Retrieving the philosophy in the ‘PhD degree in Nigeria

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported in the second quarter of 2020 that there were 76, 526 PhD holders in Nigeria. Indeed, in the absence of current and useful data, we can conservatively approximate the 2022 figure to be somewhere around 85,000. And there are approximately more than 20,000 PhD students in Nigerian universities. This ought to be beautiful statistics in terms of educational data for national development. But then the good statistical taste soured when you link the large number of PhD holders with the raging unemployment figure and quality cum relevance of education in the country. Still following the 2020 figure, NBS said 16.9 per cent are unemployed. The breakdown is that while approximately 46,000 are fully employed, 15,000 are underemployed and 12,000 are unemployed. And the worst evidence in this situation analysis is that a large chunk of the approximate 20,000 PhD candidates will be added to the unemployment figures on the completion of their doctoral studies.

Then there is the fundamental matter of the strength of these PhD holders, and their capacities and competences to intervene intellectually, through significant researches, in Nigeria’s socioeconomic predicaments. The quality of the doctoral degrees from Nigerian universities is tied in distinctly with the status of the universities, their infrastructural dynamics and academic acumen. Once we take ASUU’s outcry over the state of Nigerian universities into consideration, as well as the parlous working condition of academic staff, then we return with a negative verdict on what to expect from the doctorate degree holders that we are churning out every year. The state of higher education in Nigeria makes it extremely difficult to produce efficient and foresighted PhD holders with the philosophical sensibility that deduce and resolve problems logically and within a larger picture of human wellbeing and their humanity.

A fair diagnosis, therefore, is that the doctoral programmes in Nigerian universities are essentially devoid of their fundamental core: the philosophical essence of a doctor of philosophy degree. This diagnosis takes its root from the stilted ideological premise of the National Policy on Education. In making a distinction between the humanities on the one hand, and the natural, social and management sciences on the other hand; and in preferring the latter to the former, the federal government grounds the Nigerian educational system on a philosophical path that rejects philosophy, history and the humanities, as being significant for national integration and development. If the philosophical sensibility is central to the nature and relevance of the humanities, then relegating the humanities to second fiddle in the national development equation in the NPE is not only tantamount to damaging the fulsomeness of what the doctorate implies in grasping the essence and fundamentals of life and existence and being, it ought to be done more creatively.

The anti-intellectualism of the Nigerian political class is demonstrated in the lackadaisical attitude paid to the health of higher education in Nigeria, as the very fulcrum of human capital development that sustains the backbone of the Nigerian state as a developmental entity. The universities produce human capital as a consequence of researches into existing and unfolding bodies of knowledge. And these human capitals are conditioned to also achieve the advancement of knowledge through their commitment to adding to the existing bodies of knowledge either in industries or by further researches. When the universities turn out students, the graduates are the finished products of specific knowledge about the societies and the economies. And they are expected to generate further knowledge that keeps oiling knowledge production for the sake of the society and the nation. The principles, theories, formulas, hypotheses and postulates that are taught these graduates are supposed to flow through them into the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the society and the good of humanity.

Philosophy features prominently in the understanding and analysis of the body of knowledge that is gathered and utilised. Philosophy and the philosophical methods, especially critical thinking, moderate both basic and applied researches, especially in outlining, analysing and synthesising ideas, issues, problems, data, and the direction in which to drive the issues germane to societal progress and the future of our civilisation. Most fundamentally, philosophy insists on the clarity of ideas and issues, and rigour in the pursuit of answers and resolutions through properly formulated queries and questions. Most fundamentally, philosophy—as the love of wisdom—is concerned with the appropriated knowledge and facts that could be properly deployed for the sake of human well-being. Wisdom is not just an abstraction. It has functional tangibility. It asks the question: what do we do with what we know—about the world and about ourselves?

The highest point of the academic accumulation of such functional knowledge is the doctorate. That is the highest degree that a university awards. Philosophy, as the love of wisdom, therefore sums the zenith of the love for knowledge and its utility in practice. It stands to reason, therefore, that the highest degree would be a doctor of philosophy. Having a doctorate, however, does not make the holder a philosopher. But this is because we have used “philosopher” here in the sense of someone who had dedicated his or her life studying philosophy as a discipline, and understanding its methods and subject matters. But there is a broad view of philosophy that makes every human a philosopher. In this context, we are all proto-philosophers to the extent that we are curious about our existence and what it entails. A PhD holder approximates philosophy to the extent that she achieves knowledge in a specialised field that speaks to a problem-solving capacity and critical thinking. At this level, a PhD, properly so-called, must be able to apply the accumulated knowledge to problems and predicaments. She must be able to search and re-search in ways that clears the path for solutions and re-solutions. After all, philosophy generally used to be the sum of all practical knowledge.

Olaopa is a retired federal permanent secretary