Abdullah Korede wrote I shook my head in pity when I read in the newspapers this morning that president Jonathan has once again appointed Senator Ahmadu Alli, former national Chairman of the PDP as Chairman of the prestigious Nigeria University Commission, (NUC). I wonder why Jonathan should consider a man as Alli with an ugly past, unsavory antecedents and unpalatable pedigree worthy of such an enviable position. If we go down the memory lane, the ignoble role played by the then Colonel Ahmadu Alli as Federal Commissioner for education in the Alli-Must-Go crisis, in 1978 during the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo, is still fresh in our memory. It was this same Alli that decleared an all-out war against the students who embarked on a peaceful demonstration against his ill-advised decision to cancel subsidized meals given to university students and jacked up the hostel accommodation fees in the Nigerian universities. He introduced for the first time in the history of Nigeria exorbitant school fees in federal universities. Several students were mowed down and sent to their untimely graves while scores were injured by murderous soldiers sent by Alli. It is very disheartening that Jonathan has continued to toe the lines of our ex-leaders who were notorious for recycling the same bunch of old school politicians who are bereft of modern socio-economic trends in their approach to governance. We expect Jonathan to look for an egg-head who is intellectually sound and has brilliant ideas that will galvanize and resuscitate our already comatose ivory tower rather than an old school politician like Ahmadu Alli who was appointed based on political patronage. Jonathan should know than the university system is not a tea party affair. As long as our leaders refuse to inject technocrats who are imbued with a passion to turn around our universities, I am afraid, Nigeria will always be at the bottom rung of development.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 18:38:09 +0000
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