he likes or even attract
from his students building materials for his housing projects,
without being questioned. At the end of it all, highest bidders
among students attract highest scores. That explains
why we are no longer able to distinguish between good
scores that were earned by sharp brains and high grades
that were achieved with big boobs. Okey Ndibe once wrote
about sexually transmitted degrees and I venture to say that
only a meticulous observer can appreciate and distinguish
the academically earned degrees from the sexually and romantically
achieved as well as the materially or financially
attracted certificates. Little wonders that many of today’s
graduates from our universities cannot write a good paragraph.
Aside the ubiquitous publications that lecturers present
for elevations, which have now become the easiest thing for
university lecturers, can there also not be an efficacious quality-assuring
mechanism to determine the worth of every
teacher? Can there not also be an effective strategy to sanction
the morally bankrupt teachers? Can there not be a good
and meaningful way of rewarding hard-work and commendable
scholarship? Can there not be a credible means of making
lecturers with integrity proud of their own incorruptible
nature rather than persecute and coerce them into criminal
compliance or irrational conformity.
• Rufai, Ph.D teaches at Sokoto State University.