PhD’s for Sale

Nwachukwu Egbunike

I wrote this in 2004. However, it seems that the more things change, nothing changes at all. In respect to the inglorious National Honours List (2009) it shows that this maliaise for titles is no longer limited to the academia or traditional institutions. President Jonathan Goodluck, claims on his Facebook page to have presided over the 2009 National Awards Ceremony where “Nigerians from all walks of life and every part of the country were honoured”. No one doubts his assertion about the diversity of honoured Nigerians. However, many Nigerians are worried about the tawdrying of the National Honours. With the assembly of some men and women with not so admirable profile, being honoured, one begins to question if it really pays to remain spotlessly unsoiled by maintaining a good name? Or rather to swim in the mud and afterwards be ‘rewarded’ with a national dishonour title.

In days gone by, the title of Dr was held in very high esteem. It either showed that the bearer was an academic or a medical practitioner. The academics in the universities and other tertiary institutions saw it as a just reward of their labours, after many years of intense study and research. Unfortunately, this scenario is fast altering, as our Ivory Towers seem to be engaged in a competition of granting PhD honoris causa degrees to the highest bidder.

It is not in doubt that these institutions possess the prerogative to grant these honorary degrees and fellowships. What is however baffling, is the scandalous frequency and manner in which they seem to be exercising this privilege. Almost all our political office holders whether elected or appointed, from the federal down to the local government area are now a Doctor of Philosophy, thanks to their unrestrained largess. It is ridiculous to notice that some of these awardees that have never seen the four-walls of a university campus now have chains of PhD’s from many universities. Unfortunately, even the graduates among them have no other worth, save for their political portfolio and invariably the money that goes with it.

The situation is reminiscent of the cheap ridicule that our traditional chieftaincy has taken in recent years. As a mater of fact, it is prudent to address anyone whose title you are not sure of as chief and in most cases, you would seldom be wrong. This is because out of every ten Nigerians, eight are certainly chiefs.  Many have even gone as far acquiring titles from as many communities as possible in order to show their superiority. As if this were not enough abuse, the Universities are gradually being dragged into this title mess. It is now fashionable to be known and addressed as the Honourable, Chief, Sir, Engr, Pharm, ABC PhD, MD, KSM, KSJ, KSC, HIV, GCFR, etc. The more the prefixes and suffixes, the merrier.

Pitiable as it may be, the title craze also invokes a comic relief. This was the case after I read through pages of newspaper adverts congratulating a famous Chief in the South-South during his birthday celebration. These ads had one thing in common; it was a litany of titles. Unfortunately, this does not speak well about us, as the value of industriousness is gravely diminished and subjected to self-adulation, sycophancy and a negation of our value systems. A student who has toiled to earn a first degree, sweated to gain a Masters and after many deprivations finally succeeds in gaining a doctorate may be persuaded in believing that his efforts are all in vain. After all, nothing stops him from seeking for political power using any means and buying a PhD after. Our value system or what is remaining of it is gradually being eroded as the priority is being misplaced.

Sir Winston Churchill said, “the duty of the University is to teach wisdom not a trade; character not technicalities”. The extent of dedication to these ideals stands much to be questioned.  Nevertheless, the little left of our universities’ prestige should be salvaged. Granted that the nation’s institutions are grossly under funded. It is obvious that education is an expensive business. Funds are needed for continuing research by lecturers, providing recent books for the library, meeting recurrent expenditures for paying of salaries and going into capital projects. The subventions from the government is minimal, a direct consequence of low budget allocation of funds to education, grants from foreign bodies are not too easy to come by and other list of problems. Can this be a justification for the universities to turn into degree-selling enterprises? It is a direct affront to the sacred goal of educating the students both in character and in learning. Which moral right will the principal officers of the academia fall on when they claim to effect the above if by their actions they have failed to live up to expectations?

Chinua Achebe rejected the national awards in other to make a statement. A gesture that carried a lot of weight that some have no doubt that he is a prophet. He was not the first person to contribute on the state of affairs of the nation. Yet he seems to have made the most courageous declaration by the singular action of rejecting a title. He could have opted to remain silent in this dangerous situation like many others. He was not obliged to express his views neither was it necessary that he reject the awards. Yet he did both, to drive home his point and by so doing has consolidated his niche as a hero. This is a deep contrast to the countless number that had lobbied all their lives just to be given a national award. Actions they say speak louder than words.

A little bit of history has shown that big men tend to be easily forgotten. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Wole Soyinka, etc are men whose credential speaks volumes more than any chain of purchased degrees. These are men whose only passport lies not in their wealth, but in the integrity of their life and profession. There is this Igbo proverb that says, that a good name is better than money. This is because wealth is only transitory and is lost sooner or later. Wealth, like titles is fluid and as such, can easily disappear and the owners forgotten. What remains forever, is honour that is channelled into service. This is because as a virtue it that cannot remain wrapped up within the owner, it extends to others. If Charlotte Bronte were a Nigerian, she would probably not have explained in the note to the third edition of Jane Eyre that her claim to the title of novelist rests on one book alone. Consequently, she would not have feared that “an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently denied where it is justly due.”

The sad thing about this country is that the leadership thrives on sycophancy. Those in authority that are being awarded manifold Ph.D.’s, Honorary Fellowships and the like, in many cases don’t even solicit for them. This does not absolve them of any wrong doing because by accepting honours that they do not deserve they are only aiding the glorification of a ridiculous set of values. Values that no longer stand on the tested foundation of merit but gratification. It would instead be nice if these title seekers ask themselves whether these would come their way after they leave office. That would rather be asking for too much, as our political class luxuriates in absurdities.

Our politicians both serving and retired seem bent on out doing each other in the insertion of Ph.D. at the end of their names. I would only say that it would take a long time for this mess to clear. It is the fashion now and I can hear many Vice Chancellors ringing their bells, seeking the highest bidder for the next convocation ceremony. Make your offer; make your offer; Ph.D.’s for sale; going, going…

Published in The Guardian, 2004.

Painting while ASUU Strikes

Kenechukwu Udeh

A debate is being waged, a debate whose outcome is supposed to determine in the long run the turn of events for our dear country. ASUU has called a halt to all academic and tutoring work in protest to the state of affairs in the nation’s universities. While I eagerly await an amnesty and/or bail out – hopefully with Oshimolole’s intervention – from this lethargy, I went for a work camp packaged by Uhere Study Centre, Nsukka.

Most students all over the country are jobless, with so much time (days became weeks and then months) and yet nothing to do with it. Many of us now spend our days watching one movie after another, sometimes viewing as many as five a day (a killer for the future intellectual), roaming/touring the different cities with no real purpose, engaging in endless conversations from which we hardly gain anything constructive. Don’t quote me, but there may be a correlation between the violence and kidnapping in some flash spots in the country with this present bitter holiday. After all, the saying goes that an idle man is the devils workshop.

Being stiff tired and bored to death, I jumped at an invitation to participate in a work camp organised by Uhere Study Centre, a private hostel for male students of University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Uhere is a project of Education Cooperation Society (ECS), a registered charity in Nigeria. There were fifteen of us and the aim of the two-week camp was to paint a block of classrooms at the Holy Infant Nursery and Primary School Onuiyi Nsukka.

Being armature painters, we had to learn the art of painting. Little did I know that it takes a lot to roll, dab, cut and mix paint? While we cheerfully made a mess of the painting, we excused our lack of professionalism to the fact that as students we are more at home at using our brains than our hands. And can you believe it; we were not paid for this job. It was free. That was what Uhere Study Centre has made us realize, while it may be easy to whine and bewail our condition, we call all make a difference. Thus, the work camp was a synergy: Uhere and ECS sourced for donations to buy the paints and feed us for two weeks, we contributed our labour while making the kids in the primary school in Onuiyi happy.

Other activities of the camp included soccer through which the campers learnt team work as well as kept themselves fit, movies nights and also a number of documentaries, after one of us exclaimed that everything here is beautiful. Excursions to Kogi State and S.J rapids in Eziagu, get-togethers where the campers were able to interact fraternally with one another. It was a camp of fun and work. The spiritual needs of the camp were provided by Opus Dei, an institution of the Catholic Church.

I was lucky to attend this camp; many others lacked a similar opportunity. It will be a massive encouragement, if many of our youths sort to use their day in constructive ways such as these and if the opportunities were afforded them. In this way we can have youths, leaders of tomorrow who not only dream or have heard of serving their nation as leaders but who really know and have lived out what it takes to serve society. By the way, in case you need a painter – this article is my ad – just call me. You would not be disappointed.         

Udeh is studying Economics in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.          

Dirge to University Education in Nigeria

Nwachukwu Egbunike

Sam Egwu, Minister of Education, Nigeria

It’s been a treat reading Niyi Osundare’s Dialogue with my Country. As I poured over this poet’s prosaic monologue – since it takes two to dialogue – Osundare could as well have been soliloquizing as his audience have made no pretense at listening, let alone responding. Nonetheless, his play of words enthralled while the issues he raised sobered.

However, the part of Osundare’s book on education (chapter 5), though originally written some 20 years ago, only reinforced that things hardly change. The dirge for our university system has once more be intoned, like a horrible ghost that hunts our collective sensibilities, the universities have been forced to go on an indefinite vacation. While the famished “ivory towers” or what is left of it, is embroiled in crisis, the education minister surfs in a London celebration wave.

Initially I had no sympathy for ASUU. I had thought that their propensity to strike has not helped anyone. I had reasoned that ASUU, NASU and SANU, should give this government the benefit of doubt. After all, they all cannot be blind to the obvious, this is a war situation and all should be patriotic. That was my position until government reacted. In a despicable “might is right” posture and without any negotiation, they flung a 40% salary increase. As if the university teachers are just hungry and only need a little appeasement, government insensitivity continued with “the no work, no pay policy.”

An elementary principle of crisis control enunciates that two parties in a dispute should always make joint pronouncements. It only makes sense, else one party can easily feel sidelined and the crisis rather than subsiding only escalates. I wonder how the government party came to the conclusion that these teachers are only concerned about their pockets. Thus the solution is to add a few kobos to their income and pronto, they will go back to their classes.

ASUU in an articulate presentation of their reasons for dropping the chalk – delible markers in these days of whiteboard – stated as follows: “For over two years, the Federal Government and ASUU Negotiating Teams searched for a minimum point from which the Nigerian University system could make significant progress towards reversing the brain drain that has deprived our country of a vital causal agency in national development, i.e. the development and sustenance of a large pool of scholars whose intellectual scientific production would reposition Nigeria for greater responsibilities in national development”(see ASUU’s website).

This means that both parties have been talking for two long years and still the government pretends to be caught unawares by the industrial action. If so where they also deaf to the wails of children of lesser gods when these teachers refused to transmit the precious gush of knowledge for two weeks? Or were they blindfolded when “the two teams agreed, to begin the process of repositioning the university system as envisaged, that a required minimum of funds should be provided both in the public universities, Federal and State, with increased efforts by universities to generate funds without compromising the goals and integrity of universities.”

Where then is the role of law in all these? For an administration that has worn us out by this sing song, what is worse than failing to honour an agreement? In face of these, education still remains a point of the 7-point agenda. Lo we have former university teachers as the servant of education and president respectively. And these are the brands that the information minister seeks to re-garnish?

Those who think that the alternative lies in private universities are certainly in error. As much as the space of university education has been broadened by these non-public institutions, the desired may continue to be elusive. Like the morning mist that takes on its heels with the appearance of the sun, many of these private universities are no better than glorified secondary schools. I was stunned on seeing the academic performance of one, in which about 30% of the graduating students made first class while about 50% had upper second class honours degree.

Like mushrooms, the private universities burgeon the academic scenery. Relying mainly on tired professors (and some serving teachers in public universities), some of their students have had the doors of the public schools slammed upon their faces. Needless to state that not all private campuses wallow in this pitiable mess, some are so outstanding that they have made nonsense of governments’ former monopoly of university education. Nonetheless, some private universities deserve not the licenses of accreditation.

In the beginning of this essay I said that Niyi Osundare’s book was a soliloquy not a dialogue. Our leaders are not only deaf but also incapable of sane reasoning. You can only have a conversation with a person who is ready to listen. It’s sad that Osundare’s conclusion in July 31, 1989 in ‘Rhythms of Violence’ should apply July 2009. “All this is just one indication of the decline and fall of Nigeria’s university system in recent years – its loss of autonomy, its dwindling financial support, the constant humiliation of its staff. This in itself is a form of violence to a system on which the country relies for a substantial part of its manpower, a sure invitation to further brain drain.”