One of the major reasons for the underdevelopment of Nigeria after 64 years of independence is pride in governance, where state governors assume the role of emperors of knowledge.
Hilary Inyang, the Founding Chair and Distinguished Professor of the Global Institute for Sustainable Development Advance Analysis and Design based in the United States, made this assertion in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja.
According to him, pride has to go down in governance in Nigeria for the country to attain a meaningful level of development.
He said Nigeria, just like many other African countries that got independence between 1957 and 1965, started out with great plans and great hope and targets but faltered along the line because of a lack of effective governance.
He said, “Nigeria, just like what happened to many other African countries that got independence between 1957 and 1965, there were many African countries in those ranks, Nigeria being 1960, that started out with great plans and great hope and targets, but along the line, they faltered.
“These countries faltered because of a governance breakdown. There was a lack of effective governance. Some went into depression; there were military coups, and people who came in were not the right people to lead those countries, so things fell down.
“In the 1980s, there was hope because there was a return to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s in many countries.
“In Nigeria, the return to democracy was that of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, who came in 1999. So, there was a lot of hope. In truth, Obasanjo did a lot for the universities in Nigeria because he personally supported intellectual development. He himself indulges in that, and he brought a lot of capable hands into government.
“But soon after that, we have the start-up of mushroom universities, which barely have facilities to train students appropriately. Even before Obasanjo came in, the military brought an era of leaders of universities who were appointed to serve the interests of military governors and the presidency and then began the fall of Nigeria’s educational system.
“Then people were appointed as deans and so forth through lobbying rather than expertise, experience, and training. Until today, that persists. This is the problem with the educational system.
“Look at the selection process for a vice chancellor of a typical Nigerian university, even the private ones; if you don’t belong to the church of the owner of that university, you cannot be a vice-chancellor.
“Where do you hear that one? Imagine if Botswana insisted that I must be from Botswana to be vice-chancellor. Imagine China, where they gave me very senior professorship and insisted that I be Chinese; why is it like that in Nigeria?
“If you look at a typical Nigerian university, you may not see a single foreigner on the faculty. When I was a student, there were several of them. So, how can you have knowledge from other cultures?” stated.
He noted that to succeed in governance, there was the need to assemble task teams comprising experts and not sycophants to advise the government and develop frameworks in key areas of national development.
“We are in Al today, robotic and all kinds of things that Nigeria cannot afford to be left behind. These steps have to be taken, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that anybody is thinking in this regard and trying to get this done.
“It takes an assemblage of experts to sit and do this. If they even form task teams, they will even make them political. To select somebody, you have to be a supporter of the governor, but what does a governor know how to do this kind of thing?
“They have very limited knowledge. In most of the states, the governors assume to be the emperors of knowledge. A governor in a state is not really the epitome of knowledge. There are people that they should consult, not consultants only, who come in and agree to everything.
“So, pride has to go down in governance in Nigeria to attain greatness and the promise that was apparent at independence in 1960,” he stated.
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