I was told it was the most beautiful campus in all of Africa. That must have been what lured me to the University Of Ife and I’ve never regretted that choice. But Ife was much more than just beauty and aesthetics. It was in every sense a centre of academic excellence; providing platforms for deep intellectual intercourse. Back then, you couldn’t be there and remain indifferent to national and global issues.
When I accepted the offer to study Architecture in 1980, President Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria with his coterie of lack-lustre officials was in a frenzy preparing to celebrate 365 days of steering the ship of state determinedly towards bankruptcy. The most prominent opposition figure of the time, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, cognizant of global economic realities, had warned the NPN to halt the mindless spending spree and inaugurate a regime of austerity measures. NPN’s predictable response came in the form of a mantra: “The economy is buoyant!”
That, of course was a naked lie but the illusion was sustained until 31st December 1983; three months into Shagari’s landslide-enabled second term when the duo of Major General Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon broke up the party; incarcerating as many as they could lay their hands on.
The failure of that administration, and by extension that political dispensation, was a popular topic of discussion back then. I had personally come to the conclusion that had President Shagari been educated beyond the Teachers’ Grade Two Certificate level; he would have been better equipped to handle the intellectual rigours of governance. Being in an academic environment where polemics and dialectics were staples, one was under the impression that academics made better administrators. Awolowo’s towering intellectual pedigree was certainly also a factor in this regard. It was impossible not to relate his celebrated sagacity to the fact of his being a university graduate. And I wasn’t alone in this line of thinking. Very many who’d also arrived at the same conclusion adopted all manner of advocacy options to press for a constitutional amendment making the minimum qualification for the presidency a university degree and I fully subscribed to the initiative.
Unfortunately, every effort at constitutional tinkering has left the presidential minimum academic qualification as it has always been: a Secondary School Certificate. The only reason why I was prepared to give Chief Ernest Shonekan and his aberrant Interim National Government any chance of success was because he was a graduate! But he wasn’t meant to last. Barely three months at the helm, Shonekan and his ING contraption were sent packing.
For the next fourteen years until 2007, the military resumed its suffocating stranglehold on us under different guises. When General Olusegun Obasanjo with his quasi-democratic credentials failed to doctor the constitution to enable a third term as president, he elected to foist on us the ill and ill-prepared Umaru Yar’dua. I hated the process that coughed up Yar’adua but I embraced his person for two related reasons.
Firstly, I saw in Yar’adua the fulfilment of my long-held fantasy of a graduate-president. Finally, we were going to have a president who would accurately analyse situations, and from the standpoint of well-articulated positions inspire his administration and the rest of the nation towards set goals and objectives. I was giddy with joy and filled with expectation from a president who I believed would say what he meant and mean what he said. That for me was the promise Yar’adua held.
The second attraction to the Yar’adua presidency was his deputy. To have a Vice-President who was not just a graduate but a PhD was a prospect too good to be true. The Yar’adua/Jonathan team was a fulfilment of my dreams and fantasies for a better Nigeria and I embraced the duo like I’d never done any before them.
The first moves Yar’adua made seemed to validate my preference. He publicly acknowledged flaws in the electoral process and promptly declared his assets publicly. In a manner reminiscent of the Rawlings years in Ghana, he took on the Niger Delta militancy imbroglio head-on. What really bowled me over was when he ordered the pump price of premium motor spirit (petrol) to revert to N65/litre. Obasanjo had jacked it up to N70/litre as a parting punishment for the demolition of his third term project. By 2008, one year into that administration, I could almost swear that the vaunted Vision 2020-20 was achievable.
But then, by experience, I hadn’t completely let my guards down. And sure enough, certain disquieting signs began to manifest. First was the lethargy that was becoming an undeniable feature of the anti-corruption war. Then just as suddenly, the hubris usually characteristic of officialdom began creeping back in. You could see government functionaries strutting about with this annoying swagger. And then the fact of the president’s failing health became public knowledge.
It is well over two years since Nigeria’s Senate confirmed Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President on 9th February 2010. The many battles that were fought to make that epochal event possible are well documented. Even now, I can recall those that put their lives and livelihoods on the line to ensure his emergence. What we may never be able to calculate and document are the hopes, the prayers and the sense of expectancy that heralded Jonathan’s ascension to the highest office in the land. No leader in recent times ever garnered such goodwill. For me, it was so much more than a dream come true. Having a PhD as president was the stuff of fairy tales.
But I was wrong and I accept full responsibility for this error. I had assumed that every university graduate was imbued with sound analytical and oratorical skills. Anyone who had successfully authored and defended BSc, MSc and PhD theses should have, in the process, become a guru in polemics. My thinking then was that when such skills are brought to bear in the sphere of administration and governance, success cannot but happen. I had the privilege of attending a university blessed with sound administrators. No one who was at the University of Ife in the good old days could forget the duo of Professors Hezekiah Oluwasanmi and Wande Abimbola. And these were accomplished academics in their own right. Maybe that’s what fooled me. I had been primed to expect so much from anyone who brandished a university certification. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
President Jonathan’s Cabinet boasts the largest assemblage of eggheads any administration has ever mustered. And that speaks volumes about his intention to leave a mark. The aggregate of what these appointees bring to the table does not make up for the glaring deficits in the character and carriage of the boss. And that is precisely the crux of our current dilemma.
So if and when 2015 comes, I won’t personally be fixated on helping make a graduate the president. I’d rather be looking out for a man (or woman) with a verifiable record of thankless public service. I’d prefer to cast my vote for one with demonstrable courage to tackle the ills that bedevil us. One, who is prepared to die so this beleaguered nation can survive, will be my champion. If such a one can combine the influence of Nebuchadnezzar with the strength of Goliath and the courage and conviction of David, so much the better. It used to be a source of irritation to me when graduates of the University of Nigeria Nsukka referred to themselves as ‘lions.’ But not anymore. Now, I love all graduates of UNN! We need lions all over the place to devour the venomous beasts that threaten to annihilate us. Ferocious, man-eating lions, that is.
The myth was that the graduate will always do better than the non-graduate in governance. Under that guise, far too many charlatans brandishing all manner of degrees wangled their way to power and prominence. And our sorry state is evidence of that monumental error. But the myth has been broken: the scales have since fallen off. Now we see and know better. And we owe this deliverance to none other than our own dear President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan. Without prejudice to what posterity will record in his favour, this, to me, will always represent his greatest legacy.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Opinion

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