The greatest investment a nation can make is in its human resources. An enlightened society can help in overcoming setbacks and obstacles to social and economic development. I have often said that Nigeria has the wherewithal to make all levels of education free. Let ability then be a determinant, not money. The essence of this piece is not to throw temper tantrums, please I have not quarreled with any professor lately, nor has a female acquaintance been molested. However this is a cursory look at our university educational system with objectivity in mind. I have begun to loose count of the number of so called university representatives from abroad who come almost fortnightly now to give presentations on their various one-room universities abroad. (Plenty apologies). Do you blame them? When a man is seen by his neighbors kicking his calabash in public, they will kick it too, and even break it in his absence! 54% of visa requests cut across almost all embassies in Nigeria are for student visas. Yet my beloved Nigeria has a total of 61 recognized polytechnics, and over 10 unrecognized ones. Universities almost every remote village wants one, with almost every state now opening universities as though they were provision/grocery stores! Nigeria, I hail thee! When a private university (under the guise of it being private) will charge over =N=250,000.00 per session to give its services, only God Himself can help the poor man who cannot afford this! JAMB has failed. Its only consistency has been failure! Why sell forms to one million people when in actual fact there exists less than fifty thousand placements available? As a matter of fact, these days admission letters are not even issued. I met a young man who filled JAMB forms for livelihood, after attempting over 5 times he lost hope. He gained experience, at least he told me he could fill a form without even making reference to the instructional booklets, he knew Federal, State, Universities, and Center codes off hand. Business is not bad, he said Have you held a discussion of late with a university graduate of the 90s? If I were you, I would save myself the torture, as the experience is not one you would want to recall. Our university Dons have become plagiarists, or should I say TRADERS? The number of handouts sold has now become a prerequisite for a full professional chair! Why wont kids go naked, when there are no library books on library shelves. I can name some departments, in fact full fledged Faculties such as the Faculty of Law, Faculty of Physical Sciences, etc that do not possess a library of their own. The last Law School results were a beauty to behold, a result sheet loaded with lots of let my people go grades. A graduate comes out o the university after spending four regular years, two or more strike-induced years and he probably will not have the honor of having spoken, interacted or been taught by professors! Does it occur to those in authority the rot that is eating through the fabric of our educational system? When our kids travel out of the country to further their studies in more conducive environments, do we realize that it is tantamount to laying eggs for another to hatch? Young graduates come out with 1st class, 2nd class degrees, which are equivalent to class 10 degrees in other countries, and cannot write textbooks. They all want flourishing well-paid jobs. They want to work in banks (like Zenith), oil companies (like Chevrontexaco) and thriving telecommunication companies (like MTN). A nation may get what it deserves, but this does not necessarily mean it deserves what it gets. As critical as I may sound, I must acknowledge the fact that the Government is trying. But to what extent, I truly cannot measure. As a friend of mine says,Effort without results is no effort. Let us take a look at these statistics: =N=3.4826 billion released for just one month to pay workers in just 16 Federal universities. I am sure you are also summing up amount received from donor agencies, internally generated revenue from all sorts of dysfunctional diplomas they award. Yet, what is the real value of the education we get for these billions of Naira spent? There are very few lecturers these days who do not own poultry at the backyard of their staff quarters, with some moving further into dog breeding, preferring to spend more valuable time with their dogs and fowls, rather than with their students. They are watching and praying, looking out for the long awaited sabbatical contact to fall through, and off they go! God has been faithful this year. Unlike last year when six months out of the year the students were grounded at home for no fault of theirs. One of the private Universities released their admission list and students were told they had to pay a 25 thousand Naira acceptance fee. Gone was when that amount got one an education in this same country with a world class degree. The so-called Federal universities are like passing the eye of the needle with all sorts and forms of admission rackets. You simply talk the talk and you in; courses are allocated on the pay, as you want basis. That is where we have prostitutes and cowboys being admitted to disgrace (I mean study) law, medicine, accounting et al. The state universities are just branches of the State internal revenue board, school fees are like the ability to bargain for beef between the Students Union government and State government After admitting morally bankrupt students, we are enacting dress codes from one university to another (the latest being the University of Jos.) when performance is on a free fall like heavy raindrops. I know that as Nigerians we blow issues sometimes out of proportion but I have seen things, like a Mass Communication graduate battle with a Midget during an interview session. An English graduate whose spoken English was not far from Warri slang and his written English, a lesson on how not to write sentences. I had the (mis) fortune of handling a Private investigation, before graduating a pharmacy student was graduating after eight years, in which she had three kids, the first a set of twin girls for her HOD, the other a bouncing beauty for the Deputy Vice Chancellor (academics). Allowing that girl at admission and woman at graduation, to prescribe drugs for you would amount to willful abuse of drugs. The ivory tower that used to be host to intellectual masturbation is now the custodian of low academic sperm count. Lecturers simply mop around the campus playing departmental politics that is when they are not at the business center making sure the handout does not mistakenly get to a student before launch date. Big shame! May God help us, my only consolation is the fact that, there is hope, there is yet a good side of the story. I only hope this is not a false confidence. | 
