Nigeria must sustain investment in education ­—Leke Alder

The polymath and national policy maker, Mr Leke Alder has charged the Federal Government on the need to sustain investment in the education system.

He said without this, chances are that the country will keep on electing into power people who do not value education. This he noted “creates a cyclical problem.”

The founder and principal of Alder consulting made the assertion during a lecture as a guest speaker on ‘Democracy and Good Governance: Moving Nigeria Forward,’ at the 2023 edition of the Femi Emmanuel Lecture Series, held in Ibadan.

Speaking further on the state of education in the country, he said that “poor investment in education creates unenlightened electorates who subsequently vote in unenlightened opportunists who do not value education.

“There is moral justification afterall, they got into power without education,” he explained.

“A classic case in point is the late Governor of Kano State, Aliyu Sabo Barkin Zuwo. He was elected senator and later became governor in 1983. When he was asked to list the mineral resources of his state he reeled out Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite. Aren’t they minerals! He was notorious for stashing money in the state house and when challenged, he responded that it was perfectly logical to put state money in the state house.

“As if our predisposition to the lowest common denominator is not enough, we entrenched the factor into our constitution. According to Section 131(d) of the Constitution, to become Nigeria’s president, all you need is to be educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent Note the phrase, “School Certificate Level.” You only need to be educated up to Secondary School.

“We don’t know if the phrase means pass the exams or just pass through secondary school. If it means just pass through secondary school, does this mean that you can have F9 in all the subjects and still qualify to run for president?,” he inquired.

While speaking on the idea of facilitating or furthering unity in the country through education with the National Youth Corps (NYSC) scheme, unity schools and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), he said: “If I ever doubted, the question of Nigerianess has not been answered, the recent dust up over the fake JAMB result of a certain student from the eastern part of the country laid the issue to rest. Notice how the threats and arguments quickly turned ethnic.”

He posited that the idea of JAMB has clearly not solved the national question on integration, stating that “it would also seem the quota system became a major challenge to something called “justice and equity.” Let us say standards are not uniform and that the marks required to gain admission into a university differ wildly from region to region. It is abominably low for some regions.”

He submitted that the furtherance of the idea of national integration is meant to be marshaled through the NYSC scheme.

He charged the youth to fight for Nigeria of their dreams by  mobilising, organising and using their creative talent.