Mismanagement of Nigeria’s Resources - Military (Education) Spending

The topmost world ranked university in Nigeria today is the University of Ibadan ranked at a distant 1074 followed by UNN at 2181, OAU at 2224, Covenant University at 2245 and ABU at 2641 according to ranking web of universities website currently and a recent slide from the gate crashing of UI into the top 1000 in 2016.

It was not always this way, Nigerian Universities especially of the first generation were previously world ranked and affiliated to Universities in London and attracted expatriate and foreign students across the globe especially from neighboring African countries like Ghana.

That was until the military seized power in 1966 ushering in the next decades of a steady deterioration of funding and management of civilian institutions particularly the civilian education sector.

It did not particularly help that as the country restructured over the years each successive administration felt compelled to establish new Universities both at the federal and state level along with colleges of education and polytechnics in every state even as the budget for education remained static through the years. 

As to be expected the quality of education offered at Nigerian universities deteriorated over the years also fueled by the brain drain of the 90’s that saw thousands of professors flee to greener pastures, and as to be expected the ranking of Nigerian education plummeted as classes became undermanned with sub standard substitutes. 

In contrast, successive administrations particularly the military ones have lavishly funded military education institutions offering education far surpassing what is obtainable in the public sector.  

These military institutions have also escaped the chaos of civilian universities that have become mismanaged with frequent closures from strikes by education unions demanding better funding and decrying the decay in the civilian education sector. 

Over the past 20 years in particular, students spend as long as 5-7 years on decree programs that should have taken 4 years to complete because of incessant strikes. Public Higher institutions are no longer free and now charge school fees increasing at an alarming rate while the military institutions are free and have matriculated and graduated students at a steady and increasing pace without the hindrance of strikes.

Presently, Thousands of Nigerians are overseas in various institutions pursing quality degrees, but the government instead of consolidating resources to fix the rot in the system is once again expanding the envelope by budgeted a whopping N2b for the establishment of a military university in Biu, a remote area in Nigeria’s war ravaged North East instead of channeling those funds into Existing Nigerian universities to improve standards and to reduce the drain on Nigeria’s foreign reserves by citizens seeking quality education, overseas.

Besides the military university that will be up and running soon, Nigeria has a defense academy offering 5 years of training involving a four year highly qualitative degree program followed by an additional year of tactical training to its officer cadets

For a country that has has no enemies on its borders nor is it likely to face an invasion from an external aggressor, Nigeria maintains a well funded national Defense College War college exclusively for training senior military officers at the post graduate level with a world class faculty not obtainable in most of Nigeria’s decrepit and overcrowded higher institution. 

 Nigeria also maintains the Armed Forces Command and Staff College Jaji, for middle level staff training along with a plethora of other educational non military training programs under the auspices of TRADOC and other military commands within the country.

The duplicity of programs, both in the military and civilian sectors and inequitable standards are a perfect example of how Nigeria wastes and fails to consolidate resources for optimal outcomes. 

Nigeria as a matter of urgency needs to address the crises in its education sector and unify its educational programs to prevent duplicity and to focus resources on providing quality education to all Nigerians and to bring the armed services under civilian control by ensuring that it receives its non military training from civilian institutions so the can imbibe democratic ethos and lessen their disdain for civil authority. 

Of foremost and immediate importance is the need to place a complete embargo on the creation of new universities and other higher institutions and to instead focus on resurrecting Nigeria’s decrepit and dysfunctional schools up to world standards and inclusion in world rankings to not only produce quality graduates, but to attract revenues from foreign enrollment as well.

Terhemba Osuji is a Public Policy Analyst