The report of the collapse of the national grid and eventual overwhelming darkness over large parts of Nigeria in the last one week is a cause for concern. Some of the reports coming out from official and non-official quarters are the issue of incompetence of workers handling the repairs and obsolete facilities. Both have to do with the quality of manpower to maintain and improve the facilities as well as funding. Stated in another way, the problems arose from the quality of education of personnel and budget allocation or implementation for the sector. These two factors affect the functioning of all sectors of the Nigerian economy, including governance.
While education has effects on budgeting because one needs some levels of education to prepare, allocate funds and implement the budget, the budget has overriding effects on education. Inadequate funding can kill education as happening presently. But the concern here is about education, education and education. Apology to those who feel rightly that education must the priority of any country desirous of rapid progress in economic development rooted in industrialisation rather than voodoo.
The issue of obsolete equipment requires that questions are asked about the use of budget allocations to the power sector over the years. Was there no allocation for replacement of old equipment or maintenance of equipment? Were allocations properly used, inappropriately used or diverted into officials’ accounts in the spirit of corruption? The implications of having obsolete equipment are very grave. It simply means the problem will persist for a long time because it will take some time to allocate funds for the replacement of the old equipment, its importation and actual replacement.
Unfortunately for corporate entities, they will have to rely more on the use of generators and diesel for production with consequent high cost of production and high selling price. This has been the bane of industrialisation because our local products cannot compete with foreign goods of the same quality in terms of the market price of the products. And before we close and open our eyes, the DISCOs will start asking for their own subsidy even when they cannot import electricity from abroad. The alternative, as they have been doing, is to jerk up the electricity tariff or unit price again to meet up with their projected revenue and profit. Forget about consumer protection. This is a country where the citizens must pay more money for the inefficiency of the government or business activities. But, at the current level of our development and given resources, should Nigeria rely or focus on one major source of electricity generation for the country?
The issue of incompetence in the management of the national grid is linked to the quality of education that is offered, particularly at the technical level, in secondary and tertiary educational institutions. Most technical colleges, where they exist, are littered with old equipment used by teachers of the teachers of those schools, that is, third-generation equipment. For polytechnics and universities of technology or faculties of engineering, we see the same old equipment and where new ones are added, the present crops of lecturers cannot use them for teaching and research partly because they were not taught with those types of equipment. But where is Nigeria’s place in education or more appropriately, literacy level, in Africa? For answers, I went into a review of literature.
Given that literacy level is one of the measures of economic progress and development, I wanted to know whether the ‘Giant of Africa’ is currently among the first 10 countries with the highest adult literacy rate in Africa and if not found there, could Nigeria be among the least? My findings showed that the 10 most literate countries in Africa currently are Equatorial Guinea (98%); Seychelles (95%); South Africa (95%); Sao Tome and Principe (92%)—which was 69.5% in 2008 and 57.3% in 1981; Libya (91%); Namibia (91%) with 76.5% in 2007 and 89.4% in 2011; Mauritius 91% but 79.9% in 1990 and 84.3% in 2000; Cabo Verde (88%) but 62.8% in 1990, Botswana 88%; Swaziland (87%) but 55.3% in 1977. Zimbabwe (87%) but 77.8% in 1982 having achieved average annual literacy level of 3.9%. Many of these countries have made substantial progress over the years. Nigeria is not here! Let us check the other side.
The world statistics state that the least literate country in Africa is Niger with a 19% adult literacy level and with low-quality education and the lowest enrolment among girls! Guinea has a 30% adult literacy level but with noticeable improvement from 1996 when it was 20.6%; South Sudan which became independent in 2011 is reported to be around 32%; Mali at 33% even with public education at no cost to the citizens except for books and uniforms; the Central African Republic is 37%; Burkina Faso 38%, a significant improvement from 13.6% in 1991 and 21.8% in 2003 thus achieving annual average growth of 21 76%; Benin Republic is 38%, an improvement from 28.7% in 2007; Chad is 40% but was 10.9% in 1993, thus achieving annual average growth of 46.54%; Cote d’Ivoire 43%; Liberia has 48% and Sierra Leone 48% while Ethiopia is currently 49% from 27% in 1994. Thankfully, Nigeria is also not here.
Nigeria is in the middle of the pack with a 62% adult literacy level since 2018. The female literacy level was 53% and males 70%. The literacy level in Nigeria was 70.2 % in 2006 from 55.45% in 1991. Our brother country, Ghana currently has a 79.04% adult literacy level. Even Nigeria’s 62% has problems with respect to quality. The World Bank in 1988 stated that Nigeria’s education quality is a big problem as it performs worst out of 22 sub-Saharan Africa and North African countries due to poor physical facilities, inadequate sanitation, lack of textbooks, unqualified teachers, sordid conditions of service, waste of resources. The conditions of these factors have since worsened. Recent statistics also show that Nigeria has over 10 million out-of-school children, the highest in the world, and with 27 million children in schools performing poorly!
With the nonchalant attitude of the government to current workers’ strikes in public universities and the kind of classrooms, obsolete laboratory equipment at all levels of education, poor wages and salaries that make teachers engage in moonlighting to survive the high cost of living, the issue of quality of output will remain low. The government needs to realise that no matter the amount of money spent on infrastructure, whether roads, airports, education, sports or rail lines, the issue of maintenance will come to the fore at some point. This requires knowledge or education. It shows that education and quality education should be the ultimate goal.
This country cannot continue to turn out half or no-baked graduates from its tertiary institutions. I was in an African country for a workshop about a decade ago when they have to fly engineers from Europe to repair damaged equipment due to a power outage. That country is now one of the best 10 in Africa’s literacy ranking! Private tertiary institutions alone cannot produce the engineering graduates Nigeria needs. In fact, less than five of them run core engineering courses because of the high cost. Those who feel that private universities or polytechnics will replace public tertiary institutions in areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as medical courses must have a rethink.
The foregoing discussion on education is linked to comments on the recent problems with the national grid and supply of electricity. It served as an opportunity to further discuss the subject matter of education which remains inexhaustive. The problems of electricity’s ineffective and inefficient supply are beyond budget allocation and education. We have to recognise the role of sabotage from generator producers and franchise importers/distributors, the diesel and petrol importers and sellers, the producers and suppliers of various rechargeable lamps, batteries, solar panels, inverters and many other saboteurs in the electrical value chain.
To conquer the multidimensional problems in the electric power sub-sector requires a government headed by a patriot whose desire is to leave behind a legacy of monumental achievements that can make it possible for him to walk freely on the streets of Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Owerri or Port Harcourt. Nigeria does not need to import such leaders as they are available for us to pick if we can stop playing politics of religion, tribe and money. We need to source electricity even from nuclear energy. We must start working on this but we must be serious about training and retraining which means quality education.
