On OAU suspensions: Nigerian students and repression

In spite of steady economic growth in Nigeria the benefits do not get to the grassroots, while unemployment is increasing vis-à-vis high levels of food importation (Manuaka, 2011:35; Sawyerr, 2012; Akpeji and Ajayi, 2012). In essence, what we have is growth without development which invariably breeds exclusion as a few people determine resource distribution that is usually skewed in favour of those at the corridors of power, while citizens are deprived and marginalised. An estimated 80 percent of our youth were unemployed in 2014. The Ministry of Labour indicates that 41 percent of graduates of universities and polytechnics could not find jobs. The Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Okonjo Iweala, indicates that 400,000 of the jobs created (1.4 million) in 2013/2014 were agricultural part-time jobs. Over 70 percent of the world’s ‘vulnerable’ employment is in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Consequently, ILO predicts that unemployment will likely to continue to rise in Nigeria and other countries within the next five years (The Punch February 2, 2015, p. 28).

For example, instead of using adaptive research to transform agricultural resources to products through rural industrialization, agricultural innovations end on the shelf after they are published by scholars for the sake of personal status enhancement without getting to the table of decision-makers. Unlike in Europe, America and Asia, where knowledge management (KM) tools and techniques have been deployed to generate development by distributing essential information and know-how in public and private sectors for efficiency, productivity and information, Nigerian governments have not fully realized the potentials and capabilities of KM, endogenous knowledge and traducture to development. These missing links or disconnects in Nigeria have accounted for the failure of the series of theories, reforms, strategies, models and development programmes implemented in the country to resolve developmental and security challenges, especially in the areas of food shortage, high unemployment rate among graduates and heightened mass poverty.

Recent cases of insecurity in several parts of Nigeria serve as indicators of the governance deficit, underdevelopment and poverty. The only thing that Nigerian governments (federal, state and local) have for the children of the masses is exploitation. The grandparents and parents of these students were exploited by the grandparents and parents of the elite in government during the struggle for the independence. Even after independence, for example, Nigerian farmers were considered to be informal human beings who could not think rationality, while unjust taxation was imposed on them by the Crown in London in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the post-colonial leaders embraced this repressive order and oppressed their kinsmen. The consequence of these unjust actions was the Agbekoya (farmers renounce oppression) crisis of 1968 when the farmers revolted in Yorubaland.

What we need to do is to engage in restructuring the public sphere and political economy at all levels and sectors. Considering the fact that the youth account for about 45 percent of the country’s population and they are the leaders of tomorrow, any attempt to exclude this group in the process of building the nation will constitute a missed opportunity for the country. In order to address the complicated challenges and problems of Nigerian students and youth in Nigeria, there is the need to engage in rethinking and brainstorming that will consider Nigerian realities imperative. This should be done by the strategic stakeholders – scholars, public officials and self-governing institutions. The brainstorming should lead to policy and the design of youth mainstreaming and empowerment institutional mechanisms.

To this end an African Polycentric Youth Mainstreaming and Empowerment Model (APYMEM) is conceptualised as the process of mainstreaming youth needs and legitimate aspirations into socio-economic and techno-political decisions, thereby empowering them and preparing them for effective and true leadership positions in the nearest future. The model argues for the entrenchment of concrete inclusive frameworks and self-governance structures in the Nigerian polity as prerequisites for mainstreaming the youth that are marginalized into decision making for social transformation, development and poverty alleviation, reduction and prevention.

Finding solutions to the problems of students and youth marginalisation and neglect may require digging into the roots of the problem as demonstrated in African Polycentric Youth Mainstreaming and Empowerment Model (APYMEM). The mechanism and model derive inspirations from adaptive education of David Oyerinde of Ogbomoso and Eyota Ita of Calabar (the first set of Nigerians that studied in USA). Adaptive education will encourage and factor Nigerian endogenous impulses into the establishment of Nigerian Innovation Village (NIV) and Intermediate Technological Centres (ITC) in Nigeria. The proposed Ministry of Student Union by the Model will facilitate the establishment of agricultural and investment cooperation in all higher institutions that will give rooms for share-holding by students, employment opportunities, economic empowerment, etc.