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Prof. J.F. Ade Ajayi
Prof. Chinua Achebe
Prof. Ade Ajayi
Professor
Ajayi was born on May 26, 1926. He attended Between
1951 and 1958, he obtained a first class honours Bachelor of Arts degree (History); B.A. (General Studies – History, Latin and English), and PhD
(History) from Professor Ajayi has served variously as Chairman,
Committee of Vice chancellors; Vice President and member, UNESCO National Commission of Nigeria, 1965-84; Chairman,
Scientific and Planning Council, CAFRAD, Tangier, 1979-82; and the Dean of Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, 1964-1966. He has been a member
of several university councils, including Cape Coast University, 1972-1976;
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Q:
Do you
think it is possible to identify a particular period in Nigeria’s history when the deterioration commenced,
or should we assume the downward slide is, perhaps, as old as the nation itself?
A. Well, I would say that our problem began with the country’s
founding but became a true pathology in the 1980s -- during the unfortunate period of despotic regimes -- with
a deliberate attack on the middle class. Government policies, following the influence of the World Bank, IMF loan, SAP and so on, attacked the middle class, and subsequently, destroyed middle class values.
The middle class comprised of people, educated, and otherwise, who were prepared to invest their money in the country
and watch it grow through hardwork and integrity; but the regimes of the period willfully
prevented that from happening.
Thus,
we have continued to witness a re-cycling of people whose contributions to nation building -- to the economy of
this country-- cannot be traced.
They
have continued to take from the country, yet have given nothing at all back to the society. With each administration,
these people continue to be recycled; they are given one portfolio after the other that creates even more avenues
for them to continue taking. I do not know any where else in the world where one man alone dominates the economy
of the nation except here in
Q:
You have mentioned SAP and other unpopular government policies as precipitant factors in destroying the once vibrant
middle class in
A. For me, the overall effect of the structural Adjustment
programme, SAP is twofold. One, it succeeded in destroying the
productive sector of the economy, and two -- it saw to the collapse of the middle class. And until we can rebuild
the middle class, the country will never progress; we cannot talk of good governance. Presently, we are engaged in talks about debt relief; however, what relief can we actually expect?
This
is the time when we should be asking the question -- ‘how much did we borrow? And what did we do with the loan?
And beyond these questions, is time to ask for reparation and not debt forgiveness. Our so-called creditors know
that they owe us; they have taken so much from us. The
Q. Corruption has long been the bane of our nation. What steps, in your opinion, can
A. This is a very simple issue to assess. With the collapse
of the middle class, the country lost the values that encouraged individuals to create personal wealth and enjoy
it. What has happened is that people no longer want to work for their wealth; society no longer frowns on vices.
And it begins with governance. Why would a person who never saw the four walls of a university be allowed to give
instructions to Vice chancellors or take it upon him or herself to control the university system?
Now, take the present crop
of politicians. Politics, for them, is an investment to fill their bank accounts. If any money was spent during
election campaigns, the aim becomes to make back such monies multiple-folds. And they do this as if they are sure of the future. But no one ever is. Neither you nor I can predict even the next moment. So, these politicians grab
without thinking… with both hands.
And I have to wonder whether politics should be a part time thing or a full time engagement, because the senate
and House of Representatives hardly sit through the year; they go on recess quite often.
The fact that we do not operate
a true federalism also paves way for several loopholes. What happens is that the federal government takes so much
of our national revenue that it has resources in excess, whereas the states do not have enough. And this allows
a great deal of wastage in terms of government spending. The government also allocates so much to itself, thus
encouraging senators and House members to ask for all kinds of unmerited allowances. This, I think, has allowed
for corruption. Government has agreed to the need for a new constitution; however this has not helped matters.
Q.The term ‘resource control’ has come into vogue recently as a mechanism for the survival and sustained
development of the
When the issue of resource
control came up for discussion at the National Political Conference, it became a controversial issue. Why? This
was not always a thorny issue, when each ethnic group managed and controlled its own resources. And I’m one of those who
believe that resource control should be total.
Q:
I
think I’m satisfied that the confab has done better than expected in the sense that it did attract some able minds,
and at least, started some dialogue between people from different parts of the country. Unfortunately, we ended up with the issue of rotation and resource
control -- the two major unresolved issues – and this ultimately led to the sudden termination of the conference.
Q.
For the past five years, this administration
has propounded its fight against corruption. However, for three consecutive years now, the country has ended up
high on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. What do you think is wrong with the crusade
against corruption?
In my opinion, these isolated
cases of bringing government officials who appropriate public funds to book are not enough. There must be far reaching
laws that impress upon us all that nobody is untouchable. There are too
many people who ought to be behind bars, who are still walking the streets as free men. There is no seriousness
in government’s effort so far…
Q:
During the period of nationalist
Book by Prof. Ade Ajayi
struggle, we rightly understood that education was the most important thing one could give a child. And we felt
this way until the military intervened in our lives. Education is one major avenue through which we may rise and
achieve greatness in life. And many people accepted its challenge. There was a pattern of education in many families;
people either sent their children to Christian missionary schools or Koran schools. Then there was free education.
Every child had the opportunity to go to school. When they completed the elementary level, they went on to acquire
a secondary education. If such students were bright, they were admitted into the university.
Education meant so much then.
Education has the ability to highly transform lives, and it was rightfully made a prized part of national life.
We got to the point where people who lacked a basic education were not relevant in the scheme of things, so with
the advent of free education, children were made to line up, and asked to put their hands across their heads. And
if their fingers touched their ears, they were enrolled in schools, and went on to complete the elementary level.
There is a story of a pastor who said he would not have been what he was, but for the fact of his education.
Thereafter, there was the Lord
Asbee report on education, which testified that investment
in higher education was necessary.
Sadly, at independence, the
incentive to get to the top was the drive to make money, and this became more important than education.
Interference began in 1974
with the Udoji report, when government decided that the National Universities
Commission (NUC) should put up a budget on behalf of universities.
By 1976, NUC’s power was extended to the point that it became a regulatory body; then a man, in the guise of a
military leader, who though he never saw the four walls of a university, came to control the affairs of universities.
Funding, really, is not the most important cause of decline in education.
Q
You have mentioned the militarization of the polity as one reason for the collapse of the educational sector. Could
you expand on this…?
A. Our president called a meeting, which he called the Council
of Elders, to examine the NEEDS report. And my comment was that education is still the true leading intervention
to the development of any nation. And I laid the blame of the obstruction of education in the country, at the feet
of the World Bank -- that the World Bank discourages education and financial commitment to higher education. And
this was the main reason the military had no special place for education -- the military actively discouraged education
for the masses.
With blind obedience to the
policies of the World Bank, the former military regimes must have decided, at some point, to control the educational
system. The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)
propounded by the World Bank, discouraged investment in tertiary education, and rather, laid emphasis on elementary
education. While it is true that the foundation is laid at the elementary stage, the strength of an educational
system depends on the quality of the tertiary training. The teachers, professors, and so on, who contribute to
the strength of the educational system, determine the quality of tutoring given to persons at the tertiary level.
And it was as if the military decided to undermine higher education, because they wanted to protect themselves
from criticism at an intellectual level.
Q.
ASUU (Academic Staff
A. There were two major areas where opposition to the military
was effective. It took its
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time, and systematically destroyed them both, and brought those activities under control. The first is labour -- organised labour -- which has the Academic Staff Union of Universities
– ASSU -- under its umbrella. Unfortunately, ASUU overused strikes as a weapon for negotiating with government. Government also tried, and succeeded
in controlling labour congress. For various reasons, the university system
played into the hands of the government, and once the university lost its autonomy, it lost the power to navigate
its own course. However, Babangida took autonomy to mean self-funding. You cannot put a
gun to the neck of a doctor and say, ‘treat or else I will blow off your neck.’
The military came from nowhere,
and imposed itself on academics. Soldiers who understood nothing about the university system took it upon themselves
to dictate to academics what to do. There is no way, of course, that sort of thing would work. People who did understand the workings of the university system were
prevented from doing the appropriate work along professional lines. And that fostered corruption in its own way.
ASUU has overused its weapon of strikes to the extent that
it has lost the confidence of students. The relationship between lecturers and students should be one of trust;
once that is hampered, that’s really the end. People who were part of the university system were not allowed to
run the system, and this negatively affected quality. It determined how much the government was prepared to give
in terms of allocation to tertiary institutions, and in an attempt to control the university in 1974 the government
asked the NUC to put up a budget on behalf of the universities. The
universities became so dependent on the NUC, that it
became a regulatory body. This simply encouraged a minimum standard.
The senate of the universities
could not sit by and allow this running down of the system, but it was helpless because of its funding predicament.
And this is why I say that the rot in the educational sector is not necessarily as a result of inadequate funding.
The government has also been a major part of the problem.
Q. People tend to think
that the cause of our national dis-aggregation
is because of centrifugal ethnic forces…
A. Well, I would not say ethnic rivalry, on its own, is
a major problem, though it is, indeed, a problem. I recall that we debated in the universities, at some point,
what nationalism and ethnicism means. We decided that one meant loyalty to one’s ethnic
grouping, while nationalism is quite a different issue. The stronger our patriotism, our desire for the general
good of our country, as a whole, the better; the nationalist feeling should very much overshadow ethnic sentimentality.
In 1950/51, the Macpherson Constitution was in place, and the government decided
that we could no longer depend on traditional rulers who tended to provoke cultural or ethnic sentiments. This
was the position of the sociologists. Because Nigeria had been intended by the British as a business concern of
sorts – a kind of conglomerate of disparate nations set up for commercial reasons -- a line, after Nigeria’s independence,
had yet to be drawn in terms of what “ethnicity,” “nationalism” or “tribalism” really meant within the post-independence
context. In a nationalist spirit, the Ziks of this
world might refer to Awolowo as an Yoruba nationalist,
because Awolowo never minced words about whose interest he was working
for.
In the South West, at a point,
Zik could have won more votes in any election than Awolowo, because the Action Group depended more on traditional
rulers than on successful businessmen. And the NCNC tended to be more popular in the urban areas -- Ibadan, Ilesha, Lagos. The NCNC dominated in politics rather than the Action Group, which
largely depended on the Alaafin, for instance. Sure, Zik might point out that dependency on traditional rulers constituted tribalism on the part of a political
party, since it did not have to present the best mandate, or a better proposal for government; most of the manifestoes
centred on ethnic groups.
Q:
So what you seem to be suggesting is that it is possible to at once be a patriotic Nigerian and a proud member
of one’s ethnic group…
A.
Of course, you cannot invoke the
spirit of nationalism without history and culture playing into it, and to that extent, one cannot do away with
ethnic sentiment. However, one must be careful not to allow ethnic intolerance become a toxic ingredient in government
policies and political dialogues. I think this is why with the Macpherson Constitution,
the government said we could not continue to depend on traditional rulers.
Q:
Is
it not true that historically, ethnic allegiance that is excessive has had a divisive, often profoundly detrimental
effect on Nigeria’s political process?
A. Well, let us move from traditional rulers to political
elites who form political parties that favour the educated
elite. Interestingly, the educated elites believed that elections could not be won without going back to the traditional
rulers, and taking care of their interests. That was when the Action Group began to have second thoughts about
traditional rulers not being important. The group believed that when it came to politics, the Igbo man would not
vote for a Yoruba man if no other Igbo man was in the race. We now concluded that nationalism might depend on what
you might call tribalism. There is no way one can come to
The effect on the Nigerian
system is where the whole issue of federalism comes in. Because the Igbo are mostly migrants -- there happens to
be around three quarters of Igbo migrant labour nationwide
-- the NCNC was always saying -- let us not change this system, because
we are aborigines in our land. There should be no discrimination in politics. And yet, in Igbo land there is no
room at all for non-Igbo migrants. Among the Yoruba people in
For this reason, government
now came out with the idea of federal character. Whatever one was doing, whatever office one was involved in must
reflect the federal nature of the country. And that also included admission into institutions of higher learning.
So, for admission into the
