Opinions

Still on re-engineering Nigeria for sustainable devt

An aspect of the Nigerian structure that needs to be reviewed is the country’s electoral body. The true independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will have positive impacts on elections, as well as on the administration and democratization process. However, the commission has come under scrutiny for lacking both institutional and administrative autonomy. This assertion is seen in the fact that its composition and funding, aside from development partners that give financial aid to it, are made by the presidency. There is also a gross lack of professionalism and security of tenure for its officials. This is seen in the inability to properly manage the continuous voter registration exercise as a lot of people queue up for days without getting registered which has called for an extension of the exercise. There is a need to reform the electoral processes in ways that will fundamentally address the autonomy and capability of the electoral commission and other related electoral agencies, including the political parties, to effectively discharge their responsibilities.

There is a need to reform the police force and the entire security system. This would involve a transformation of police departments, their role and their relationship to communities. The transformations would require a change in culture, accountability, training, policies and practices, and strong and transparent leadership. Without inculcating these practices into the security system, nothing will change. The challenge with the security system of the country had led to the #EndSARS protests in 2020, leading to the unaccounted for killing of young Nigerians across the country. In the case of accountability, police departments should not investigate themselves. Justice should not depend on prosecutors who rely on local law enforcement for evidence in the cases they bring. The system of accountability should depend on the communities under the protection and service of the police. Improved data collection and reporting practices are necessary to expose the interactions between the police and other security agencies and how they have enforced the law which will also be a tool for accountability in the system.

Another tool in the Nigerian system that must be re-engineered and reviewed is the education system. Nigeria ranks 152 out of 187 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index. The re-engineering of the educational system must cover the country’s general education policy and the laws governing it. In education, as with other fields of human endeavour, all official actions of an organization must have a backing or a basis for its operations. A policy defines and sets the areas for decisions to be made but does not make the decision as it only works as a guide to help facilitate the decision-making.

Educational policies provide the direction for educational activities. In Nigeria, some factors militating against the implementation of educational policies, despite the efforts made to develop education in the country, since her independence in 1960. Unfortunately, these policies have not produced the desired effect as the state of the country’s education is still deplorable, one of which can be seen in the protracted issues with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) and other related bodies. It keeps getting worse as resourceful Nigerians keep sending their children to Europe, America and even other African nations like Ghana, and South Africa, which have a fewer number of universities as compared to Nigeria. This is caused by the fact that Nigerian universities have continued to suffer from inadequate teaching staff, lack of adequate workshops, inadequate laboratories and libraries and other research facilities, insufficient funds, and non-availability of guidance and counsel services. Nigerian students and parents are increasingly seeking education abroad. This exodus has made Nigeria to be rated as one of the most student-sending markets in the world a Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that Nigerians spend $39.66 billion on foreign education and healthcare-related issues.

Education is an instrument for excellence and a tool for liberation from poverty and ignorance. Without a doubt, it is the investment in people that pays untold dividends to society and in the absence of this investment or the inadequacy of it, as is the case with Nigeria, society suffers great loss. Indeed, the importance of education cannot be overemphasized. This must have necessitated the recognition of the importance that the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provided in Section 18 that: Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels. However, the effective implementation of the programmes set out by the National Policy on Education has failed to see the light and the hope it proposed as it has rather been relegated to backstage. Education in Nigeria has continued to suffer setbacks by constant strike actions by lecturers, poor learning facilities and owing of workers’ salaries.

The laws governing education in Nigeria include the portion of the law in a state or nation that deals directly with the acts of administering educational bodies such as public and private primary and secondary education, and tertiary and non-tertiary educational institutions. The relevant issues in the laws governing education include, but are not limited to, sources of funding, requirements of teaching and non-teaching staff, criteria for the employment of teaching and non-teaching staff, hiring and firing of teaching and non-teaching staff, training and retraining of staff, roles and duties of staff, including students, meetings, quorums and disciplines. There have been continued educational laws and policies since 1914, during the incursion of colonial masters till date, unfortunately, there is a recurrent deficiency in the implementation and curriculum changes caused by the failure to train and retrain school administrators on education laws through refresher courses such as conferences, seminars, workshops and symposia. This has led to the demand for curriculum development to be passed into law for effective implementation, especially in the area of national policy on education. Nigeria’s educational system has continued to suffer curriculum manipulation and change by government policies, teachers and rising global demands, even to the detriment of the teachers and students without following any properly laid down procedure as expected under the law.

The kaws guiding education must be expanded to ensure that there is a wider covering of varieties of issues such as accountability for all activities of schools just like any business outfit, as accountability and responsibility are crucial to modern-day education. Schools must be required to meet up certain basic regulations which are in form of education. All schools must comply with appropriate education laws and government policies, and as such, all laws must be maintained and not broken to avoid sanctions.