NUT and Nigeria

NUT and Nigeria’s Vision 5050

Abdullah Musa

There is no disagreement between me and the reader with regards to the topic to be discussed. To the best of my knowledge, Nigeria has no vision targeting three thousand years from now; and equally, Nigerian Union of Teachers has nothing to do with it. What I intend to achieve by coining the title in this form are two things: first is to catapult far into the future all the vision thing that Nigeria seems to think that it has; for all those who engage into some form of planning know that the more you project into the future, the more the uncertainties: in the case of Nigeria, some are predicting its demise very soon talk less of three thousand years to come. The second thing I want to achieve is in the usage of 5050. In Nigerian English, 5050 means neither positive nor negative; the minuses are equal to the pluses; the opposing forces have equal strength; in short, in such kind of position you cannot definitely move forward if you were earlier on stationary.

A teacher once read an article I posted to a daily newspaper, wherein the main thrust of the article was on the Talaka, the poor. In a passing comment, I alluded to the way public schools stunt creative faculties of pupils; and I considered the acts of many of the so-called teachers as heartless where they may attend school and yet failed to enter classes. That teacher was so incensed that he called me shameless, because I must have been educated by teachers of public schools and am now maligning them. The question is which ones? Are teachers such a rare breed that generation after generations they remain the same: never getting old, never retiring, and of constant character, disposition and qualifications?

It was reported in Daily Trust newspaper of May 15, 2008 that 11000 Plateau primary school teachers are unqualified. In Jigawa state it was the Governor himself who was quoted as saying that 10,000 are unqualified. The deficiency alluded to teachers in Plateau includes inability to read and write! Now who but a moron would go to take on a career in teaching while he himself cannot read and write? My teacher-adversary might say that if not a moron, who would employ such person as teacher since he could not just have forced himself upon the hapless pupils?

We got another set of unflattering statistics on the success or otherwise of Northern teachers: JAMB 2008: 998, 114 sat for the examinations. Imo state had the highest candidates with 101,201 or 9.6% of the total; five Northern states had the following: Yobe 0.07%, Zamfara 0.36% Jigawa 0.38%, Sokoto 0.47%, and Taraba 0.53%. The total for the six states is just 1.81%. The fault of course has no owner. (In Hausa: laifi ba ka da ubangiji)

In Daily Trust of June 16, 2008 Provost of FCE Zaria said that UBE lacks qualified teachers. At the same time, four principals were demoted to class teachers in Gombe. (They should have been expelled, for they will never deliver as class teachers) In the same state, the principal of JSS Kanawa abandoned the school in favor of his farm and even told NYSC members posted to his school that they should only be coming once in while as he too only came periodically.

In a conference or is it economic summit of Yobe state, someone who was associated with late Sardauna said that Sardauna was devoting 36% of his budget to education; but 40 years later, Yobe could not produce 10 people with FIVE credits to qualify to go to NDA. In order to bore you all the more, in Daily Trust of June 26, 2008, the Coordinator, State Education Sector Project, Kano said that over 70% of Kano teachers are unqualified!

The mother of all revelations however has to do with a servant-leader from Niger state. He also found out that a significant percentage of the teachers in his employ are unqualified. For that reason he said if the teachers insisted on being paid true wages he could pay only the qualified ones, and sack the unqualified. But of course if he were a leader that is what he should do whether teachers are striking or not. But because he prefers being a servant rather than a leader, he is even thinking of trade-off with the NUT: accept your miserable pay in sympathy with those who are not supposed to be your members!

Nigerians do not seem to appreciate the enormity of the problems facing them. In more civilized societies could a leader have made such statement as credited to that Governor on retaining unqualified teachers and the qualified ones all on the same salary structure and continued to occupy his seat? If not in Nigeria, in what other nation of the world would a legislator be paid ten million naira a month, while the graduate school teacher will not be paid at least N100, 000?

Is it not an irony, that more than forty years ago, a grade two holder, (Sardauna of Sokoto) would set up a University in order to produce learned men and women who would build his region; while today a Masters degree holder, product of that university, (President Yar’Adua) cannot and does not want to prescribe the basic minimum wage for the teaching profession?

The problem of education is not only with the salaries of the teachers. Nigerian Union of Teachers is doing what other trade unions have been doing: catering for the welfare of its members. The first basic welfare is the payment of living wages. If there is an organization that I would love to see the extinction of, it is the RMAFC. I should go back to the Constitution to find out who empowered it to make slaves out of Nigerians. If not, who will in his right senses prescribe for a legislator a package of ten million naira, in a country where millions do not have access to safe drinking water? And is there a bigger toe to step on than that of this ‘alien’ Chairman prescribing destitution on silent majority of Nigerians?

There was a proposal for a teachers’ registration council, in order to make teaching into real profession. Is the council now in existence? Are all afore-mentioned quack- teachers duly registered with the council? If not, who is to blame: NUT or the employers? I believe it is in the interest of NUT that all its members should be qualified to teach. If they are not, the destruction of society through the production of half-baked products would not be white-washed by calling those who want to see the rot healed, as shameless.

No human being can dispense with the need of monitoring. The monitor would critically look at your acts, from the vantage position of one whose vision is not beclouded by the blinkers of self-love, in order to detect areas of weakness so as to call for self improvement.

Governments, organized private sector, and other employers of labor are dependent upon the teachers for well-groomed, well-educated workforce. If Nigeria’s bureaucracy is deficient, not far-sighted enough; having vision or no vision; what is worse, if they do not know the value of trust and accountability; it is all traceable back to the teachers. This has nothing to do with the fact that teachers are either paid well or not. The issue of inculcating sound moral precepts has nothing to do with monetary rewards. It is pure roguery if one is to receive the stipends that he or she hates as salary, and yet turn the staff rooms into shopping bazaars as many women teachers are accused of doing, while leaving the pupils running about in perpetual play.

Associations such as NUT have great societal role to play in so far as they want to discharge the responsibility that they have taken as teachers. Their value is only comparable to that of health workers or security agencies. Yet even in those sectors, the minuses surpass the plusses. Incessant robberies, unsolved high and low profile murders and assassinations bedevil society, and yet we carry on without need for thorough appraisal on what causes the malaise.

Our peculiar form of democracy; a democracy whose basic operating platform is illiteracy, particularly in Northern Nigeria, is really an albatross on the neck of politicians. You should go to Government Houses, Ministries, or even supposedly specialized institutions such as Cabinet Offices, and see hordes of beggars who take up most of the time of those who are supposed to think and plan for the states.

Party leaders especially in the North are really a yoke on the neck of politicians, and a real drain pipe on the public treasury. They are always at the distribution point, never at the intake: the intake left nearly totally to the federal government to recharge from the federation account: read crude oil.

If NUT were to really engage with the society in a more mutually rewarding relationship, they would have succeeded in transforming the society in more ways than one.

In the meantime they will do well to remember that an erstwhile teacher with more than 700 million naira in his bank account is more related to Dangote than to late Malam Aminu Kano. (A former teacher himself) Treat him as an adversary unless he proves otherwise.

It was Sayyidina Ali, (may Allah be pleased with him) who was quoted as saying: Man allamani harfan, sirtu lahu abdan! “Whoever teaches me an alphabet; I am to him a slave. We acknowledge our debt to those of our noble teachers who lived out their lives in villages and towns in order to give education to the sons and daughters of all without discrimination, and without regards to their personal comfort. We pray that Allah guides to the right path those who turn girls entrusted in their care into prostitutes else they will not pass examinations; and their likes who introduce young men into sexual perversion. As for the imbecile who accepts salary in order to teach while he is himself unlettered, may Allah bring those who will flush him out!

Abdullah Musa