By: Monday Danladi, Bauchi
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has urged governments at all levels to focus on improving access to qualitative education in Nigeria, rather than on infrastructural development if they wish to lift Nigerians out of poverty.
Speaking at the 50th anniversary of Nakam Memorial School, Panyam, Mangu LGA, Plateau State Sunday, he explained that education is the engine room for any meaningful development of a nation because only through proper education will the country be lifted out of poverty.
He stated, ‘’Recently, I got into an argument about the place of education (human capital) vis-à-vis physical capital such as roads, electricity, bridges and the rest. And my contention was that look, we need more investment in human capital development than physical capital development and my reason is very simple. Imagine our future without education.’’
The former Speaker added, ‘’For any government to be termed serious, it must prioritise education because if we don’t educate our citizens, there is no way they can compete and thrive in the future that is unfolding before our very eyes. And that is sure pathway to poverty.”
According to him, ‘’If you are educated, even in the absence of infrastructure, the educated mind will produce the infrastructure that is lacking. Those that are educated will build the schools that we don’t have, they will build the roads and generate and distribute the electricity that we never have enough for domestic use and industrial production.”
He stressed that, ’As a matter of fact, the resources in this country are humongous, especially here on the Plateau. When we are talking about endowment by God, we have a lot of minerals buried beneath our earth surface but the truth is that we need education to bring them out. Where you don’t have qualitative education, both the human beings and the resources that are buried under your ground will decay. ”
‘’Unfortunately, that has been the case with Nigeria. But where you train your citizens and empower them with knowledge even in the absence of resources, they can turn their country into a first world. We’ve seen that with South Korea, we’ve seen it in several other countries, especially the Asian Tigers,” he lamented.
The former Speaker added that, ‘’Just as we were making our way here, we were lamenting about the fact that although Kenya doesn’t have our size in terms of population and they don’t have oil and much of the resources that we have here in Nigeria; it is shocking that Kenya’s budget is higher than that of Nigeria.”
He stressed that,”That means Kenya has managed to build more wealth than Nigeria. Just go back home and think about that. Ponder hard as to why is it that the case. It may be because the literacy level in Kenya has gone very high up there, while in Nigeria, we are struggling to educate our citizens.’’
He, however, added that he is not opposed to infrastructural development stating, ‘‘’I am not saying that infrastructure is bad, but the truth is that without education, the infrastructure will decay. We need educated people to maintain the infrastructure and keep it functional. So, honestly, we should prioritise investment in education in this country otherwise we are simply wasting our time if we think we can make progress while keeping our people ignorant.”
‘’I looked at the needs in my own community and easily saw the shortcomings. I now run a foundation that offers scholarship to indigent students. Right now, we have about 200 students in my network, studying in Nigeria universities. That, of course, is a drop in the ocean and not near anywhere enough.’’
While congratulating the students and Old Students’ Association on the 50th anniversary of the school, he urged the latter to invest more, not only on physical improvements of the structures of the school, but also on the quality of the teacher to provide qualitative education to the students, as well as set up a scholarship fund so that students from households that would never have had the benefit of education can be trained there.
‘’That will open the pathway for the future that we are enjoying, instead of locking the door against those that are coming behind us,’’ he said.
