By Nnabugwu Chizoba
Supportive structures are essential for any meaningful impact and sustainable records in a society; and for lessons learnt to be effectively deployed to create the fundamental shift required to open up the economic space through diversification of prospects for improved health and standard of living, enhanced social and environmental welfare.
The Alumni Association (AA) is fundamentally, a very unique development structure; unfortunately, many Nigerians don’t seem to reason along this line, as a result, what should have been strategically and systematically integrated as very vital, formidable and dependable development structure is neglected.
Soon after graduation, the former students in search of jobs and in a bid to realize their ambition and fulfill their dreams in life find themselves in different areas of human endeavour, locations and professions. There is hardly any structure that can muster in human capacity what AAs can. In addition to what is already identified, is the fact that their Membership cuts across tribes, religions and sex, age and exposure.
The issues identified above play prominent roles to the challenges faced by Nigerians. They speak volume about the poor quality of human capital within the political class. I harbor no trepidation concluding that AAs count high in terms of major development structures that should be intentionally activated and integrated into Nigerian’s agenda of development. In terms of personal, institutional, community and nation building and development the AAs are relevant. The missing link however, is “the disconnect” within the private sector operators who although ignorantly downplay the enormous power of the AAs as a private sector oriented development structure.
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Economic degradation, insecurity, youth restiveness and other forms of criminality, such as banditry and armed robbery keep increasing rapidly. Unemployment and poor performance at abysmal level by politicians at all the levels of governance: federal, state and local government are major issues of concern. Nigeria perhaps is the only nation that can witness these and not look the way of her graduates for solution. The capacity intervention required in character, skill and spirit to revamp the economy, rebuild the Nation and lift her from the dungeon of obscurity and aid dependency to the path of economic Eldorado are resident in the AAs. No gathering of individuals by whatever name can match in aggregate value the capacity domiciled within AAs.
Nigerian graduates must through the Networking Platform offered by the AAs rise up and begin the process of aggregating and deploying their capacity massively by way of channeling such at taking over governance at all levels, in order to tap adequately the abundant human and nature endowed mineral and other resource deposits that abound in the land. The AAs present a glaring opportunity as the gateway for the real growth and sustainable development of Nigeria. They must strategize to displace the political hustlers who struggle frantically to occupy political offices in Nigeria.
Almost everything in Nigerian appears to be on a reverse mode, yet the graduates are weak feigning ignorance about the entire situation. They complain at street corners, bemoan uncontrollably and hand everything over to God as if there was no God before they went to school, living me to wonder the use of the education they acquired.
The prices of food stuffs and other costs of living are above the reach of the common citizens. Bread winners are easily separated from their families through sudden death. Suffering, poverty and unemployment, inadequate and in some cases total absence of infrastructure for meaningful engagement are the order of the day. Graduates parade the streets of Nigeria with certificates that bear inscription of the wonderful vision statement of their respective schools searching for non-existing jobs, and at the end are settled as political thugs. Corruptive tendencies, misappropriation and outright embezzlement of public funds reign supreme. Billions of Naira spent on machines to improve the electoral system got killed by “Glitch” and buried unceremoniously by the judiciary. Remind me the reason...
The citadel of learning is continuously desecrated. Professors are conveniently drawn from schools decimated by strike and deployed to assemble figures they can’t question and announce results they cannot defend. Also disheartening is the case of the Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN who until recently did not understand the 25% principle in the constitution. The Ministry of Justice, Judicial Council of Nigeria and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not deem it fit to specifically educate the political parties and the electorate before the election about the exact requirement to win the presidential seat. They knew after the context had ended. A similar scenario played out in 1979 with regard to constituted 2/3 of 19 states then. 40 years after, the country is still entangled with the same scenario... Good riddance to bad nonsense.
The essence of this piece is not to paint gloomy pictures about the Nigerian state. It is also not intended to heighten the tension in the land or increase the pressure that most people are currently facing. Far from all these, this piece seeks instead to bemoan the docility and inability of the educated, exposed and experienced class in Nigeria, and to draw attention of the teeming Nigerian graduates on the need to rise up to check the ugly trends, urging them to begin the process of networking internally and externally within the county. It is not tidy that graduates who should assemble as Alumni should stay aloof pretending there is nothing they can do to redeem the country.
By number, intelligence, exposure and skills the AAs are by far beyond the hawks and pipers feeding fat on the nation while majority of the citizens die in penury, pain and anguish.
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