It is now a common saying that Nigerian graduates are not employable, no thanks to the current educational system in the country. Former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande in an interview with New Dawn, said the military government reduced the quality of education in Nigeria in order to control the civil service and increase the population of illiterates. He told the duo of New Dawn’s Editor, TUNDE ABATAN and Assistant Editor, DAYO EMMANUEL, that the Federal Government should privatize all schools and each state government should pay to educate all students enrolled in their individual states Excerpts:
Nigerians for some time have been agitating for restructuring and politicians are already using that to campaign. What is your idea on restructuring?
If you read my address in the meeting with APC in Washington ton I said the west has begun restructuring through the down commission and Lagos State has joined the Oodua group, if the west can come together to do its security to address insecurity and the east does the same thing no federal government can stop you.
But some people would say it is not constitutional…
You have to disobey constitution where it stops you from developing when it is going to hold you down, all bad laws must be disobeyed. 1999 is a bad constitution we all know we are shying away from that. It is a bad law, disobey any aspect that will not let you develop. In my house I provide my electricity for myself using solar, it is private, I generate electricity for my house because government electricity doesn’t reach me. And where it reaches me I pay for it, let them come and arrest me for that. I have a metre and I pay when the light comes in and when it does I pay.
A lot of public businesses were sold between 1999 and 1997 one of them was NEPA which was unbundled which was then sold out. Now PDP candidate is saying he would sell NNPC people have been asking do you agree with the motion?
Honestly, it has to be looked into because what you own you sell, I did not work at NNPC, I worked with BP and it was sold to Nigeria and Nigeria later sold it now to FO. It is what you have that you can sell, I don’t know if NNPC is working. I didn’t work with NNPC but I see it as a bad bottleneck. I don’t believe in government trading, the government should not be in any trading, it should compete with Oando with FO with Total that is the way I see it but I believe in government regulating the conduct of business but it is shameful that the government is not as knowledgeable as people doing the business. The Chinese are now constructing our railway. Tell me anybody in government is knowledgeable about the railway. There should be Nigerians knowledgeable about oil that should be able to regulate the oil sector. If the duty of the NNPC is to compete with other oil companies and to regulate the activities of the oil companies. I don’t have any problem with that but it is what you have that you sell. If you have a good brain, you sell yourself as a professional.
You also talked about selling the schools. Can you shed lights, sir?
Yes. All our schools should be privatised so that our children can be liberated. If the Government wants to operate a school, let them compete for side by side the private schools. If I send my children to school the government must pay for them. If I’m in government I will pay for all the children of my state. I will close down all government schools, turn them to private schools and I pay for all the state’s children.
What about returning them to the former owners?
The original owners may not be interested in the ruins. You have taken it from them and ruined them. The government took over the schools from their owners and ruined them and it ruined the teaching profession totally and nobody is coming out of it the same anymore. If the government wants to compete so be it. When they were doing it they were in minority, government schools then were in the minority and they were doing well but in Nigeria now God took over the schools now we are producing Nigerians who can only consume other peoples products. You pass exams through special centres. That is no school.
Should Nigeria not vote Buhari in 2019 what happens?
The country was already finishing before Buhari came, Buhari arrested the failure of the country, if you don’t allow him to continue doing his job the failure will be quicker than expected and all of us will be in chaos.
…But some people said he is very slow
I don’t know, I have never seen him in a race. It depends, maybe he is slow and steady. He has locked the avenues people steal money, all those building filling stations on the road and taking subsidy their petrol stations are closing down, all those businesses are dying. All cheap money, all those businesses are folding up. It is then that creativity can begin. Money by corruption has never let any country grow. Not by addressing them, maybe he is arresting them. Not by arresting the looters, he may be arresting them but he has not been able to jail them as fast as he would want but he is blocking their ways. Before those who are not working at all carrying portfolio about are the rich ones but now you have to work to earn.
I don’t see Buhari being able to influence things in the area of constitution amendment…
Buhari’s job is not to rewrite the constitution, there are amendment clauses. Only the National Assembly can re-write the constitution.
..but the National Assembly and the Presidency have not been working together.
Even if they work together, that will be the beginning of their enmity because if Buhari says let us write it like this, somebody from Kano will ask are you mentally sick? It is only we people where a party or no party can renegotiate what we want. If Yoruba wants things in a black way let them start doing it in a black way nobody will arrest you. If Yoruba of Ekiti is working with Yoruba of Osun working with Yoruba of Ondo with the exclusion of another group. If Anambra wants to come and they say we are not working with you so be it. If the west says it is only agriculture we want to face, we want to plant only okra or cassava nobody will quarrel with you and we do same in our security system.
When they wanted to do sharia were you able to stop them? When Awolowo wanted to send all the children to school for free and they said they don’t want to send theirs to school, were they able to stop him? Today we are seeing the result of those who said they didn’t want to send their children to school.
When Zamfara man said they wanted to do sharia, all others were joining him. If we say we in the west what we want is electricity of a kind and we start it up we have the money. Lagos started it, Obasanjo stopped it, today we would have gone beyond that. When Lagos started creating Local Government Areas, Obasanjo resisted it and seized their allocation, others chickened out. Obasanjo fought back. It was because of personality. That time Rivers, Akwa Ibom were making more money. We met in Benin we wanted to do it but Lagos was the first to do it. It was before the end of my tenure and when we left government, Lagos did it. But others chickened out. It was because of the personality ruling in Lagos, others may not have that. At that time Rivers and Akwa Ibom were making more money, it depends on the personality. If they say kai and you say No. Or if they say kai and you chicken out. It is all about personality.
We, first of all, met in Benin, then we met in Akure. We took the decision when we were in power. Lagos did it anyway. It was done the way it was written in the constitution. The law couldn’t fault Lagos.
