PRESIDENT of the Nigeria Academy of Letters (NAL), Prof. Romanus Egudu, has identified indiscipline as the root cause of the country's numerous woes. According to the university don, the problems of ineffective leadership, inefficiency in public offices and government-owned establishments, lack of concern for others, deception, hypocrisy, fraud and lawlessness point to only one thing: Indiscipline.
Egudu, who spoke on a wide range of issues in an exclusive interview with The Guardian, as the Academy prepares to hold its annual convocation at the University of Lagos next Thursday, also stated that the Academy had, through its public lectures, addressed the issues of governance, morality and materialism. "Indiscipline is the major cause of the country's inability to provide uninterruptible electricity, and without power and energy, how does one wish away unemployment or wish for a healthy economy, except for the sake of hypocrisy and deceit? He queried.
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Asked to rate the Federal Government's budgetary allocation to the Education Sector this year, Egudu was blunt: "It is really not a matter of how one rates the allocation but of the fact that it is characteristically low. The allocation to education is only 7.9 per cent of the total annual budget, as against 26 per cent, which is UNESCO's standard for education. But even more important in our circumstance, is the issue of whether the much allocated will be strictly and judiciously utilized for purely educational purposes. Traditionally speaking, one would say that two major factors of education are the "learner" and the "teacher". It is therefore logical to advise that the allocation be used for providing maximal conducive environment and adequate learning facilities for the learners, as well as just and equitable conditions of service for the teachers.
On the current strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Egudu was unpretentious: "As an academic and Nigerian, I would say that the strike is a moral issue. If, as ASUU has made people understand, there was an agreement between it and the accredited representatives of Government, Government should, in the spirit of justice and fairness, honour that agreement.
"But, if Government has any genuine reason for being unable to honour the agreement, it should, for the sake of respect for human dignity and concern for others, discuss that reason with ASUU. Generally speaking, however, one may say that Government's apparent low rating of the functions and relevance of university teachers in the country is reflected by the abysmally low pay level of these teachers vis-ˆ-vis workers in other public-service establishments and the Civil Service-a phenomenon that is illustrative of the topsy-turvy nature of the society's value system-a system in which the most highly trained and qualified brains are callously rewarded with penury!"
On the contributions of NAL to the country's education sector, Egudu listed several efforts. His words: "The Academy gives Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship Awards to some young lecturers in Nigerian universities. About 10 such lecturers are currently enjoying the award. Furthermore, the Academy is discussing with relevant bodies, the ugly issues of the falling standard of the use of the English language in our education system, and the fate of History as a discipline that is facing extinction in the system. And that is with a view to finding solutions for these problems.
"The entire membership of the Academy is drawn from the academia, for all full professors of not less than five years' standing. Professors in all the disciplines within the Arts/ Humanities are qualified to be members. The Academy provides a forum for continuous interaction among these scholars, which makes for improvement in research and teaching at this level of the education system."
He continued: "The Academy has contributed to and impact on Education, which is listed as the seventh point on the Agenda. And over and above this, the Academy is indispensably relevant to the other six points-power and energy, food security, wealth creation, transport, land reforms, and security. All the points on the Agenda are about development; and, according to Emeritus Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi, a renowned historian and Foundation Fellow of the Academy, in the Academy's early Convocation Lecture, "development is about people."
"While Science and Technology cater for the material needs of man, the Arts/ Humanities of which the Academy consists, will provide the moral and ethical considerations involved in the actualization of the Agenda for the purpose of ensuring that the technical operators of the Agenda cultivate and exercise the virtues of integrity, honesty, judiciousness, and selflessness, and that they eschew the contrary vices of fraud, dishonesty, and hypocrisy. It is the necessary duty of the humanists in the Academy to insist that the operators observe this human and humane principle, in order that the points on the Agenda may yield the desired fruit."
Asked to enumerate the Academy's objectives and role in the country, Egudu's response was swift: "I would say that the objectives culminate in the generation of ideas for the guidance of the leaders and people of this country. And it has been said that ideas rule the world. The Arts/ Humanities are particularly oriented towards the moral/ spiritual, as against the physical dimension of the human being, so that ideas about morality, justice, integrity, ethical behaviour, altruism, which reflect the nature and essence of the Arts/ Humanities as "humane letters", are normally generated by them. These virtues are indispensable for the well-being and development of any nation.
"And one would like to think that Francis Bacon, perhaps, had the Arts/ Humanities particularly in mind when he said: "Abeunt studia in mores" (Studies culminate in manners). All the themes of the Academy's Annual Convocation Lectures since its inception, reflect its consistent concern about high-level morality and ethical standards in public and private life in Nigeria. A few of the themes are "Language and Good Governance", "Is There Not Amongst You A Righteous Man: The Nigerian Factor and the Nigerian Condition", "The Wages of Obsessive Materialism", "Man in Society as Template of Good Governance", and the one for this year's Convocation: "Religion and Morality in Nigeria", which comes up on the 13th of this month of August, 2009, at the University of Lagos."
However, when Egudu was told that the Academy as a body and its activities were not as popular as they should be, and asked to reveal plans to create more awareness about them, he tone squeezed up a little bit. He declared: "The existing activities which include the Annual Public Lectures that take place in different universities all over the country, the Annual Convocation with the Ceremony for Investiture of new Fellows, the production and distribution all over the country of the Academy's publications referred to earlier, interaction with the mass-media such as is taking place between you and me right now, as well as the Academy's plan to organize Academic Conferences from time to time in co-operation with the Learned Societies in the area of the Arts/ Humanities-all these should be enough to make the relevant audience in the society aware of the existence and relevance of the Academy.
"But if the truth must be faced: one has reason to think that in a society permeated by unbridled materialism and anti intellectualism, academic activities cannot gain such popularity as your question implies. Such a society is appropriately represented by that Poundian character who prayed to "Mercury, patron of thieves" to "install (him) in any profession/ Save this damn'd profession of writing/ where one needs one's brains all the time." Such people are not likely to even want to be aware of the existence and relevance of the Academy."
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