The high priority accorded power is significant. As I write, the vast majority of our people continue to live in pitch darkness, lending credence to the description of our beloved Africa as “the dark continent”. The recent PMS shortages across the country, aided and abetted by the oil importing cartels, made it impossible for households to even operate their generators. The national grid was going down and generators could not be fuelled. The country was literally grounding to a standstill. The economy began to cave in. Meanwhile the so-called DISCOs were imposing all sorts of outrageous bills for power supply that never took place and the national regulatory agency for the sector (NERC) was having its own share of internal squabbles.
We hope our beloved PMB will apply a General’s operational war-room approach to tackling the power challenge. Electricity is one sector that, if properly solved, could give a quantum leap of 65 percent to our gross domestic product. It is easy to blame previous governments for the mess but we must move on to higher heights and let bygones be bygones. The Obasanjo administration allocated $16 billion to the sector, with absolutely nothing to show for it. It has been estimated that, the world over, the average return of every $1 billion expended on the power sector is 1000 MW of electricity. By this reckoning, today we should be having more than 16000 MW of electricity. Shockingly, we are struggling to stay afloat of the abysmal 3000 MW that we are supposed to be having. Nothing else reflects our systemic failure and bungling incompetence as a nation and a people.
I really do think we need to go back to the drawing board. We must avoid the wishful thinking that assumes that it is engineers who are best placed to lead the power sector. In civilised countries like Britain, Germany and France, engineers are never made ministers of the power sector while doctors do not necessarily head the health ministries.
The analogy is the same as the popular expression that war is too important to be left to the generals. This is why the Defence Department has the civilian-dominated Pentagon which masterminds the war-planning efforts of the United States. What we need for the power sector is a fire-eating strategist who can talk softly and wield a big stick; a visionary who also has the ‘cojos’ to kick a few butts and get electricity to all the corners of our great country. It is absolutely do-able, but it needs people who have the courage of their convictions – project managers and leaders who have the capacity to execute and call the bluff of the infernally avaricious cartels of generator importers, diesel importers and other vested interests who want to strangulate the power sector by all means.
Some 34 percent of the respondents identified education as one of the most important sectors of priority for the new administration. Again, Nigeria does not need educationists necessarily to head the education sector. The record of the NUC is notoriously bad because the professors who man that organisation, like old Jewish prophets, are already set in their ways, with their old prejudices and pet hates. When asked why academic politics are so vicious, former American Secretary of State, who was once himself a professor of Government at Harvard, famously explained that they are so vicious “because the stakes are so small”. We therefore do not necessarily need a career academic, but a thinker and shaker who can think outside the box; a leader and manager who knows about strategy, finance and project execution. We need a roadmap for the education sector from elementary to the highest levels, all with the aim of using education as a vehicle and weapon to catapult our nation to the front ranks of technologically-advanced democracies.
I am an unapologetic believer in elitism. The idea that all universities are equal is rubbish. We need to create a world-renowned university of technology where we bring in the brightest of our students and professoriate. This should be a world-class institution that does cutting-edge research in the engineering and technical fields and in the applied sciences. Only genius-level people should be in that institution. The strange Mandela University Institute in Abuja was not meant for Nigeria and its role and mandate has nothing to with the high-minded technological aspirations of our nation. With regard to the proposed institute, all the students should have scholarships and guaranteed jobs and the professoriate should have generous salaries and research funding. The Indian Institute of Technology is doing wonders for India. It is a model worth emulating.
Particular attention should also be given to elementary school. We need a revolution in that sector. We can use the burnt bricks that the great Obafemi Awolowo used in building his “free education” village schools in the defunct Western Region. These village schools should also be powered largely by solar energy.
I understand that some 35 percent of pupils drop out before completing elementary school, the majority of them girls. Something needs to be done to keep children in school until the age of sixteen. The education of the girl-child must be a priority, with the exception of Igbo land, where it is boys rather than girls that are dropping out of school. We must also give particular attention to the education curriculum. History must be re-introduced at elementary and secondary school, with emphasis placed on mathematics and the sciences. The education revolution we envisage must be anchored on science, engineering and the technical fields.
Equally important is the need to reform our universities to render their governance system less despotic and more accountable to the public and the generality of Nigerians. Lecturers that hound young girls while selling grades for money or sex should be flushed out. Standards of teaching must improve and working conditions should be enhanced so as to attract the most-talented people back into the academic profession. The standard of a country’s civilisation is best judged by the stature of its universities and the calibre of the men and women who lead them.
One forgotten aspect of our education is mass literacy. The re-emergence of illiteracy in our country is a dangerous scourge. There are perhaps as many as 50 percent of Nigerians who cannot read and write. We need a massive campaign to re-educate our populace. Among the ancient Greeks, democracy could not be contemplated in a situation where the citizens can neither read nor write. We can learn from Cuba, where it took them a mere ten years to wipe out the scourge of illiteracy from the island homeland. A literate society is the cornerstone of development and a guarantee of civic culture and the long-term happiness of our people.
Some 41 percent of the polls identified security as the most important priority. I would have placed security even ahead of electricity. Without peace and security, nothing can happen.
Obadiah Mailafia
