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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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ONE of the most discussed public policies in the last few weeks is the new decision by the Zamfara State government to make non-indigenes in its public school system pay fees while children of the state enjoy free tuition. Apart from numerous articles on this policy which are 100 per cent against the government decision, prominent Nigerians have risen against it.
For instance, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Akin Olujimi, has been reported to accuse Zamfara State governor Sani Ahmed Yerima of treason. Africa's first Nobel Prize winner in literature, Professor Wole Soyinka, charged the state government with secession; Professor Soyinka was speaking during a lecture he delivered in honour of Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, one of Nigeria's most successful entrepreneurs who has just turned 70 years.
Why did Governor Yerima introduce this controversial policy, which has led to grave charges against him? The governor has explained that it is improper for his government to use resources meant to serve the people of Zamfara State to train those from other states of the federation. When the Unity Party of Nigeria government in Lagos State under the leadership of Alhaji Lateef Jakande mooted 25 years ago the idea of pupils from UPN-controlled states enjoying the new free education policy which would not be extended to their counterparts from elsewhere in the country, a similar explanation was given. As in the case of the ongoing controversy which has trailed the Ahmed Yerima policy, the Jakande idea came under severe criticism, leading, I think, to its abandonment.
One of the most thoughtful and penetrating criticisms against the new policy of the UPN-led government in Lagos State was by Yakubu Mohammed, currently executive director of Newswatch magazine who was then editor and columnist of the National Concord newspaper. Mr. Mohammed eloquently stated that while Jakande partisans could argue that the discrimination between pupils from UPN-controlled states and their colleagues from other states was informed by some economics, the policy decidedly grew out of bad politics which could have far-reaching consequences for the whole nation. How could we impart in our impressionable youngsters an idea which was another form of apartheid?
Having lived and worked for about half a year now in Ebonyi State as a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), I make bold to say that the resource constraint argument which the Zamfara State government advertises is not persuasive as far as high-minded analysts are concerned. Ebonyi State, for instance, has a free education policy up to the senior secondary school level. Every pupil or student in the state school system enjoys it, irrespective of whether he is an indigene or settler or even foreigner. Is it, then, fair for Governor Yerima to insist that Ebonyi indigenes in Zamfara State schools should pay school fees whereas Zamfara indigenes in Ebonyi State enjoy free education?
Let us state here for purposes of historical accuracy that Zamfara receives far more money from the federation account monthly than Ebonyi. The criteria for sharing the national revenue favour Zamfara more than Ebonyi; and the criteria include landmass. In fact, Ebonyi State receives the lowest amount of all 36 states in the Federation. As regards allocations for the local governments from the Federation Account, Ebonyi State gets the least amount every month as it has only eight constitutionally recognised local government areas, the smallest number in the whole country.
What is more, Ebonyi has a greater number of school children than Zamfara. This means that it spends more money than Zamfara on teachers' salaries and allowances, on the welfare of non academic staff, on school buildings, laboratories, libraries, workshops, computers and items like chalks, registers, books, etc. Because Ebonyi is the youngest state in the Southeastern geopolitical zone and the only one officially classified as educationally disadvantaged, Governor Egwu has promoted education with gusto as though his whole life depended on it. As is often joked here, Dr. Sam Egwu, himself a former associate professor, can donate even an organ to ensure the success of education in his state.
The extraordinarily aggressive pursuit of education development in the state to ensure that it catches up with the rest of the Southeast within a few years has resulted in an influx of indigenes and non-indigenes into Ebonyi State. Have the resultant high bills caused Governor Egwu to compel non-indigenes to pay school fees? So, what justification has Governor Yerima to direct non-indigenes of Zamfara State to pay astronomical school fees, unlike the indigenes? What makes Governor Yerima think that non-indigenes trained in his state schools will not settle in Zamfara, helping to develop it in better ways than many indigenes?
While not trying to provoke questions about the vexatious issue of "indigene" versus "settler" which seems more pronounced in the northern part of Nigeria, it is pertinent to point out that it is very difficult to establish firmly in many cases a person who may be regarded as an indigene of Zamfara State or who may not be. Names are not always useful in this matter. For example, someone with the name of Mohammed Ibrahim Shehu may well come from Sokoto or Bornu or Kano or Kebbi or Bauchi or Zamfara. Indeed, how can the Zamfara State government regard as a non-indigene someone born 20 years ago in Gusau whose Fulani parents migrated from Sokoto State, considering that the Fulani who constitute a majority ethnic group in Zamfara are a peripatetic people?
The above questions which are difficult to answer satisfactorily have led some critics to speculate that the new policy on school fees payment in Zamfara State is directed not at non-Zamfara indigenes per se, but at southerners, especially Christians because they are the people whose non-indigeneship or identity could easily be established from their names. This is a very weighty speculation, indeed. Given Governor Yerima's pre-eminent role in the introduction in 2000 of the strict Islamic legal code known as Sharia, a lot of people are likely to accept grave allegations of bias and discrimination against his government.
There is a fierce battle for the Nigerian national soul between centripetal forces led by nationalists like Governor Egwu of Ebonyi State and centrifugal forces led by regionalists and particularists like Governor Yerima of Zamfara State. The centripetal forces want a united and modern nation where primordial considerations like religion and tribe do not count, but the centrifugal elements want, in the name of understanding the Nigerian political reality, to emphasise our separate regional, sectional and religious identities.
Preoccupation with primordial and divisive issues is one major reason why Africa, unlike other regions of the Third World, lost the 20th Century woefully. Take Cote d'Ivoire, which was for decades regarded as a perfect example of a stable and prosperous West African nation. But desperate politicians in order to remain in office at all costs began a few years ago to manipulate the sectarian and ethnic divide in the heterogeneous nation. Consequently, the country turned into a conflagration, from which it has yet to recover as it remains to this day a deeply divided nation-state. Must Africans, especially Nigerians, allow the same manipulation of primordial sentiments to keep us apart in the 21st Century so that we will lose this century more disastrously than we lost the previous century? Is it not strange that at a time Colin Powell, a black man whose parents migrated from Jamaica, holds the all-important post of Secretary of State in Washington Africans are preoccupied with primitive and divisive issues like religious and tribal differences?
Alhaji Ahmed Sani Yerima has a lot to learn about nation building and harmonious co-existence in a pluralistic society.
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