Are Nigerians Too Academic Degrees Conscious?

Something tells me that Nigerians, whether at home, or in Diaspora, are very highly educated, indeed one of the most educated people in the whole wide world. We love academics, and it will not be too far from the truth, if I say Nigeria has the highest number of persons per population, with undergraduate and Post-graduate degrees in the whole world.



An analysis of US census data revealed that Nigerians-living in the US- don’t only value education but surpass all other US ethnic groups, in the acquisition of academic degrees. According to a US census data in 2006: “37% of Nigerians living in US had Bachelor’s degrees; 17% held Master’s degrees; and 4% had Doctorates degrees.” Comparatively, the same census data revealed that “Only 19% of White Americans had Bachelor’s degrees; a tiny 8% held Master’s degree, and only minute 1% of white Americans had PhDs.”

The story would be the same if you come to the UK, and Nigerian PhDs run South African universities and to some extent a significant proportion of US Professors are of Nigerian parentage, 90% of whom got at least their first degrees (Bachelor’s degree) from Nigerian universities before relocating to these foreign lands to do their post-graduate degrees.

The question in my mind, therefore is “Why, with all these many highly qualified Nigerians, home and abroad, are we so lagging behind the rest of the world in all endeavours of study, particularly in Science and Technology, where Nigeria is paying very high price because of its pre-dated technology and infrastructure? Could be a reason of lack of underlying knowledge, and possibly rote-learning that we are so good at reading for examinations, without grasping the understanding of those degree courses we like flaunting about?

We (Nigeria) are seriously lagging behind Europe, America, China, Japan, Singapore, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia- indeed below some third world countries when it comes to building a Nigerian car, Airplane, Sewing Machine, Trucks, and Industrial machines for our Factories (if they still exists); Biotechnology and Green-Energy policy and production. Our Computer Software Engineers-also produced in large numbers and scattered across the world, many in Nigeria- cannot yet produce adequate and applicable software to drive the poor state of the economy and socio-political conditions of Nigeria. They still rely on software written and produced in UK, US, India and even Taiwan and Malaysia to do anything- whether it is in Medicine, Architecture, Accountancy and Payroll, or even Security and Control programs (Any wonder Nigeria can’t deal decisively with the rag-tag “Boko Haram,” six months after billions of Naira, military might and lives were committed to the mis-adventure?)

Let’s even leave Science and Technology out of it for now and check out other areas that needed only little application of brain work, with no engineering tools required.

Let’s go to social science and business management. What are our economists (many with PhDs in development economics, public finance, and monetary economics) doing? They have not been able to develop any theory of significance to the world of economics; none have ever won the Nobel Prize for Economics, despite their large numbers; neither have they being able to develop economic models that would transform the mess-called the Nigerian economy, for nearly 30 years that we have been producing PhDs and Professors of Economics in large numbers.

Our accountants are even more pathetic! They think the world of accounting ends with passing the equally pathetic ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria) examinations. They do not take seriously CPDs (Continued Professional Development), and so are our lawyers in the legal profession. I have argued in several forums that Nigerian accountants and lawyers are to blame, largely for the high level of waste and endemic corruption in public and private organisations across the land. Nigerians waste so much time and resources in so many areas of their lives, yet Nigerian accountants cannot put a monetary value to time wasted on strikes, school closures; shut down of businesses on election days (very ridiculous indeed, for elections that will be rigged anyway!), and even closures to register to vote. Too much time wastage and laziness going on there and nobody seems to care or have the capacity to profile all the cost elements and quantify them in Naira terms. As a result government declare all sorts of meaningless holidays, shutting private business up, to celebrate Nigeria winning African cup of nations and such other mundane and ridiculous celebrations and sometimes “bereavements!”

I cannot think of any field of study where Nigeria and Nigerian graduates and PhDs have excelled in: Not even in the humanities. Arts and philosophy has any Nigerian beat the best of the world, except perhaps the modest gains in the area of creative writing and literature where the superlative Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, and late Chinua Achebe won a few prizes in Literature- including the “Booker prize” but still could not win the Nobel Prize, probably because of politics, as the world class award could not be given to two Nigerians in an era, after Soyinka had won it in 1986.

I think the way forward is to place less emphasis on academic degrees and focus more on vocational education. There are just too many universities in Nigeria today, most, of not all are underfunded and passes for no more than “glorified” Secondary Schools- both in infrastructure and quality of their products. Nigeria can’t be parading over 100 universities- all poorly and inadequately funded- yet we do not have enough or appropriately trained artisans in the system. It is a recipe for disaster.

Our carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, bricklayers, hair dressers, clothes machinists, electricians needs to be trained? This is the 21st century, for goodness sake! Our artisans are pure junk; that’s why I argued with Bolivia Ojumah ( a hospitality and hotel management analyst) that our hotels may look super from the outside but internally the finishing and decorations are poor compared to world class standards. Nearby Ghana are producing decent artisans and that’s because they have good vocational studies centre. Somebody should tell President Jonathan that we don’t need a new university in Otuoke, Bayelsa state, his home village, instead that place should be turned into a vocational study centre or college. Vocational Colleges have the additional benefit of producing graduates who are capable of opening their own businesses- becoming job creators instead of job seekers- instead of the half-baked graduates the inadequate and poorly funded universities, with corrupt, ill-equipped lecturers, are producing at the moment.

Tony Ishiekwene
(tonykwene@aol.com).