Revisiting Nigeria’ unreasonable and wasteful scholarship systems

Maybe I see it more clearly because I never enjoyed a scholarship. Those who did sometimes take these things for granted. And many enjoyed scholarships in Nigeria not because they are exceptionally brilliant but because they happen to be in the right place at the right time, or to have known someone who is connected enough to make it happen. Many are still enjoying scholarships today because they come from regions in Nigeria that are deemed educationally ‘disadvantaged’.

The issues with scholarship schemes in Nigeria today include the fact that:

1. It is arbitrary - really brilliant people are exempted while very average people or even nonscholars get them. And this is not about the usual suspects. Even in the educationally ‘advantaged’ states, the few scholarships they give don’t necessarily go to the brightest. They go to the connected.

2. Scholarships have been totally hijacked by politicians. Major scholarship schemes such as that of PTDF (Petroleum Technology Development Fund), Tetfund probably started well but soon became infected by the usual Nigerian greed and jagajaganess. Today, most of the beneficiaries are children of governors, deputy governors and senators, or those closely connected with them. The democracy that we craved for 19 years ago soon became an avenue for ensuring that things never get done properly but only for political advantages.

3. The focus on foreign universities is another major issue. Or let us call it a bias for foreign universities. By now, most of the courses we sponsor students abroad for can be done locally. It’s a chicken and egg scenario. If we say our local universities are rubbish - and many times they are - how will they stop being rubbish if we give up and send our depleting resources abroad by sending students abroad? Will the local universities get better? Nigeria is just a country where the worst decisions are taken and we daily destroy our own future.

4. Closely related to the above point is the status thing. The administrators of our scholarship schemes have the mindset that foreign universities confer a higher status, and since many of those who benefit from such schemes are related to them, they also send these children abroad to acquire the same. Many Nigerians don’t usually take scholarships to local universities serious. It is when it is to foreign universities that their eyes light up. Yet we can ill-afford these at this time.

5. In a country where more than 30million children are roaming around without basic education, some states (especially the educationally disadvantaged ones), use their little resources to sponsor a handful of highlyprivileged or lucky beneficiaries to do foreign bachelors, masters and even doctoral degrees! This is mind-boggling. Why not limit your scholarships to BScs and then focus greatly on basic education? How can you sleep well leaving children of 4 - 13 years roaming the streets while you say you are proud that you have 10 people in Harvard? Even those students in Harvard should sometimes feel ashamed that they are usurping the future of these millions of little children. I’m not sure the investment is worth it even if the select few students are exceptionally brilliant. I believe the nation is better off with millions of youth with average intellect than with millions with no education at all, and a few over-trained superstars. All over Nigeria the number and percentage of out-ofschool children are increasing. We have one of the highest numbers in the world. In my view, the millions of vulnerable children are the ones deserving of scholarship. This problem feeds into Nigeria’s current craze for degrees, when what we actually need is basic education and vocational skills.

6. My key concern for writing this hinges on the fact that if we say scholarships are an investment in the nation’s human capital, we are treating the investment shoddily. We are not asking for returns. Many people get scholarships in Nigeria and remain abroad. In fact, most people do. We all then turn around and accuse the country of not doing well when we are a part and parcel of its dysfunction. Many say they cannot come back and help the country because the country has no infrastructure, or no sophisticated facilities. Yet they went abroad on this country’s dime! It is absolutely insane for a country like Nigeria to sponsor people to expensive programs and not benchmark them on how they will put back into the country. And I am not talking about sponsoring guys up to PhD level only for them to come back into the civil service as directors, oppressing the people they left behind and morphing into the corrupt system.

7. The fact is that as things stand, we just don’t have the money. Many Nigerian students are today stranded abroad because politicians were just spending money without thinking. Many times it’s all about looking good to voters. It is totally incomprehensible. A clip was circulating at some point about how Nigerian students were stranded in the US in the 1980s. Such experiences don’t teach us to slow down. At best, Nigerian scholarship schemes flow with the crude oil cycle. When crude oil sells high we sponsor people like drunken sailors, when it crashes, we leave the students abroad in the cold. Just last month, some Nigerian students complained of being neglected in some cold foreign countries. Nigeria is a country going through recession presently. Many states that cannot pay civil servant salaries are today still sponsoring students abroad; students who will graduate and remain abroad, or sometimes come back home and find a job in the private sector… or even become entrepreneurs. Where is the link? What is the point?

I admit that I may be extra pained by this wasteful ‘scholarship’ squandermania, because I’ve never benefited since perhaps I’m not ‘brilliant’ enough or not connected. But one would expect scholarships to be run reasonably, since it’s all about intellectualism. Apparently, it is not. I understand that many connected Nigerians win these scholarships and pass it on for a profit to other beneficiaries. When government officials go abroad for inspection, nobody shows up. And those ‘inspections’ have now become avenues for amassing Estacodes. The states are worse. Governor Kwankwanso gave a lot of scholarships in his time, because he enjoyed the crude oil boom. But he didn’t have plans for the scholars when they returned to Nigeria. Some who were trained as pilots with hard-earned dollars at expensive foreign schools are now teaching in primary schools

The fault is not only for governments. We the people have our share. I recall sitting next to one lady on a flight out of Nigeria. She is from Kogi State but is enjoying scholarships from Niger. She was sponsored through her BSc and was by then on her Masters, all on Niger State. All that may be okay, but when I asked whether she intends to come back and work for Niger State when done, she looked at me like I was insane. She vowed never to return to Nigeria when through with her Masters. I mean which country allows this kind of thing? Yet these are the type of Nigerians who will tell us wonderful stories about how foreign countries are great and how Nigeria is nonsense.

Another video is trending currently on WhatsApp. It’s a professor being interviewed somewhere in the US. He goes on about how Nigeria is wack and how the US is the best in everything. When asked, he said he’s been in the US since 36 years ago. He went out on a scholarship. The Nigerian system is so wasteful and unreasonable, even our own hypocrisy no longer reeks to us. Hypocrisy is a Nigerian.