bcomputer101: As much as I hate to generalise , something always
worries me about the way we react to issues in Nigeria.
We are a terribly impulsive people. Ever ready to arrive
at conclusions without deep thought. We pass judgment
almost always too soon. Even when awkward things
happen in our society, we do not reflect on them, we
rush to take sides and in no time, move on like nothing
has happened and then wait for the next record -
breaking ignominious event. We are like the drunkard
who constantly forgets the indignity of the previous
night.
Earlier this week, allegations filtered in through an
online media platform that Nigeria’s current Aviation
Minister, Ms Stella Oduah, might have made bogus
claims about her qualifications. According to the report,
officials of St. Paul’s College Lawrenceville, Virginia,
United States where Oduah claimed to have gained a
Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) told
the news platform that no such programme ever existed
in the institution. The report further insinuated that the
lady may not even have obtained her first degree from
the institution.
Although the silence of the Minister and allegations that
she has gone to work online in a bid to pull off any
information related to her educational attainments
smell of guilt, I would still treat this as an allegation until
we hear Oduah’s side of the story. I would also advise
commentators to tarry a minute and let us reason
together, just before you cast a stone.
Thinking about this matter, I recall that the Oduah case,
if it turns out to be true, would be the third high -profile
false educational claim scandal in the 14 years of
Nigeria’s return to democratic rule. The first was blown
open by The News magazine some weeks into our new
democratic experience in 1999. It involved a young man
with the name Salisu Buhari, who was just elected
Speaker of the House of Representatives. The News
reported that Buhari did not attend the University of
Toronto in Canada as he had claimed and that he
falsified his age. After a series of denials and the
magazine’s insistence on its scoop, Buhari admitted that
he indeed forged documents and perjured himself.
Not long after, Tell magazine went to town with the
alleged fraudulent educational claims by the then Lagos
State Governor. In some sense, the claims against the
governor were a tad more grievous than Buhari’s. The
former governor was alleged to have lied about
information regarding his primary, secondary and
tertiary education.
That is where we are now, a point where two of the
most prominent examples of falsification of records are
not just walking the streets but are back in national
prominence. The former, after a ”go and sin no more”
Presidential pardon was recently appointed to the
Governing Council of the University of Nigeria (UNN),
Nsukka, Enugu State, while the latter is the current
poster boy for what is the most progressive of Nigerian
politics. Only God knows what reward Oduah would get
if she is eventually proved guilty of this accusation
While condemning the detestable act of taking Nigerians
for granted, the point must be made that what we see in
high places is the simple manifestation of an infested
system. We have a system which has decimated merit, a
polity that has devalued morality and slaughtered all
known values. In this country, I have seen different
levels of compromises. I have seen parents buy
examination questions for their children, just to give
them an advantage over others. I have seen parents pay
for their children to be coached in the middle of
examinations. I have heard of false oath-taking in our
courts, I have heard of false marriages in our courts
especially by graduands who want to evade National
Youth Service Corps (NYSC) postings, that is not to
mention the almost widely accepted lack of capacity of
Nigerian artisans to speak the truth. I have heard of
teachers giving marks in exchange for one form of
inducement or the other. I have seen people falsify their
age to fit into the requirement for a job or some other
benefits. There is just no end to what a lot of our
compatriots would do to get their heart desire.
But do you really blame them? Resilient as they are,
Nigerians will always find ways to circumvent and
survive the frustrating collapse of institutions of the
state. In Nigeria, children would pass matriculation
exanimations but not get into institutions until someone
bites a carrot. Here is a country where students end up
spending six years to complete a four-year course as
lecturers are sure to embark on ceaseless industrial
actions in the course of their academic career. Then
they graduate two years later than they anticipated and
employers, including governmental organisations,
would place some age requirement that they no longer
meet. So what do they do? These graduands approach a
ready court clerk, claim to have lost their birth
certificates and swear to an affidavit claiming that they
were born two years later than their actual date of birth!
It is called Declaration of Age and that gets them ready
for any age requirement by companies, but then, they
have perjured themselves. Only God knows how many
people in top positions in today’s Nigeria are guilty of
this infraction. It is a country where companies without
any iota of academic roles insist on employing
candidates with first class degrees or at least a second
class upper degrees. To beat them at their game, some
dumb blonde whose only aptitude is a pretty face would
seduce a lecturer, settle herself and curiosly come up at
the top of her class. Not to be left in the cold, the young
man who is not so endowed would bring out some
money, (usually nothing enough to prosper anyone),
and buy any class of degree that he wants ready for
sucker companies that value certificate over the quality
of the personality that they intend to employ. No
wonder so many companies end up employing
incompetent impostors who cannot help themselves
when confronted with the reality of the task at hand.
This is the tragedy of a nation without class. A nation
which stifles the ability of its people to attain to their
best potential would most definitely breed
manipulators, some of who will falsify things just to
survive or for an ego trip, a desire to lord it over others.
The latter is the reason why public officials lie to us
since you can be anything and everything in this country
with your school certificate.
Although perpetrators of these acts are most certainly
sure to end in ignominy, the ultimate loser is the
country and its future. The tendencies described above
engender the failure to build a society capable of
competing in the technological world of the 21 century
not to talk about the future. While we wait for the latest
case of deception in high places to play out, we need to
rededicate ourselves to excellence in spite of the
brickbats that our politicians are throwing at each other.
Unless we reorder our priorities and put merit over
parochial considerations, generations after us will have
no idea what it is to be meritorious. They will celebrate
mediocrity, lies and vice, tendencies on which no
country can survive. And just before you get self-
righteous and cast that stone, check yourself and see if
you are guilty of some little infractions that may one day
blow up in your face.


Source: www.punchng.com/opinion/the-stella-oduah-in-all-of-us/