JAMB Cut-Off Mark and The Failure of Northern Leaders

“Young man, the Standard of Education is not falling, it is the Quality of Education that is falling”.

This was the response of a certain Professor in the Education faculty to the question I had posed to him as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the UNAD Press Corps back in the University of Ado-Ekiti during an interview. It is common to hear the question I asked “Why is the standard of Education in Nigeria falling” but the response he gave made me rethink and never ask that question again. The standard of education is not falling – it was even getting more competitive.

At least until now.

Until now that we have a journalist whose only qualification to the office of Minister of Education is that he was a core Buhari supporter who once threatened to lead a street protest if Buhari lost the 2011 election. Adamu Adamu had been an associate of President Buhari’s at the juicy Petroleum Trust Fund and he was given the important office of Minister ahead of two former University Vice-Chancellors – Profs. Isaac Adewole from Adekunle Ajasin University who got the Ministry of Health and Anthony Onwuka from the Imo State University who is his Minister of State in the Education Ministry.

To further make matters worse for the standard of education, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede – one of those from Kwara, who like Chief Sunday Awoniyi despite their Yoruba names consider themselves northerners – was appointed as JAMB registrar.

The standard of education is usually fixed – whether students meet it or circumvent it – education is a means to an end of inventions, thoughts and ideas to make the world a better place with sound thinkers, doctors, teachers, inventors, bankers, manufacturers, leaders and so on. The certification is not as important as the certified who has to deliver a good job in order to fulfil the goal of education in society. If education fails, society fails and if the standard of education is lowered to qualify those who should not be qualified, then the end product is compromised and society is worse off for it.

This is where Northern leaders in recent times have failed the peoples of the North – they have consistently made many Nigerians believe that Northerners are not good enough to meet the basic education standards which must be lowered in order for them to qualify – and I do not say this is a patronising way.

The best student in my secondary school class was a Northerner – Hauwa Audu. From JSS1 to JSS3 (as we used to call it back then), Hauwa led her D class while I was usually in the top 5 of my E class. In senior secondary school, we found ourselves in the same Arts class and I was second only to her, hard as I tried. Educational brilliance is not something everyone is born with but it is something everyone can master if trained properly. Where northerners are exposed to the same training as anybody in the entire world, they excel and surpass any educational standard in the world.

Dr. Zainab Bagudu who is married to the Governor of Kebbi State is a woman I respect so much. Her brilliance, poise and character combined with her humility and friendliness are endearing. She is an accomplished doctor for whom the bar was not lowered as far as I know and who by meeting that standard is now doing great work for the society in medicine.

Northern leaders who claim to be followers of the Sardauna of Sokoto Ahmadu Bello have never caught his vision. They do not see that his northernisation policy also sought to equip as many northerners as possible with the adequate knowledge and training to catch up with the South and take over jobs in the North. Ahmadu Bello was a trained teacher. So was Tafawa Balewa.

Unfortunately for all of us, the side of Ahmadu Bello that many present leaders across the divide focus on was his attempts to slow down the pace of movement of Nigeria until his people were ready, and his seeming compromise with feudal authorities. This school of thought ignores his squabble with his cousin who was then the Sultan and his resort to achieve justice in a particular matter from a Western court – which was then unthinkable. Modern Northern politicians do not also remember that Ahmadu Bello, more than any other leader of the North before or since, deposed more Emirs for frustrating the course of modern developments. Because the feudalist historians of the North like to propagate the legend of backwardness without mentioning the radical moves of the conservatives or even the radicals themselves.

The other lineage of Northern politics was from Saadu Zungur – the first student from the then Northern Nigeria to be sent to the Yaba College in 1934 for training as a medical dispenser which we would today call a ‘pharmacist’. Zungur returned to Zaria as a teacher and mentored Aminu Kano – who again was a teacher.

These men were taught in the finest tradition of British education attainable at the Katsina College which is now known as the Barewa College. That fine institution has the astonishing record of producing five Heads of State in Nigeria and many more brilliant leaders in various industries.

But the pseudo-leaders of the North, inheritors of a feudalist empire, today send their own children to the finest schools abroad or even in Nigeria, yet make no investment beyond tokenism in the lives of the talakawas. They prefer to build religious houses rather than schools – consider the sad example from the current governor of Jigawa, Barde Abdullahi.

While on that – it not in the same Jigawa, which I visited in January, and saw the Jigawa State Academy for the Gifted, built by former Governor Sule Lamido. The school aims at admitting the best scholars from across the country starting from within Jigawa and giving them access to the best scholastic training available anywhere in Nigeria. The facilities I saw are as good (and even better) than many in the South. One of the students from that school- Shittu Abdullahi from the Hadejia Emirate, had his WAEC and JAMB results posted by one of my brothers from Jigawa on social media – he made straight A’s and B’s in nine subjects including English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, and also scored 306 in JAMB where he entered for Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics alongside the compulsory Use of English.

But it is no surprise because people like Sule Lamido inherited the mantle of ideology handed down through the ages from Zungur. Those like Adamu Adamu, Ishaq Oloyede and many who now surround President Buhari are backward thinkers – clouds without rain, zealots who want the advancement of the North but believe that for the North to advance in any area, the standard must be lowered. While they do this, the same poor folks who should be agitating for increased educational funding are the ones who rush to the fore with verbal and mental swords drawn.

Let me end by making two more points – firstly that if Nigeria’s unity is indeed non-negotiable then any Nigerian must be able to analyse and comment on issues everywhere across Nigeria. In other words – my northern readers should not think me impudent for calling their leaders out this way merely because I am not a Northerner. I am a Nationalist and I make no bones about it so if you must respond, speak to the substance of this but only after careful sifting to see if the truth herein is helpful to all of us.
Secondly, policies, such as this lowering of the JAMB score for admission done under Buhari, Adamu and Oloyede are self-defeating. It is these kind of policies that make many assume that northerners cannot compete with southerners. It is exactly why some uncharitable folks derisively invoke ‘quota education’ to make mockery of our friends from the North. It is exactly why those who would attack must reason:

If the children of the Northern elite receive the best training in education and can compete not only in Nigeria but also outside, what of you – the avid warrior in defence of a misunderstood legacy?

There are two ways to meet the standard – either you lower the standard of qualification or you increase the quality of training. The standard of education can be lowered in Nigeria but as my UNAD Professor (whose name I have tried and failed to remember) said in paraphrase “the quality of the standard of education can be lowered but the standard of educational learning will remain the same.”