Kaduna State and the valour of discretion

Politics and education are on a collision course in Kaduna State, as happened recently in Katsina State, albeit on a much grander scale. This collision was only a matter of time. Bitterness was brewing all along.

When the damning result of the controversial Teacher Competency Test, initiated by Governor Nasir El-Rufai, indicted the expertise and experience of an entire generation of teachers (about 22,000 in number), observers and sympathizers surmised that it was merely the first shot fired in what would prove to be a long-running war of attrition. With the recent indefinite strike embarked upon by the Kaduna State Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), that prognosis is sadly proving true. And just as it is the grass that bears the brunt of the weight and thrashings of two clashing elephants, it is the future of the school children of Kaduna State that is placed on the stakes of this battle. Put broadly, this strike, which is a response to an action touted as redemptive, simply imperils their future.

Giving the gravity of what is said or unsaid, done or left undone in the bruising battle, discretion must be applied like a balm to soothe the many sores of the face-off.

That Nigeria lurches about today in the dark meadows of retrogression can largely be ascribed to the many troubles education has had to grapple with. The many problems facing Nigeria are largely direct consequences of our failure as a country to prioritise education and place it on its deserving pedestal. Experience garnered from far and near has unfailingly shown that when given its right of place, education has within its means, an unbridled power to effect difficult and uncommon changes.

The morbid failure to prioritise education has paid us back, and sumptuously too, in minds and intellects completely undeveloped or inchoately developed. This legion of deformed and stunted minds has not only robbed Nigeria of critical partners in the project of progress, it has willingly churned out gleeful saboteurs of Nigeria’s progress. The result has been sobering. With so few transparent hands on the deck, amidst many soiled ones, the ship of Nigeria’s progress will continue to suffer fluctuating fortunes.

We are a people familiar with strikes borne out of intransigence. Education has had its fair share over the years. Labour has been treated to a lavish share too. No one has been counting the costs. Those extortionate costs have largely failed to alarm us into action. This strike in Kaduna State should never have been allowed to commence. With proper management of the embarrassing fallout from the Competency Test, it could have been prevented. As if generations of Kaduna children have not suffered long enough at the hands of illbaked teachers, this brewing battle is poised to claim its most critical scalps yet.

The NUT, Kaduna State Chapter has counted the governor`s crimes to include: allegedly defying a subsisting order of court to sack some of its members, and a flagrant breach of civil service rules, among others. However, the governor in doing everything in conjunction with the teachers to steady the ship of education in Kaduna State must ensure that his actions or inactions are not tainted by the mud of politics. Because while politics and education are not mutually exclusive; education possesses far more superior resources. Thus, it must provide the compass with which politics must proceed.

While it is true that the colossal failure recorded in the Teacher Competency Test sent shockwaves throughout the state and beyond, just as it is true that a lot of Nigerian teachers are not fully qualified to teach, discretion must be applied in steering the ship of Education out of this mess.

The NUT, on its own part, must understand that its core objective of protecting the interests of its members must dovetail nicely with the more critical task of ensuring that the school children of Kaduna State get education of the highest quality. This simply cannot flow from incompetents.

This battle is yet another crack through which Nigerians can see the harm done to the country’s system through so many years.

Kene Obiezu, Abuja.