The victory of the Super Falcons in the finals of Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in Morocco is a matter of great joy worthy of the national celebrations, presidential recognition, honour and accolades it elicited. It is more so that it was the 10th in the series of victories by the Super Falcons in this regard, the preceding ones not so appreciated.
The celebration is significantly underscored by the indomitable spirit exhibited by the girls in the sport encounters in a country where the girl child is largely relegated by discriminatory and primordial cultural practices, in some cases, married away in their teens constituting a sizeable proportion of out -of-schoolchildren estimated at 18.3 million including those not in secondary school.
Hopefully, the national recognition of the Super Falcons, the D’Tigress and of such other female teams engaged in all ramifications of sports will engender a new order of greater attention to, and opportunity for the girl child. It is instructive that sports and in particular, football is demonstrably a unifying force as it is all over the world, albeit in Nigeria momentarily, a flash in the pan!
In the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria, the normative issues of ethnicity, religion, federal character and cronyism have over the years receded to the background in selection of sport teams and individuals for competitions giving way to merit and the capacity to deliver results for the collective good, in contradistinction to elevation of these issues in the political space.
The celebration calls for greater attention to sports development in ways that promote economic growth and businesses across board, providing job opportunities for our teeming population of youth in the country.
Comments on the cash reward to the teams are understandably varied. But for those who consider it as outlandish, it is against the backdrop of the parlous state of the economy and the adhocism in our system of reward. There is no doubt that $100,000, the Naira equivalent of which, at current rate, is N152 million is humongous when there are myriad of unsettled commitments of government at all levels – unpaid pension and salary arrears, poor remunerations for workers, youth unemployment at 42.5 per cent , poor funding of universities, poor health care, insecurity, etc.
Added to these are issues of multi-dimensional poverty reported at 63 per cent of the population. It would seem that the pronouncement by Mr. President of the cash reward as the Naira equivalent of $100,000 was deliberate to ward off immediate negative reactions that it would otherwise engender.
It is regrettable that not much value is attached to our national honours, ostensibly because the processes pursuant to the awards are largely compromised to the extent many a Nigerian conferred with them are not perceived as deserving by the citizens. I am persuaded that a modest cash gift, a flat and a national honour would have sufficed as appreciation for the victories by the Super Falcons and D’Tigress.
The Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) is the highest honour that is conferred on academics who have distinguished themselves meritoriously, rigorously evaluated in uniqueness of scholarly contributions ventilated via inventions, patents and published works. By law the President gives the award in a formal ceremony with a cash award of N10 million ($6,552) and no other appurtenance.
The honour is in recognition of an outstanding advancement of knowledge by the honoree in his/her field which is beneficial to the country and the world at large. It is such scholarly works in the humanities, medicine, science and engineering that distinguish countries in their ability for self-reliance, and economic development. Properly harnessed, it has the capacity to promote techno-nationalism by which countries exhibit competitive advantage in goods and services on the global scale. Yet, for such an honour, the cash reward is $6, 552 only, that is, less than 7 per cent of that for recognition of victory on the sport arena.
The need to address holistically the various sectors of the country’s political economy cannot be overstated. The ad hoc reward for sports men and women will be unnecessary if sport in all forms is recognised as a development tool and promoter of job opportunities as demonstrated in many countries of the world. The same is applicable to other sectors – education, health, agriculture, industry, etc.
For education, the Nigerian university and its teaching hospitals are in the doldrums, poorly funded, and government is unconcerned. It is on record that budgetary allocation to education dropped from 10.5 per cent in 2015 to 5.47 per cent in 2025 against the minimum of 26 per cent, the benchmark by UNESCO. It is true that “the strength of America [lies] in their talents, nurtured in their universities, the think tanks, and in the R & D laboratories in multi-national corporations” (Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, p499).Yet, the Nigerian government does not seem to appreciate the nexus between positive development of this sector and growth of the national economy.
It is ironic that military regimes demonstrated more willingness to engage academics in government on sundry matters particularly for policy formulation and critical analyses of maters arising therefrom. This was particularly so in the regime of President Ibrahim Babangida, albeit some of the academics regrettably undermined the university, at moment of crises. Nonetheless, many bold initiatives of government then were to their credit. In contrast, the political class, for most part, is averse, evidently, to deployment of intellectuals in governance, prompting the question: where are Nigerian intellectuals?
The proclivity of federal government to create more universities as political largess amid paucity of funds for existing ones is worrisome. It underscores dim understanding of the workings and value of the University. Equally worrisome is renaming of existing universities with long-standing history and reputation. The renaming of the Universities of Abuja and Maiduguri after Generals Yakubu Gowon and Muhammadu Buhari respectively have, understandably elicited disapproval from the academia. The raison d’etre for renaming the universities after the personalities in question remains unclear. In the particular case of the late President Buhari it is difficult to find an apriori justification for it given that under his watch the universities including the University of Maiduguri were on strike, academic activities short down on grounds of poor funding and unmet demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), matters that subsist even now.
The government then was utterly insensitive and unconcerned. But more importantly, it is inappropriate to distort a university’s established reputation and history ensconced in its name by renaming it after an individual whose only credential is that he was a former President or Head of State. In any case, why university where there are other appropriate national monuments?
Credit:The Guardian