The news would have been everywhere by now if he were in that category of players in national life good in staging a big media show of such events. Fortunately and unfortunately, Prof Isawa Elaigwu doesn’t belong there. And so came and went quietly the award of an Honorary Degree of LLD (Honoris Causa) by Plateau State University, Bokkos. The event took place January 27th, 2023.
Such awards go on every now and then, here and there but, in this case, the Plateau State University brings back memories of the Nigerian university system when it was a system. In other words, an honorary degree to a Prof Elaigwu is not the same thing as one to a traditional ruler, a business tycoon or a diplomat. Prof Elaigwu is in that generation of Nigerians in those days who were determined or had the opportunity and took such opportunity to deliberately and adequately prepare for an academic career. An element of that is not only going in search of knowledge where it pleased God to oblige them the opportunity but also doing that in some of the most outstanding universities across the world. In those days, it didn’t matter whether one got a degree in Nigeria or outside the country but, sometimes, the cultural and other encounters in going out overwhelm the academic component.
Some top Australian universities, for instance
In the case of Isawa Elaigwu, he went to Stanford University. Some other things such as serving in government came his way but only as unintended consequences of the intellectual adequacy he had manifested as an academic, not the other way round. To that extent, the generation he belongs to is a distinct one, particularly when compared with what has passed into usage as ‘Christmas professors’ today in Nigeria.
If we must explain, Christmas professors’ are academics who got professorship as if professorship were an ordinary gift item people get during the yuletide. The way it operates is this: If a Vice-Chancellor wants his supporters to dominate the Senate, all he needs to do is to arrange the award of professorship to select academics who automatically become members of the Senate which is the body that actually runs a university. And such a Vice-Chancellor can go sleep, sure that s/he would always have his way on crucial issues. It is not surprising the universities are what they are today. It was partly why some academics, most notably the late Bala Usman, declined professorship.
Services needed again, not in democratisation but in the classroom to produce the real democrats
But, while Intervention congratulates Prof Isawa Elaigwu, it also looks forward to seeing Elaigwu, (Prof is not that old in the age in which his seniors are running for presidential office) take the “Introduction to Political Science” or “Basic Concepts in Political Science” course unit to first year students of that discipline at the Plateau State University, (PLASU). The first year students are the worst hit in the current crisis of quality and delivery in the university system in Nigeria. The way the most key concepts are explained to them as they step out of the secondary school academic horizon is what makes or mars them for life. So, imagine what the landscape would be if an Elaigwu were taking that course unit at Plateau State University; an Asisi Asobie and a Dipo Fashina are already at Nasarawa State University, Keffi which is great; an Adele Junaid takes a similar course somewhere in any of the newer universities around Lagos or wherever he chooses; a Bolaji Akinyemi takes “Introduction to International Relations” or “Theories of International Relations” in another new university; a WO Alli goes to some new university of his choice to take “Nigerian Foreign Policy” and so on and so forth.
Interestingly, one of the new universities is doing something similar to this arrangement. Veritas University, Abuja got onto a US based Nigerian academic to handle just a course unit. It would be very difficult not to weep when one looks at his reading list and compares it to the reading list we see here and there. It gives an idea of what Nigeria is denying the ones they are paradoxically calling the future leaders. His reading list is an integrated one, spanning the conceptual, methodological, theoretical and the empirical. It is not a cut and paste stuff. That academic content is dated in majority of the disciplines is what we are either too self-satisfied or too nationalistic in a reverse manner to admit as a first step towards problem solving. But it shows quickly when we come in contact with our Others.
It ought to be clear that unless there is some way of injecting members of that generation back into the system, there may be no hope that Nigeria can colonise the future. It is not about whether Nigerian academia is good or not good enough. That is not the issue because the Nigerian university system cannot define itself to be adequate or inadequate on its own terms. It can only be defined so by what is going on in other university systems. Since the products of the Nigerian system are going to compete in a same global market, it means content and delivery must be measured in terms of its others.
Education is the only thing any country can give her children. No one can save enough money for them. Perhaps the next president will be able to find a minister for Education who understands the intricacies, who is empirically aware of the depth of decay in the system, has enough fire in him or her and the backing of his boss, (whoever becomes the president after May 202) to ruthlessly throw the system out of gear first before stabilising it.
Meanwhile, Intervention thinks that Plateau State University got it right in awarding Prof Elaigwu an honorary doctorate degree. Intervention is looking forward to seeing a Prof Elaigwu on campus again. Hahhahaha !
