Where is the source of our pride?

Where is the source of our pride?

By Levi Obijiofor

Friday, 23 July 2010

There are times when I visit other countries and I feel like crying for Nigeria. Anyone who is concerned about the state of affairs in the country must be overwhelmed by the pitiable state of political leadership, the poor state of the country’s economy, the lack of private sector participation in educational development, expressions of frustration and hopelessness by university undergraduate and postgraduate students, the decrepit state of infrastructure in the society, and the general feeling of ennui among the larger population. When I arrived at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, on Sunday, 4 July 2010 to attend the second World Journalism Education Congress, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh for Nigeria.

At Rhodes University, I felt crushed by emotion. I had visited the university two years earlier, to represent my university at a UNESCO consultation meeting on capacity building for potential centres of excellence in journalism training in Africa. It was a two-day event in March 2008. At that time, it did not quite occur to me how a university located in a rural community which has a crippling unemployment rate of nearly 70 per cent could successfully host such an international event. At Rhodes University, they certainly know how to harness their sparse human and financial resources within the rural community.

During the World Journalism Education Congress which was attended by over 350 participants, I saw again how this rural university in South Africa was able to deploy its staff and students to overcome enormous administrative, transportation, accommodation and feeding challenges. For example, students and staff served enthusiastically as volunteers and they did various jobs with happiness plastered over their faces. In Nigeria, people complain about unemployment and when they find a job, they uncover reasons to whinge about the job. Rather than do their job with some sense of responsibility and happiness, they look glum and depressed.

Private sector participation -- another element that underpinned the success of international conferences hosted by Rhodes University – was active and visible. Here was a university that sat in the middle of indigence and economic problems and yet was able to pull together private businesses and civil society organisations inside and outside the country to support the conference. It was a remarkable achievement by all standards.

During the conference, students in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University produced a regular afternoon newspaper which contained, amazingly, up-to-date news and photos of each day’s events. How many schools or departments of journalism and mass communication in Nigerian universities have the resources and modern equipment to produce a daily newspaper or to match the regularity with which these South African students produced a daily newspaper during the conference? How many Nigerian universities could provide free Internet access and laptop computers to a large group of conference participants (as were made available to us) without hiccups such as power outage and slow connectivity?

As I reflected on what I experienced during the conference, as well as the free flowing services that were accorded to the participants, I pondered quietly whether a Nigerian university in an urban or rural setting could have hosted a similar conference with such a high level of efficiency, such level-headedness, such high sense of trustworthiness and such a high degree of success.

It is not that we do not have universities with the physical structure to host large international conferences. But physical structures alone do not make successful conferences. The question is whether we have a university in Nigeria that has the administrative personnel with the foresight and initiative, the much needed equipment, and ability to pull together private sector and government financial support to host large international conferences.

As is usual in many intercontinental conferences, Nigeria was the butt of sarcastic commentary on the opening day of the conference when South Africa’s Pansy Tlakula, the special rapporteur on freedom of expression and access to information in Africa, referred to a bill in Nigeria’s parliament which she said recommended a minimum age of 45 for any journalist wishing to be appointed an editor in Nigeria. Many participants mocked that suggestion by laughing uproariously. As a Nigerian, I felt like ducking under the desk in front of me.

The recommendation that journalists must attain the age of 45 before they could be appointed editors in Nigeria is not only an insult to professional journalists but also an embarrassment and a throw-back to the Stone Age. It is a reflection of the paucity of ideas that has marked the calibre of lawmakers that occupy the National Assembly. Rather than recommend basic qualities that editors must possess in order to perform effectively in their professional job, the sponsor of that bill believes that age should be given priority attention. This is one man’s reverse sense of logic. If such a bill is still awaiting debate in the National Assembly, it should be cast into the bin. It is not worthy of a debate.

In South Africa, I experienced how far other African countries had left Nigeria behind. It is not that South Africa has no blemishes. Make no mistake about it: South Africa has got enormous problems such as high rate of violent crimes, grinding poverty, large scale unemployment, and problematic healthcare system, to mention a few. However, even in the face of these predicaments, you could see the country making remarkable progress on many fronts.

The electoral system is getting better with every election. The economy is a reference point in Africa. The domestic airline industry is operating well, although problems persist. The South African Airways and other airlines in the domestic sector are engaged in stiff competition but they also offer good meals and in-flight services, certainly much better than what our own domestic airlines offer to their customers. The telecommunications sector is booming in South Africa. In various sports – athletics, swimming, cricket, rugby union, equestrian, and even soccer -- South Africa is doing much better than Nigeria.

We must keep in mind that South Africa was for many years a pariah nation isolated by the international community because of the despicable policy of apartheid established by the white minority government. But look at how quickly the country has emerged from the ashes of the punishment it received for operating a criminal policy that discriminated against people based on their skin colour.

When countries falter, the expectation is that they would rise and pick up from where they fell, as depicted in the South African example. When Nigeria falls, as it has been doing since it achieved political independence in 1960, nothing seems to hold the nation back from slipping further down the ravine. What an irony! We are now debating how many millions of naira we should roll out to celebrate 50 years of failure.

While South Africans fought guerrilla battles to overturn the apartheid regime, Nigeria swaggered around in the 1970s and 1980s as the “Big Brother” and protector of other African countries. We had many things that many African countries lacked. We had oil resources and wealth, the envy of many nations. We had a formidable military force that served many peacekeeping roles in various parts of the world.

In international forums, other developing countries looked up to Nigeria to defend their interests. At that time, we were admired in the continent and beyond because Africa was the centrepiece of our foreign policy. That policy was pragmatic. When Nigeria spoke or engaged in dialogue with powerful western nations, other African countries knew their “Big Brother” would defend them. Nigeria had a respected voice in the international arena. Our economy flourished too. Today, the tables have turned.

As other nations prospered, everything seems to be falling apart in Nigeria. What a pity! Nigeria, a country once respected and envied by many countries in Africa and beyond, has become the subject of high and low diplomatic jokes across the world. Across the world, Nigeria is perceived as a synonym for failed political leadership and for unrestrained criminal activities.

When people talk loosely about Nigeria as the “giant of Africa”, I fail to find the basis for such exaggerated sense of importance. Why do we make so much noise about Nigeria even when we have absolutely little or nothing to proclaim as our core achievements in the past 50 years?