Prof Shuaib Abdulraheem Oba is a former chairman of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) who contested for the governorship ticket of the PDP in the April 11 elections. The one time vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin explains why President Muhammadu Buhari needs to look beyond his party and include opposition members as well as other qualified Nigerians in his cabinet.

Weekly Trust Saturday: What were the challenges you encountered as chairman of the Federal Character Commission?

Prof Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem: My years in the FCC were an eye-opening experience. The commission was designed to address the issue of equity, lack of proportional representation, and the issue of welding Nigeria into a united nation. The challenge was that of enforcement. We have laws that can bring lots of improvement but we couldn’t enforce them. And to enforce the laws, you must have financial resources. This is a democratic process; hence, according to the federal character law, if you find an offender you are supposed to take him/her to court. But the resources of the commission are so small that to get the services of a lawyer is difficult. If the offender has a better lawyer, it is like a lost case. So for the commission to function properly, it needs government to fund it, particularly its legal department. The FCC recognised that Nigeria is a multinational, multiethnic society, so everybody needs to be carried along.

DTS: Can you say that the commission has been a success?

Prof Abdulraheem: Yes, it is a success because it gives equal opportunities to Nigerians in job placement. It also ensures equitability and distribution of infrastructure. And that has been the most difficult to enforce because some people, especially politicians, know that they will be at a disadvantage. However, this is peculiar to government. If the FCC succeeds in providing infrastructure to every part of the country, the politicians will have nothing to campaign with. Everybody is afraid to touch that side because it exposes the nakedness of our party officials.

DTS: What are the legacies you left behind?

Prof Abdulraheem: The FCC has become better known. It has come to the consciousness of chief executives of MDAs and Nigerians as a whole. Before my tenure, they did a lot of jobs to design a working criterion for the commission, but they didn’t bring it to the consciousness of the people the way it was done in my five-year tenure. 

Staff welfare was another landmark. We were able to get a property in Zone 5 area of Abuja, but because of some lapses in communication, the property was shared between the Federal Road Safety Commission and the FCC. The implementation of guidelines was another landmark. We worked with most of the commissioners that were there before I got there.

DTS: As an academic, what do you think is the problem with the nation’s educational sector?

Prof Abdulraheem: As a professional educationist, I will say it is like every other sector in Nigeria. Education is the main driver of any society, but you need money to make it work. A lot of money has been pumped into the education sector, but the administrators and the handlers of the project are not really prepared to work. Almost 90 percent of funds put into the sector go to infrastructure, which is actually the award of contracts and buildings. That does not translate into the instrument for training young men and women. The instrument for converting education to national wealth requires a lot of management too. You must have the infrastructure, but most importantly, the human angle is very important. 

The universities, for instance, are predicated upon competence to promote and pursue research, especially for development. To be able to do that, you must focus on building human capacity within the system, you must invest money in the training of researchers, in the recruitment of top class academics who will contribute for providing the environment for the people to learn. 

Another place that is very visible is the lower echelon of education, where young children begin what they call basic level. I think the greatest damage done to education is from that level, it is the most abused level of education. It has the challenge of population explosion, but the infrastructure available is inappropriate to the number of person interested. You will have a class with a bench for 30 people, yet it is accommodating 56 people. It is where you have primary schools not properly staffed, no books to read, and even furniture are not there. This opens the gate to commercialists who run private education, where only a fraction of the population can get through. So the issue of accessing admission is also important.

DTS: Some are of the opinion that polytechnics should be scrapped because of certificate disparity and discrimination during employment. What is your take on this?

Prof Abdulraheem: The policy envisages three tiers of education, which include the primary, secondary and tertiary. The polytechnics were meant to service particular needs. They are meant to identify persons with particular skills that are tilted towards acquisition of knowledge. That is why they have technical secondary. These persons are identified at the basic. Where we have the problem is at the point of job seeking. There shouldn’t be any discrimination if we are sure that the quality set out was attained. Among those who attend technical education are geniuses who have not been discovered. They shouldn’t be put at the back quarters because they have not been to the university.

DTS: What is your take on the 2015 general elections?

Prof Abdulraheem: The elections brought lots of eye-opening circumstances. It was proved that elections can hold in Nigeria without violence. It was also proved that the opposition can defeat a sitting government and the government will let go, rather than insist on litigation. I have accepted it as the will of God, but that does not remove me from the People’s Democratic Party. I like the spirit of sportsmanship demonstrated by both sides. The action taken by Buhari prevented his overzealous followers from going into the streets to mock and taunt the opposition. It is the proper environment for real change. Nobody will say there was nothing wrong in the last government. Of course something was wrong. In fact, no government will claim that something can’t go wrong.

DTS: Do you think the All Progressives Congress should run an inclusive government?

Prof Abdulraheem: I am sure that President Buhari knows Nigeria in and out. He has been in that seat before and he has been around for decades. He has a vision of the kind of Nigeria he wants to see. So if he wants to run a Nigeria that will belong to all Nigerians, then he must get the people that will have the same vision. Governance is different from politics, if he is going to run a successful government, like most Nigerians expect, there must be an all-inclusive structure in place. Some Nigerians have an idea of the kind of Nigeria they want to leave for their children. There are Nigerians like him who have the same vision but find themselves at the wrong side politically. It will do Nigeria good if they are brought in.

DTS: Were you surprised that your party, the PDP lost the presidential elections?

Prof Abdulraheem: I am not surprised. This is so because of what happened before the elections. The PDP was a victim of what you can call arrogance of power. It had seen itself as a party that no one could beat. All the echelons of the party were concerned with themselves and the kingmakers, without really testing the mood of the people. There were accusations of corruption on prominent people in the PDP-led government, yet the leadership turned the other eye. You couldn’t expect to win at that point.

DTS: You contested for the PDP governorship ticket and lost. What could have caused this?

Prof Abdulraheem: I cannot say that I lost. I missed an opportunity because something went wrong. There was a misleading circumstance of criticism in Kwara over the PDP. If there was another name you could call the PDP, perhaps, people would have voted for them. We have a problem where those on the seat in Kwara State are anti-people. People were not happy, and they were eager for change. And we thought we could harness that kind of energy and desire for change. Unfortunately, we misread the environment. But there was a very unhealthy use of money, such that those of us who thought we could change things by persuasive argument and demonstration of patriotism realised that the people were not ready to be liberated from oppression. 

DTS: What is the state of the PDP in Kwara now?

Prof Abdulraheem: It is still weak and divided. We must go back to the drawing board and see whether we can pick the pieces and still come back strong. Truly, there is going to be hard work to get the PDP back as a credible party.