President Buhari's slips Nigeria's 'Lazy' youth And Looming Education Crises.

President Buhari’s slips, Nigeria’s “lazy” youth and a looming education crisis
By Feyi Fawehinmi April 22, 2018
Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari at a Nigerian university (Reuters/Stringer)
I regret to inform you that president Buhari has done it again. Just over two years ago, I had cause to defend the constituency of which I am a part when he made remarks in London during a newspaper interview implying that Nigerians abroad have a single story of criminality. A few days ago during a Commonwealth Business Forum session, in London yet again (what is it about London that triggers the president one wonders), he made comments that kicked up an almighty firestorm among young Nigerians. His supporters will try to say it was a slip, but it’s a slip he keeps making.
In answering, or trying to answer, questions about Nigeria’s troubled north east, the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA)—which Nigeria pulled out of signing at the last minute—and Nigeria’s economy in general, he delivered a broadside at Nigeria’s young population saying they were lazy and entitled and perhaps deluded.
More than 60% of the population is below 30, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free.
What was most amusing, for lack of a better word, was not whether young Nigerians are deluded. It was the idea that a Nigerian government has any of the above gifts in its power to dispense.
It is the president’s comments about education that are most painful and downright cruel. It is impossible to exaggerate the damage that has been done to Nigerian education over many years. Routinely, at every stage, it fails young Nigerians and then delivers them into the job market with no skills or preparation to take on the world and make a success of their lives. And they are the lucky ones— UNICEF estimates that Nigeria has 10.5 million children of school age who do not get into school at all, the highest in the world.
Following the journey of children through the Nigerian education system, and the federal funding that follows them, is a traumatic exercise. At the primary school level (the responsibility of cash-strapped and hapless state governments) and secondary levels (where the federal government steps in with a relatively minor role), funding for education is terribly squeezed or even non-existent. Though many millions will drop off along the way, for the students who manage to make it to higher education the federal government then turns on the funding tap.
In the proposed 2018 budget (pdf, pg 1228) the federal government proposes to spend a total of 606 billion naira ($1.7 billion) on education. About 400 billion naira of this total (65%) goes directly to higher education. The federal government’s contribution to basic education gets 114 billion naira (96% of which goes to salaries) via the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). The over 100 secondary schools the federal government is responsible for, collectively known as ‘unity schools’, get a total of 32 billion naira to share among themselves, 8% of what goes to universities.
How Nigeria came to neglect and debase primary and secondary education and then dedicate the biggest chunk of its budget to tertiary education has many reasons but two in particular stand out.
First, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is easily one of the most effective unions in Nigeria in terms of getting the government to bend to its will. It is impossible to write Nigeria’s history since 1978 when the union was formed without documenting the numerous strikes they have embarked on. As a victim of Nigerian universities myself, one year was added to my university education by ASUU strikes and I can be considered lucky, many others had more than a year added.
These strikes and ASUU’s relationship with the government are almost comical to observe. They demand money, government ignores them, they go on strike, the government agrees to their (impossible) demands, they go back to work. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief waiting for the inevitable accusations from ASUU that the government has reneged on its agreement. Most recently it claimed the government owes universities 800 billion naira , more than double what they are to receive in this year’s budget. At some point in the near future they will go on strike again and the government will pay up in some form.

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