The unfolding University degree saga in Nigeria has brought to the fore the need for our country to look inward and strengthen our academic heritage.

It is pretty unfortunate where we have found ourselves as a country. I am not a beneficiary of the heydays when university students each chicken on Sundays, but the system has continued to nosedive year in and year out.

It is getting to a point where the federal government needs to evaluate its students across the globe so that we can effectively understand our situation. What do people want from the Nigerian educational system to ascertain where we are getting it wrong?

This brings to mind the number of students who are “exiled” so that they can get globally competitive certificates. In 2022 and 2023 respectively, Nigerian students have experienced war in Sudan Russia and Ukraine.

One of the most disheartening things about our tertiary institution is that passing the West African Examination Council Nigeria (WASC), Joint Admission Matriculation Board Examinations, and Post-JAMB of the various institutions, you are not guaranteed admission into your course of choice and even the university of choice.

You have to scramble for admission; seek a lecturer to help follow up on your admission. All these gave rise to people seeking admission in neighbouring countries.

With a burgeoning youthful population, there is a need for the government to enlarge the capacity of the various institutions, but we keep tightening the admission measures as typified above.

We cannot continue to allot admission quotas to institutions every session and expect parents who do not know anyone to keep their children at home for years while waiting for admission.

Until recently, first-class degrees were rare in Federal and State Universities because many lecturers believed that God was the only one who owned first-class while the lecturer owned second-class upper degrees, and students could jostle second-class lower and third-class degrees.

Whereas the labour market had labelled students with such degrees as: “half-baked and unemployable”. All these made parents get loans to train their children in all these mushroom institutions in the neighbouring countries.

Aside from the deep-pocket Nigerians who can afford to send their children to Ivy League universities in Europe and America, people are looking for ways in which their wards will save years in the university due to the incessant strikes that last many months.

Meanwhile, the government and the academic workforce have little or nothing to lose at the expense of the students’ lives. How long will Nigerian students have a timeline for completing a bachelor’s degree programme?

Another issue we have as a country is the conversion of all tertiary levels of education to Universities. No institution trains teachers again; it is now a University; no institution trains technicians again, and everyone wants to become an Engineer.

People without a University education cannot go beyond certain levels in Civil Service, amongst other limitations we place on our nationals.

Then, people can troop into another country to get a University degree of any type. This unrealistic demand of society has pushed students out of the country.

It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but people will want to go for any form of education, and the recent increase in fees paid in Nigerian tertiary institutions is not encouraging. Truly, the government is doing everything to reduce subsidy across the board, but Nigerians cannot see the additional value to the students. People will only go for a shortcut to beat the system as well.

There is a growing phenomenon now, Nigerians are gunning for honorary doctorate degrees, and all of these degrees are coming from the same institutions that the Ministry of Education is suspending the accreditation and evaluation of degree certificates from in Benin Republic, Togo, Uganda, Kenya and Niger Republic.

Do we need to wait for a Crisis to break out before we take the appropriate steps?

I am not justifying wrongs, but it is a charge for the government and academic leaders to wake up from their age-long slumber; they need to find ways of redeeming the educational image of the country and overhauling the educational sector.

A quote by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo:

“To attain the goals of economic freedom and prosperity, Nigeria must do certain things as a matter of urgency and priority. It must provide free education at all levels and free health facilities for the masses of its citizens”.

If it is not free now, we need to get it right if we will stop falling to the tricks being paid on Nigerians by other countries in our search for certificates.

*Olutayo Irantiola, a Lagos-based PR Consultant, Playwright and Biographer, blogs on www.peodavies.com. 

This move followed a report detailing how a degree was acquired from a university in Benin Republic in under two months.

“This report lends credence to suspicions that some Nigerians deploy nefarious means and unconscionable methods to get a Degree with the end objective of getting graduate job opportunities for which they are not qualified,” Augustina Obilor-Duru, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, said in a Tuesday statement.

“The Federal Ministry of Education vehemently decries such acts and with effect from 2nd January 2024 is suspending evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from Benin and Togo Republics pending the outcome of an investigation that would involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria and the two countries, the ministries responsible for Education in the two countries as well the Department of State Security Services (DSSS), and the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC).”

The ministry is also calling on Nigerians to assist in providing information to help the committee as it seeks lasting solutions to prevent future occurrences.

“FME has been contending with the problem including illegal institutions located abroad or at home preying on unsuspecting, innocent Nigerians and some desperate Nigerians who deliberately patronize such outlets,” the statement added.

“Periodically, warnings have been issued by the Ministry and NUC against the resort to such institutions and in some instances, reports made to security agencies to clamp down on the perpetrators. The ministry will continue to review its strategy to plug any loopholes, processes, and procedures and deal decisively with any conniving officials.” (Channels TV)

The company is a fast-growing provider of telecoms services and infrastructure in Madagascar, Togo, Tanzania, Senegal, Comoros, Mayotte, Reunion and Uganda.

The provision of new financing will allow AXIAN Telecom to expand its footprint through increasing access to affordable mobile and data services by improving digital access and thus pursuing its strategy of inclusion in the telecom value chain for customers, extending access in rural regions and lower-income demographics.

The expansion of AXIAN Telecom into under-serviced markets should disrupt monopolistic pricing policies and dated product offerings and improve vital digital infrastructure such as fibre optic cables, towers and subsea cables.

Richard Palmer, Head of Corporate Debt, at CDC, which will be renamed British International Investment in April, said: “Affordable mobile and data services is a vital component of any economy and investments in under-developed telecom markets is therefore at the core of CDC’s strategy in Africa. Our commitment to this bond financing supports the mobilisation of private capital from institutions that are less familiar with AXIAN Telecom’s markets.”

Hassanein Hiridjee, Chairman and Founder of AXIAN Telecom, said: “This bond financing will greatly support AXIAN Telecom in reaching millions of people whose prospects can be transformed by access to the services that a mobile phone can provide. This will take us through our next growth phase, and we are grateful for the support that CDC and other DFIs have provided in anchoring this transaction.”

You want to know more about CDC?

CDC will formally become British International Investment plc (BII) on 4 April 2022.

British International Investment is the UK Government’s development finance institution and a key part of the government’s wider plans to mobilise up to £8 billion a year of public and private sector investment in international projects by 2025.

BII, under its new five-year strategy will expand its geographical mandate to include South East Asian countries and the Caribbean.

BII will invest between £1.5 and £2 billion per annum between 2022 and 2026 to support the UK government’s Clean Green Initiative and to create productive, sustainable and inclusive economies in Africa, parts of Asia and the Caribbean.

BII is also a founding member of the 2X challenge which has raised $10 billion to empower women’s economic development.   

The company has investments in over 1,000 businesses in emerging economies and total assets of £6.8 billion.

How about AXIAN Telecom?

AXIAN Telecom is a pan-African telecommunications services provider operating in eight markets through its subsidiaries in Tanzania, Madagascar, Togo, Mauritius and Uganda, and joint ventures in Senegal, Réunion-Mayotte, and Comoros.

It operates across three key business segments, providing mobile network services as well as digital infrastructure and mobile financial services.

AXIAN Telecom serves around 33 million mobile customers via its subsidiaries and is a market disruptor, having expanded from being a single market player (Madagascar) until 2015 to eight markets today, through active acquisitions and heavy network investments.