In the Western concept, doing right is not considered news.
However, in Nigeria where the right is seldom done, witnessing
something done the right way is delighting because it is new. In
our Trivials series, I will make such experiences news to imbue
us with the hope that all is not lost and to encourage those who
did the right thing to sustain it and do more.
The Faculty of Medicine and the authorities of Ahmadu Bello
University this year limited admission into medicine to only 127
students, including 15 direct entry students, instead of the
hundreds that were annually admitted previously. The outsider
may wonder what is praiseworthy here. However, to stakeholders -
students, parents, lecturers and the university administration -
this was an exemplary achievement, if the reader knows where we
came from.
Previously, the university has tried to trim the number but
failed due to Nigerian factor. In 2006 for example, its 100
level students for the course, including repeats, were more than
400. Lecturers at the faculty and elsewhere in the university
have their children applying, just as do university
administrators, ministers, governors and other big men and women
across Nigeria. The pressure on the administration and the
faculty was too much. Since the faculty is statutorily allowed
to graduate only about 100 doctors annually, it had to find ways
of cutting the high figure of students from several hundreds at
100 level to the reasonably manageable figure beforemthrynreach
600 level.
The only way to do it was to devise various inconsistent ways of
having many withdrawals and repeats annually. They rolled many
heads, admittedly, regardless of who the students' parents or
state of origin were. Lectuers can be extremely strict when they
decide to. The children of ministers, vice chancellors,
lecturers and commoners alike all suffered from the trauma of
being withdrawn from the faculty after spending one, two, three
or four years in the dreamland of doctorhood. The day results
are released is usually a very dark day for hundreds of families
across the country. Each would empathize with its withdrawn
child that would often go into hiding, crying all week, as if
the whole world has turned away from him or her.
Yes. The world has turned away from them at least at that
moment. They did not know, nor wanted to be, anywhere except
that dreamland. And suddenly, it is gone, after it has occupied
their imaginations for years. They can only see a sea of total
darkness ahead, without any sun or flowers to brighten and
colour their days. They would wish they have died and became
lost in the past. Now they have to return to where the started
years before, sit for JAMB again and apply for another course,
once more knocking at the door of the university as if they were
never there before.
I have grieved along with these students for decades now and had
a cause to last year arrive at the conclusion that in all
Nigerian universities, Medicine, with this culture, is the worst
faculty I have ever seen. I have seen just so many talents that
would have read other professional courses and excel in them
wasted in pursuit of medicine. They live with that pain all
through their lives. Why won't they admit just close to the
number they need, making sure that they pick only the best? I
prayed for this to come for many years. I thought it will never
arrive. Alas, it was by the corner, in Zaria at least.
Two years ago, one of the families took the faculty and the
university authorities to court, accusing them of deliberately
failing students in order to cut the number of graduants from
the faculty. The faculty denied it and produced the examination
scripts of the failed students. "See, he failed", it argued. Of
course, what could the judge understand there except the red
ink? Deep inside them, as men of conscience, however, the
lecturers knew they got the verdict on their side, but they did
not win the case. Something must be done. And, alhamdulillah,
they were bold to do it.
This year they admitted only 127, meaning even with the backlog
of students waiting to be axed by the red ink of the lecutures,
the end is within sight. In three years to come, our children's
tears would be saved as very few will be exposed to the trauma
of withdrawal. This is the first good news. That somewhere in
Nigeria, there was a problem and the authorities resolved to
solve it. Bravo.
The second good news is the process of how the slim figure was
arrived at. The faculty met and decided that only few would be
admitted. It agreed, like in previous years that the admission
would be based on competition among students from each admission
quota. A percentage was given for distinction, one admission
slot to each state of the federation - being the only truly
national university, and an additional one to each state from
the catchment area of the university, i.e, the 19 northern
states, coming from students who completed the remedial program
of the university, SBRS, Funtua, with relevant JAMB points. The
lecturers tamed their passion and avoided favouring their own
children or those of their colleagues from other faculties, who
alone can produce the desired number of qualified candidates. Ba
sani, ba sabo. They completed their job perfectly and handed
over the list to admissions office at the "senate block" of the
university.
At the "senate block", the noble job of the faculty was almost
killed by the previous culture of adding names from who is who
in the university and Nigeria. The list ballooned once again.
Back to square one. The lecturers protested vehemently and
threatened brimstone and fire. A meeting between the
administration and the faculty representatives was convened at
the Senate block. It took hours without the lecturers bulging.
In the end, the administration also appreciated the pain through
which the faculty has been going for decades. It agreed. The
initial submission of the faculty was maintained. This is
another good news. Very good news in Nigeria. Here were
Nigerians in position of authority taming their passions and
doing the right thing. They would have filled the slots through
various corrupt practices, to money, to girl friends, to
traditional rulers, to ministers and senators, and go Scot-free.
But they responded to their conscience appropriately. Bravo,
bravo bravo. More of this habit please and Nigeria would be a
better place. We do not need more dollars in gifts, Mr.
President, but only the resolve to do the right thing.
Three problems remain now. One is how parents and teachers would
counse their children appropriately regarding the choice of
courses and universities when they fill JAMB forms. In all our
universities over 3/4 of science students apply for medicine
while courses like agriculture, education and the basic sciences
remain largely unapplied for. In the end, only few candidates
are admitted and the rest remain unadmitted that year. This is a
waste which we parents and teachers at secondary school level
must stop. The lecturers at my alma mater have done their own.
Let us do ours such that the hearts of our children would once
more shine with hope and excellence.
Two, a gaskiya, graduating only 100 doctors per year is too
small for the largest university in Africa, south of the Sahara,
especially with its elaborate infrastructure at Samaru and Shika.
The effort to turn the faculty into a college where it will be
permitted by the Nigerian Medical Council to produce 200 doctors
annually should be speeded up. The same thing must be said of
the conventional universities in Jos, Maiduguri, Kano, Sokoto
and Ilorin. Permission should also be given to universities of
technology throughout the country to establish faculties of
Medicine, as we fought hard to get it at ATBU, Bauchi. Hatching
that idea and initiating the process was one my achievements as
Adviser to the Governor on Education between 2003 - 2007.
Mashaallah. Let these diseases and high infant, maternal and,
now, paternal, mortality rates vanish from our midst, please.
The third problem is the other faculties. I would like to throw
a challenge to the present Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello
Uinversity. Let one of my readers please take a copy of this
Trivial to him. I knew Professor Abdullahi Mustapha since 1975
when we met at the Muslim Students' Society (MSS) national
annual meeting at St. Jones College, Jos. (Then Nigeria was
peaceful. Muslims could hold national meetings in Christian
schools. May such good days return to our land!) He came along
with Ibrahim Suleiman and Usman Bugaje, then all of them
graduates, to lecture us on the theme Islam and Contemporary
World Ideologies. He, like many of the early MSS members, has
maintained his commitment to the egalitarian principles they
propagated while they were students and to which we who followed
them immediately also opened our impressionable minds.
As Shata would say, tunda ka girma ka zama malam, now that he is
the Vice Chancellor of that great university, can he please
fight with all his energy to ensure that, as the administration
did for medicine, admission into all other all courses in the
univeristy is equally based on merit? With his egalitarian
background and ascetic disposition. This is another opportunity
to practice those principles at the university level. And I
believe Abdullahi Mustapha will do it.
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The next Trivial may also be a good news, regarding CPC and
Buhari which we discused in Discourse 311: Fraud, Moneybags and
CPC last week. I learnt that the General has also done the right
thing. I am happy. But let me finish establishing my facts
first. I will be right back.
Bauchi,
4 December, 2010