Varsities Talk: Bringing back university life to the North-East

THIS article could easily have been titled The Lost Generation of The North-East of Nigeria and it would still be apt.One of the untold stories of the ongoing war in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, is the devastation it has brought to higher education in the North-East – especially the three front-line states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa; and to some extent, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba.

Together, the six states constitute the poorest and most backward in the nation based on every social and economic indices available to demographic experts.

My first experience with the zone dated back to 1992, when, as Consultant for a World Bank Project, we set out to examine and document poverty in Nigeria. Then, as now, the North-East was the poorest by far of all the six geopolitical zones. Twenty-two years after, and things have remained the same.

We can argue till the cows come home about who was responsible for the relative backwardness of the zone. But, the fact is totally indisputable. Those who claim that Boko Haram resulted from the abject poverty might have a point. The Devil always finds work for idle hands and the North-East has the greatest percentage of them also.

Perhaps one important element will serve to illustrate the point – Federally Allocated Revenue, FAR. Since 1999, but especially after the 13 per cent derivation principle was adopted by the country, all the six North-East states have collected just about the same revenue as two South-South states – and sometimes less.

Since nobody would seriously dispute that money is a key factor in development, it is easy to see the sort of handicap under which the governments of the states operate – even if there was no  corruption. This fact has had a woeful impact on the development of university education in the zone.

Again, nobody will dispute the fact that establishing and maintaining a university, in any state, is an expensive undertaking. The North-East states have less than any other zone to spend.

Consequently, virtually all the state universities in the zone are white elephant projects struggling to stay open, collecting the worst students, mostly state indigenes who could not gain admission elsewhere. They also invariably have the least qualified lecturers; mostly rejects from other universities.

There is little or no research undertaken by the faculty, libraries are filled with old books and few periodicals. Most of their courses have not been accredited by the NUC – resulting in thousands of graduates holding on to worthless certificates.

By and  large, they are turning out graduates who could not possibly be employed by the Organised Private Sector or multinationals and who can only find employment within their own states.

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