Why our youths cannot be patriotic — Professor Buba Bajoga
Even though you were born in Nafada, you are better known as Buba Bajoga. Why are you not known as Buba Nafada. Well, I came to Bajoga when I was a small boy of four or five years old and I stayed there, started my Quranic education then I went to primary school.
When we went to senior primary school from Bajoga, each of us took our village names. Those coming from Bajoga were called Buba Bajoga, those coming from Gombe, Sale Gombe, those coming from Kaltungo, Ibrahim Kaltungo. So we were all bearing our village names as our surnames. Of course, many people changed it but I decided to remain as Buba Bajoga.
Did you do your primary school also in Bajoga or in Nafada?
No, in Bajoga, I was too young to do my primary education in Nafada. In any event, I moved to Bajoga and started my primary education.
I had a four-year period of junior primary school in Bajoga before we took an entrance exam throughout the then Nafada district, comprising a large area of Gombe State now.
There were four primary schools in four different villages. Four students or pupils were drafted to come to Bajoga in 1954 to take an entrance examination to Gombe Senior Primary School. I was one of the two fortunate students to scale that hurdle.
From Bajoga? Wow. How come you went to Government College, Kaduna, for your secondary school?
Initially, I wanted to go to Barewa
College because I had a cousin who was senior to me, who was in Barewa College. It was known as Government College Zaria but I did not qualify.
In any event, my headmaster in particular wanted me to go to Kaduna mainly because he thought that I had talent for mathematics. But then, when I couldn’t get to Zaria, I decided that I should go to Provincial Secondary School, now Bauchi, but he said no.
Of course, I was lucky that I went to Kaduna because at that time, Kaduna Government College, was much better equipped to train students in terms of staffing and laboratory facilities.
And in any event, those classmates of mine who went to Bauchi had to spend six years before they finished their secondary education.
We were the first set of students to finish secondary education at Government College, Kaduna. There was a partial termination for those that were ahead of us by a year, some passed and left after five years, others waited and joined us.
It was because my headmaster thought I had potential to be an engineer, which was why I should come to Kaduna and I’m glad that I did.
As a matter of fact, all those that went to Zaria, well, some of them, we were together in Okene and I thought I was better prepared to go through Okene than some of them. So, I was fortunate, let me say.
Okene was where you did your HSC, Higher School Certificate?
Yes. The environment was slightly different. The students were very hard working; they were caught up and the facilities, laboratory, library and other facilities were very good. So, we were lucky to be there and we were lucky to have made good results, actually, I would say.
So, on the choice of engineering in which you said your headmaster saw the potential in you. Did you really also embrace it, was it something you wanted to do?
Initially, I wanted to be a medical doctor. Incidentally, I’m sure you know Dr Bala Usman, who was my classmate, and also wanted to be a medical doctor. When we were in form one we often discussed that with him.
Was this in Kaduna?
Kaduna Government College, yes. We were not being prepared for anything but engineering. We were doing woodwork, we were doing metalwork, we were doing technical drawing, mechanics, but we were not doing biology. So, for me, it was good because I thought I had more interest in engineering than medicine.
But how was Bala coping? He ended up being a historian.
Yes, Bala was very good, actually. He was very good. Although he was better in history, he was also very good in science. He didn’t like the subject of mathematics at all. Yes, he didn’t like it but he made a distinction in physics, in school certificate, and distinction in chemistry, in school certificate. So, of course, he did better in history, geography, English literature, and the rest. But he was equally good in that.
So, Okene then prepared you for university?
Yes. And eventually, engineering at ABU.
it
was
Did you think ABU was where you wanted? It was a new university then, of course, in the North. Did you really want to go to ABU in particular, or was it just what was available to you?
Well, it was the only university in the country available to me because there was Nsukka.
And Ibadan…
Ibadan wasn’t teaching engineering and Lagos was just starting. So, really, the best faculty of engineering in Nigeria was in ABU because it was started around 1955, 56 under the Nigerian College days as part of the University College Ibadan, so, there were facilities.
Although, as a young chap, I could have preferred to go abroad, hoping that it would be better there. But I’m glad that I stayed in ABU.
Did you try going abroad?
No, I didn’t. HSC was a very difficult programme. In our class, only about five people scaled through out of 20. But two students in particular did very well. But we came to Zaria, well prepared and we finished Zaria.
How was Zaria of those days compared to the later Zaria that I got to know?
Well, Zaria was very good in the sense that there were facilities, but the programme I went for started in 1965. We were the fourth set. Many of the students in the hardcore sciences were Southerners.
Southerners mostly?
Yes. There was a problem in 1966 when there was a crisis because many of them left. So in a class of 36, I think only 14 of us graduated. But we made a lot of friends from other parts of Nigeria.
So why were most of the student bodies from the South at that point?
That was the problem of secondary education. Actually, the results coming from many parts of the North were not the best at that time.
If you went to HSC, many who went to HSC had to come back to ABU and do prelim because they were not able to scale through the programme. It was a hardcore programme, so there weren’t many students.
Actually, it was difficult even when I was a staff in ABU, it was difficult to get enough students in sciences to go into engineering.
From the North? You came out very well, with a first class, out of the engineering faculty and I think that gave you scholarship straightaway to go to the US. How was that experience?
It was good. I was fortunate, I would say and I worked hard. But the facilities were there, the environment was good because I had a lot of good friends. So I would say I was just lucky.
What kind of scholarship was it and why did you go in for the US?
I was taken to what they call Sunny State University of New York at Buffalo and I was there for four years, because of our good foundation, when I went in, I was on the dean’s list for quite some time, even in Buffalo. Immediately I finished, I just decided to come back home.
Was it comfortable? Was the scholarship good?
It was very good. The only problem
I had coming from this part of the world, Buffalo was very cold. But I had no challenges in terms of my academic work.
Did you go with your family or you were still single when you went?
No, it was until after I returned that I got married.
So you finished from Buffalo with a PhD but you came straight back to the ABU?
Yes.
You had no aspiration to go elsewhere; work abroad maybe?
No. Surprisingly, at that time, most of us who went abroad from, I may say the far northern part of Nigeria, came back to ABU.
I can’t remember of any that was. There were two things that were responsible. One, the selection of those who went to America was very tight. So students who could make it were sent and the leadership in ABU attracted us to come back. You know; you know Ishaya Audu in particular.
The vice-chancellor?
Yes, and those who came after him, really, they encouraged us. They made us feel that ABU was our home. So I had no attraction whatsoever of staying and others in my class also. I remember one classmate of mine who went to Eugene Oregon also came back.
Who?
Professor Aminu Dorayi. Yes, we went abroad at the same time.
He also went to the US like you?
Yes. I came back in August, he came back the following March. So we didn’t have much attraction to remain there.
So how was life then as young PhD holders in ABU?
It was excellent and because most of us knew each other, since secondary school. We were able to form clubs, families get together to do things together. We had very cohesive, I may say, organisations which helped us to stay. Not many of us left initially. Of course, later on, we all left. But it was interesting.
I think Bala Usman used to say that, I don’t know whether that is the period or later but a lot of the northerners who did PhD, are eyeing commissionership and other jobs in the state service. I don’t know if you had that kind of experience?
He was right, but we never did. I mean, if you look at that in the early years, the other person that went to America was a professor, the late Prof. Isah Mohammed.
Who?
Prof. Isah mathematician.
Mohammed,
the
You were not tempted to go to Bauchi or somewhere to be a commissioner?
No, no. I didn’t have the urge to go, and to those that asked me, I said no.
How did you cope with the politics of ABU, because that’s another challenge; beside your work, there was the politics?
There were two parts to it. There was the university politics. There was also the outside politics.
We had a group comprising Prof. AD Yahaya, Dr Bala Usman, Dr Haruna Rashid, Adamu, Dr Sani Muazu, Prof. Isah Mohammed, then an outsider, Alhaji Muhammadu Jumare from Zaria.
He was a businessman from Zaria?
No, he was working in Zaria. I think either
Buba Bajoga is a Professor of Electrical Engineering who has taught for many years at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He moved to what became known as Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) as provost and later on as vice chancellor. He was also the Managing Director of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) for some time before he retired and went back to ABU where he continued teaching
the state government or government and my humble self.
But he fit into your group?
Yes. We used to relate very closely with the two PRP governments in Kano and Kaduna and we found it very interesting.
So you’re all kind of radicals in the PRP tradition?
At that time, yes. I may claim that the group made a recommendation to the two governors then to abolish tax.
The jangali?
Community tax and jangali, haraji. They accepted and all the other problems on the way as well, as you know.
But it’s not known that you are so because Bala Usman, for example, he was out there, he was secretary to the government of Kaduna but you were kind of sort of quiet.
Oh, yes, yes. Well, Bala was vocal, he was very articulate, he was tall. But quite a lot of us took part in gaining some votes in Kano in spite of the fact that we came from other provinces or other states I would say.
You were the chair of the rural electrification?
Yes, I was chairman of the rural electrification. Prof. Isah Muhammad was the chairman of I think higher education in Kano and then there was another colleague of mine, a classmate, Dr Sali Jubril, who was chairman of, I think, business studies in Kano as well.
So you were all appointed by Rimi for these jobs?
Rimi, yes. Haruna Adamu was the Managing Director of Triumph. We were, all three of us, from Bauchi. Sali, myself and Haruna, we were all from Bauchi, we participated….
Sali Jubril you said?
Sali Jubril, yes. But then the politics in ABU, initially it wasn’t that bad. But it was later that, we mixed very well with people like Jerry Gana, Paul Mitchellum, others from the middle belt.
As a matter of fact, I think during the election of 1979, Prof. AD Yahaya, Bala Usman and Haruna Adamu were advising some of our colleagues to go to the southern part of Zaria to vote, to convince the supporters or their people to vote
????
In the southern part of Zaria?
Yes, especially people like Paul Mitchellum and Jerry Gana, they were really involved. Jerry went to Niger to become a senator at that time, you know.
Then the politics of the University, ABU. I think I can remember very vividly when the whole idea of what ABU should be was put in the form of a document, which we all discussed, especially members from this group and others of course from the university and adopted. Some of it was implemented; some of it was of course left until later.
But we were all going together. We were all supporters of the university administrations at that time. Of course later on, I think one thing happened around 1983 or there about; there was some student crisis.
In 83?
local
It took place and some staff were involved I would say. That started dividing the ranks of the younger lecturers.
But initially, most Nigerians were together as against the bulk who were foreigners, expatriates. But for us, it was a good period. We were also encouraged by the vice-chancellors, they challenged us.
I remember there was one committee known as Senate Council Committee, which I had the privilege of heading. The committee was the Senate Council Committee but they were also calling it Bajoga Panel.
At that time, if somebody had a quarrel with his wife, they would say Bajoga Committee. The university administration did that mainly to encourage people to go to work; to ensure that people who came to the university had the right qualifications, and also to see that there were no losses due to fraud in the bursary and we did a good job.
I think we saved a lot of money. It was later that some of the universities started similar programmes.
You yourself eventually, of course, left to go to Bauchi. What were the circumstances of that?
The time I left, I wasn’t very keen to go but all the same, there was a new government and I think, three of the seven universities with existing institutions, universities of technology and Bauchi was one of them. The others were Abeokuta and Makurdi. They were turned into campuses of the older universities.
Bauchi was a campus of ABU. So the council on the recommendation of the Vice Chancellor of ABU deployed me to Bauchi.
Yes. So I went there as the provost of a college because the campus was converted to a college of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
The vice chancellor, let me say ABU management, had a lot of foresight because I think they saw that perhaps it would not take long for the campuses to be demerged.
So in our case, on our request, they allowed ATBC to run some programmes which were duplicates of others on the main campus.
We had the faculty of engineering in the main campus. We were allowed to continue with the School of Engineering in Bauchi. We had the School of Science in Bauchi.
They had the faculty of science in ABU. We had the faculty of science in then. Not only the faculty but the various colleges and institutes of agricultural research.
So I, as an insider of Zaria, was able to get my younger colleagues in Bauchi to come to Zaria at very little cost to do higher degrees and research.
So when many universities were having problems of staffing, our problem was not as bad, if I may put it that way and so that helped. And that was the result of the foresight of the management of ABU.
The Vice Chancellor, Ango Abdullahi, the chairman of the council then, Sunday Awoniyi; they were all encouraging us. We had our finances.
And I have to say that Prof. Ango Abdullahi gave me all the encouragement I needed. He supported me, he allowed me to do what I thought was right and I hoped I did not disappoint him.
So we were able, under his leadership, to come up with a campus that easily moved to become a university in 1988.
So, I had the privilege and honour to be made the first vice chancellor of the then Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University.
So you continued from provost; you continued as vice chancellor.
Yes.
So you had a lot to do with nurturing this institution into what it is.
Insha Allah.
Was it challenging being a local person to be a leader now?
Very challenging. But actually, I had a lot of support from the community. Of course, I had some conflicts with some elite. As a young man then, I had the same claim to Bauchi State as any of them would, so I was not afraid of fighting them, they left me alone. I ran the university the way I thought; of course, there were rules and regulations of the institution.
Of course, there must be pressure for employment, admissions?
Well, fortunately, you know because of the problems of getting qualified science students; we were not getting enough to come to the university initially.
In fact, the surrounding states, that is Kano and to some extent Plateau, gave us most students. Then Bauchi itself. So we had a remedial programme, we had a normal programme and did all that we could to attract as many students as we could.
But we also encouraged the younger chaps to take up teaching appointments and many did. In fact, some of the vice chancellors of ATBU were students I recruited as graduate assistants before they rose to become professors and then…
Prof, we were at the point where you spent time at what became ATBU, Bauchi. When did you leave Bauchi and where did you go from there?
I left Bauchi in December 1994 and went for a sabbatical at the University of Birmingham in the UK. It was when I was there that the then head of state, Late Gen. Sani Abacha, called me and asked me to come and be the Managing Director of NITEL.
Were you surprised by the approach?
I was, I was.
Did you know him before?
I knew him. He was a very close friend of mine. He was a childhood friend of Prof. Yahaya Aliyu, the former director of the Institute of Administration.
Zaria?
Zaria, yes. So, through Yahaya, I met Gen. Abacha many times. But then, earlier on, I was asked to be the Managing Director of NITEL when it was first established. But I thought that it was too early. I turned it down. So, when I got this opportunity, especially after I finished my term...
Who made the first approach to you, to head NITEL?
It was Gen. Abdullahi.
Who was the minister?
He
was
Abdullahi, Ahmed the
Minister of
Communications but I said no. I think it was during Gen. Bahari’s period. When this opportunity came, I accepted.
I came here and Abacha introduced me to the then-minister of communications, Gen. Olarewaju. Told him that I would be working with him, and he advised us to work together. So, that made our working together with Gen. Olarewaju to be very cordial.
You may not know it, from my little experience; I found it easier to work with the soldiers than the politicians.
The politicians?
Yes, because they listen to reason. You can come and tell them the reasons, your reasons of taking certain decisions, and they accept it. Once the politicians are told that they should not do certain things, they feel that you are very combative. You are insubordinate.
Did you work with politicians to know this?
Yes.
In NITEL?
Yes. I worked with some ministers. So, I found that we worked better with the soldiers.
So, anyway. I came to NITEL, it was a challenging job, but I found a lot of my students in the organization, holding high places. And they were very competent engineers and we worked as a team. I feel that we did our best. I feel that we achieved a lot.
Some greedy, I may say, Nigerians wanted to privatize NITEL and take it over. So, they were pushing us here and there.
What they could not make us do as leaders of NITEL, which was governmentowned, they thought they could do if they took it over one way or another. There were a lot of problems with the privatization anyway.
Of course, I’m glad that the whole thing collapsed. After I left, NITEL itself collapsed. They were not able to buy it. And I know little of what NITEL is today, compared to what it was before. Of course…
But is it there now? Is there NITEL? It is supposed to have been bought over and renamed but it has no impact.
But don’t you think, Professor, that it reflects poorly on you that after leaving, this big national institution collapsed immediately?
Not immediately. It took some time; I think that the collapse of NITEL was gradual. I left in January 2000.
You were there for how many years?
I was there for four and a quarter years.
So you left as soon as Abacha was no more?
Exactly. But the leadership of NITEL was very good. I left a good leadership. They were very good. They were very competent. They were replaced. Some new leaders were appointed.
They also, I think some of them, were used to have a lot of replacements. And if you look at it carefully, you will see that it was not unconnected with some politicians, either from the top or middle or somewhere, trying to do one thing or the other.
I feel sad that an organisation that I spent four years of my life has collapsed and gone. And I’m sure they could have done better.
In any event, the problem of NITEL is no different from the problems of the other parastatals. What do you have in NEPA? What was NEPA, compared to what it is today?
A lot of money is being sunk now. Government is paying NEPA after privatizing it. It’s scandalous, in my view. After you sell your asset, you then start funding it. Why?
So what is the problem? You said the problems are similar, all these parastatals. What is the problem?
Well, most of the privatized companies in Nigeria are not doing better than they were when they were sold. In fact, it’s difficult to say that this company was being run under the federal government.
Because it’s private?
Because it’s private; even the banks that were owned by the government. Say AfriBank was owned by the federal government.
Bank of the North?
Bank of the North. They were privatized, and they’ve all gone. Now you have this Union Bank here and there because of greed and corruption. There’s corruption.
So the problem was corruption?
I believe.
People put in charge took care of themselves, not the institutions?
Exactly and they were saying that they would make these companies more effective, more efficient. The result at the end of the day is different. It’s very unfortunate and it’s sad, very sad.
What would you say were your main achievements in NITEL?
Well, we have an organization that was evolving. We were not getting grants from government. But we were able to have a network that was not doing well, which was mainly analogue.
We, through our own effort and our own money collection, were able to build it, though gradually things were better. The interconnect problems were drastically reduced.
The profit was very high. NITEL was making more profit than most establishments in the country.
It came to a time when, even when the management of NITEL wanted to borrow some funds to expand its network, the government said no. They would sell it, so they will not take it. The company should not borrow any money.
You had enough to do it?
No, they wanted to sell it so they didn’t want to build it to sell because in my view then, I think it was because they wanted to sell it cheap. Now if you build it, you have to pay more.
But fortunately, or rather unfortunately, all those that were trying to take over NITEL by all means failed and at the end of the day...
How much did you move from analogue to digital during this period?
Oh, a lot. The major cities like a good part of Lagos, Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan, many of the major cities, were provided with digital exchanges. The network itself has also improved drastically.
Of course, we didn’t have money to do everything for various reasons. We were building it section by section.
We moved into the southeast, we moved southwest, we had northern parts, northwest. All these were digitized at that time.
But I must say what people remember about NITEL is the long time it took for you to get a telephone. The contrast between then, even the mobile arm, I think, what was it called? You had a mobile arm.
Yes, MTEL.
MTEL. Again, the processes were cumbersome, took time?
You are right.
And suddenly when the new companies came, everybody felt liberated. You can just go and buy your line...
You are right. There are two issues. One, the expansion was very slow. So there was a lot of demand. The supply was very limited. That made it difficult to reduce drastically the corruption in the system.
Most of these things were caused by the greed of various organizations, including some of our colleagues.
Secondly, we had a culture. It will be very difficult to die off. Now, I’m glad that MTN came as a unit and got established by itself as a private organization. The
same people who were there when MTN came in were unable to do similar things to NEPA.
I feel that today’s NEPA is worse than it was. I mean if you consider the resources that have been pumped into it.
So, yes, you are right. But the expansion was rather slow. It was slow because we were not getting government funds at that time. It was what we collected that we used to extend the network.
Under what circumstances did you leave NITEL, I remember there were some controversies, court cases and accusations?
Well, I think my term expired. The term was a four-year term. When it finished, it was not renewed.
That was the Obasanjo government?
Obasanjo government. Well, I think rightly so, so they decided that they needed a new face. They didn’t bring a new face. It was one of my executive directors who was promoted to be the managing director.
But I believe that that might have come as a result of some petitions. There were these petitions, and then after I left; there was a judicial commission of inquiry set up.
To look at your tenure?
To look at my tenure. I don’t know. It’s easy. It’s not easy to see the system thoroughly if you are in it.
But I felt that there were a lot of demands made on a company like NITEL. Some people felt that this country belonged to them. They would have to take whatever they wanted or rather whatever they asked for. I had a lot of quarrels with people.
So I made some friends, but perhaps many enemies, especially at the political class who wanted to go to elections. They want money; they think that you should just take money.
But as a result of my departure, based on the petitions sent, a judicial commission of inquiry was established. They had a limited term of reference. But that was expanded.
I think they expanded the term, they went further perhaps because they did not get what they wanted; they expanded further. There were about two or three times they were expanding the terms.
There were no contracts, initially they put in contracts. There was no time period within which they should look at the problems. It was expanded to cover all my stay in NITEL.
And I believe that I don’t have any reason to feel that I did not make mistakes. I made some mistakes, obviously. But I did not made any deliberate mistake. I did not take any deliberate action that could result in the failure of the network or loss of revenue, or loss of integrity of the network.
I had beautiful young Nigerians working with me. I don’t want to mention names, but one of them was my student. I think I’ll proudly mention his name, that’s Engineer Nahuchi.
Abubakar Nahuchi?
Yes, he was my student. In fact, I supervised his project. So to come and see him doing wonderfully well, you know it makes me proud that I have not wasted my time in the university. Of course, there were others like him.
So the young men were good. I wished after moving me, they allowed them to continue. I’m sure they could do much better based on more experience they would have and a better understanding of the network. But what happened? Something else happened.
So, you were so displeased with the outcome of this inquiry, and had to go to court, right, to exonerate yourself?
Yes. I believed that the whole judicial commission of inquiry was to find me in particular and perhaps members of my management, guilty. Partly because we were appointed by Gen. Abacha who I think is a great soldier and patriot because of what happened earlier you know.
That’s why they were trying to look at one fault or the other. Unfortunately for them, they were not able to find anything tangible.
You have seen what’s happening now that people move billions from one account to another. I have not even been accused of moving anything from one account to another because the system we had would not allow you.
There were people, I didn’t sign any cheque. I was not a signatory because there were others who were doing it. But then they had to find fault. When they decided that we were guilty here and there, I had to go to court.
Fortunately for me, the court noticed me and quashed all their findings as regards to me and the whole thing then collapsed. So it’s unfortunate that people can be mean, you know, but I guess maybe this is life.
So with hindsight, was it a very unhappy experience for you to leave the university for the real world of business and government?
Well, I’ve seen more than I expected. At the university, things were straightforward. If you meet people like Bala, they will tell you what they think honestly and openly.
You now meet people who would tell you something they don’t believe in. And immediately you go they change. The two worlds are different. It’s what has caught up with us now and unless we reverse it, we’ll be in trouble.
Definitely the so-called business world, especially the one that we now have, where everything that belongs to government is being taken over by a few people. Pretty soon, two or three people may own more than what the federal government can afford.
You see people becoming billionaires, trillionaires. So I wish the government would look at the interests of the ordinary man. That is the only thing that could enable us to have a stable society.
If you have a country where many people are extremely poor and a few people are extremely rich, you will not be free of instability.
Do you have hope, looking at the situation now, how the country is going?
I really don’t have hope. I don’t have hope. I don’t think what we’ve been hearing about the central bank and other business areas are encouraging. They are not encouraging. The stories you hear, they make you sick you know. So the hope is...
Well, God can change things overnight. I pray and hope that we get these changes during our lifetime. Otherwise, I pity our children and grandchildren.
See, I was young when we were talking about the northernization policy. And to demonstrate the foresight of the northern government, there was a time when in this country, four managing directors of companies were appointed from the same institution. That was the Technical Institute.
You had the Managing Director of NEPA, the Managing Director of Ports Authority, the Managing Director of NNPC and the Managing Director of NITEL. They were all products of Kaduna Technical Institute.
It used to be a Technical Institute and Trade Centre, but they moved the Trade Centre to Ilorin, you know, and you could see that...
So was that what became Kaduna Polytechnic?
Yes. You could see that they all came from there. You could see that they were foresighted to see that they could build an institution that could really develop a nation. I’m not sure now we have similar leaders I don’t know. As I said, I always believe that God is kind. He can change everything.
So, Prof, what do you do now? Since you left NITEL, what do you do?
After leaving NITEL, I went back to ABU. And I’m glad to say that I got back to the classroom. I supervised quite a lot of students who got PhDs, master’s degrees in ABU, many actually.
I may claim, before I went to the department, things were really bad. God being so kind, when I went there, we were able, together with the younger ones, to start postgraduate programmes that produced many of the professors in the Electrical Engineering Department.
So, I feel good that I have tried to contribute. Even if I didn’t succeed doing as much as I would like, I succeeded in helping to establish a system that sustains the department today.
But I believe you have stopped teaching now, you have stopped your association with ABU…
Yes.
Why?
Two things. One, for, I remained in Abuja because my family were here or are here now. I was commuting between Abuja and Zaria. It was very easy because you could travel during the day, you could travel not until when the system almost collapsed when we had bandits all over the place.
So, each time I left Abuja, my mind would not be at rest until I returned, you know. So, it was, coupled with this, there was this government policy, which they called EPPIS or IPPIS, which forced all universities to have their salaries paid from Abuja here.
I think that has been reversed recently?
That has been reversed. Hopefully, this will now change. Then, the work of a vice-chancellor is not an easy one. The vicechancellor has a lot of responsibilities. He has also a lot of powers.
If you have a good vice-chancellor, he can make it. But if you have a bad one, he can break it. If my information is correct, now you see some vice-chancellors being accused of losing money. So, there are a few.
But it’s not the type of thing that you expect. If you see the great Nigerians that have done so; with this power now, I think many universities could do much better.
But it is not, I’m surprised to see that somebody could think of putting all the salaries of universities, not one or two, far away from their institutions here in Abuja. It’s wrong. But I’m glad that it has been...
You don’t teach anywhere now?
No, I don’t.
So, what do you spend your time doing?
Fortunately for me, I have quite a number of small grandchildren, three years, two years. They come here but I do some reading. I also do some may I say tutoring. So, I still do...
Mentoring?
Yes, well, those that have masters or PhD candidates can send to me to assess them or go through their work.
So, you still supervise some thesis or it is just informally?
Just informally. When a man finishes his PhD, he sends it to people to read, to make corrections, so these are the type of things I do. But not heavy thinking type of work, no.
I note that your PhD is actually in digital communication.
Yes.
Does that make you, these days we talk about digital natives. Those of you who grew up analogue are later learning it. So, are you digital native because of your field of study?
No.
Or your grandchildren have to show you?
No, I think actually, we are extending the meaning of digital now. Everything is becoming digital.
But the meaning of digital, in my view, is to run away from the analogue networks we had. At the time, digital networks came in, analogue was very good. So, you couldn’t scrap them but you could add the digital networks alongside the analogue ones.
But it is not as you said making everything that is good digital and everything that is bad analogue, I think that word is not that firmly demarcated.
So are you comfortable with the new gadgets of this world, that your grandchildren may be able to operate better than you?
Oh yes. You will be surprised that today even those that are in primary school, secondary school, they solve problems much faster, I may say even better than the analogue products that were produced earlier.
But somehow, I think we are developing a culture where young people are learning to manage computers, it is a good development.
My only worry is that we are still importing these things, we do not make them.
So we are, a country like Nigeria, we are an importing country. We import everything. We import food. When we talked about privatization, we would have expected that making a television set or a digital camera is more private than just buying them and then calling it private.
We have been unable to establish factories for these digital devices we are talking about. I don’t know of any city that produces sizeable number of electronic devices, it is unfortunate.
We were doing better before because we had some radios which were being assembled here and there but now, we run a culture, I don’t know why but we have developed a culture of dependency.
We just steal government money, become billionaires; some people even steal more than they need. So that mentality, it is the problem of our education.
I spend all my life one way or the other teaching but I think we have failed to inculcate in our youths the idea of being selfsufficient; making Nigeria a self-sufficient country. We have become more dependent than we were before.
Are you self-sufficient as a retiree; are you comfortable now?
No. Well I mean I am happy; at least I can have three square meals a day, I have a place to sleep, my children have finished their schooling. So, but I have to look after my health.
Is that challenging, do you have to go out?
Yes, if you have any challenges you have to go out. There are not many, I may say, known hospitals that could look after your challenges. And as you know. as you get older, the tendency is one thing or the other will be wrong, so now you have to go abroad.
I can tell you that earlier on, in ABU for instance, I had no problem with regard to health; then we were younger. If your child fell sick, all you need to do is to take him to either the sick bay or the teaching hospital. You had colleagues, friends, they will look after him, so we were really happy.
But I don’t think the same thing is true today, even in the universities; the education required of many professionals today is different from what it used to be before.
And unless you are dedicated to your work, no matter what you get, it will not be sufficient. I believe that, we have to, this idea of self, self, self, is not helping us; we have to learn to be our brother’s keeper.
We have to know that if there is happiness in the villages, the cities will be happy. If there is unrest in the villages, there will be unrest in the city, so we are leaving a system that was very good I would say.
I, for instance, did not pay school fees, I don’t know what it was in your own time. We had a good scholarship in the university you know and you have every reason to say that you like this.
Today a young man of 20 years, why should he be patriotic? He is not getting good education and education has to be paid for, he doesn’t have a good welfare system, he doesn’t have a good health system, even the available one is very expensive. You know, he is hustling here and there.
So, when you talk about Nigeria or the North or the West, these things are abstract against what we had because everything was there, we could see it and we could feel it, so. That is why I pity our children and grandchildren.
How is family life for you?
It is beautiful.
Do you have a large one?
Not large, I have my wife, I have five children and I have now eight grandchildren and we are comfortable. They are all here in Abuja, I am very lucky, I am very happy in that extent.
So, what is a typical day for you like?
I wake up in the morning, I pray and then I do some reading of the Quran. After I finish, well I have a small booklet that I read every day early morning before reading the Quran.
The Quran I read section by section… after that, I read the newspaper. I have somebody who brings paper for me.
You don’t read the one on the tablet, you read the physical copy.
Yes, the only one I got from the tablet was the one in which you interviewed Aminu Dorayi. I got that one from the tablet because by the time I heard about it, it was gone.