Ghana and Kenya: Developing Creative Minds For a New Future, the Chief Obafemi Awolowo's Style. October 29, 2019

Normally, I do not always recommend that my friends or family members should watch any video I share on my Wall. In the instant case, I am making an exception. And I strongly recommend that you watch it. It is a video of the Ghana Deputy Premier of Education during his visit to Kenya. Watching the video, the first thing that came to my mind was what Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in the old Western Region of Nigeria.

Ghana and Kenya, in a similar pattern, are bootstrapping their education reform and the overall infrastructural facilities in both countries, DOING EXACTLY what Chief Obafemi did in the old Western Region. It was never: "do we have the funds to execute and finance this and that project?". On the other hand, it was always a call to action, making demands on his subordinates to find ways to generate the required funding.

Chief Oluwole Awokoya and the young man who later became Professor Aluko were the brains behind his tremendous educational breakthrough in the old Western Region. And that's what they are doing in Ghana and Kenya of today.

If Awo could do it successfully in the Western Region between 1952 and 1963, if Ghana and Kenya, Rwanda, Egypt, and Ethiopia are doing it presently and successfully in their respective countries, why are we not doing it in Nigeria? The answer may disturb you - we are not one country.

Beginning in 1952, Papa Awo and his Action group, embarked on aggressive educational reforms in Western Region, and at the dawn of our independence, he campaigned vigorously throughout Nigeria to implement the same free educational program at all levels all over Nigeria if elected President. They rejected him and his popular western education program. And he was branded kafir (infidel) in the North.

He didn't win. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Sadauna of Sokoto Ahmadu Bello who won the majority vote counts invited Papa Awo for a coalition talk and the possibility of forming a government at the center. Papa Awo placed free education at all levels on the table as a condition for joining the coalition. The two gentlemen heading the Northern People Congress (NPC), declined.

Once again, in 1979, Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) invited Papa Awo and his Unity Party of Nigeria to form a coalition after the disputed Presidential election. Papa Awo, in his vintage educational obsession, placed free education at all levels and affordable healthcare on the table. And Alhaji Shehu Shagari demurred.

Papa Awo went away. And Shagari and his team went to form a so-called "Accord Concordiale" with Zik and his Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP), which didn't last long. I do not want to go into detail, analyzing why the leadership from the North rejected a free education program. I assume you should know that by now.

Moving Forward.

Until the philosophy that places some Northern political leaders in a position where they have to consider first, what is good for their friends and family members or region, before what is good for Nigeria as a nation-state is discredited and abandoned, Nigeria will not experience the new Kenya, the new Ghana, the new Egypt, the new Rwanda, or the new Ethiopia.

About a year ago, when the idea of a Nigerian Airways came up, did President Buhari pick an Esan man or woman for the job? No. Can President Buhari pick a Ndigbo, for instance, to head the Customs and Immigration Services? Nope. Can President Buhari pick an Ihiala or Calabari man or woman to be his Minister of Defense? Nope.

A Yoruba man campaigned to implement free education at all levels in the Northern region, but Northern region political leaders rejected the idea, arguing it is not their priority. Where are we today?

In a similar vein, a President of Ijaw extraction took a step forward: He implemented the Almajiri Educational Reforms, the first of its kind in Nigeria. The policy was abandoned by a President who is a Northern Muslim. Where are we today?

We should stop being in denial; we are not governed as one country. Nigerian progressives and progressive wannabes came together, formed a coalition, and picked retired General Muhammad Buhari to head the ticket, and he did.

On securing victory, he pushed the architect of the coalition under the bus. And went ahead to hand over Aso Rock and the Presidency to friends and family members who were not part of the decisions that culminated in the progressive coalition and victory.

What we have today is a one-man show and nepotism unchecked. That's not what they are doing in Kenya or Ghana or Egypt or Rwanda.