I came across a short video clip, which went viral on social media, showing a lawmaker representing Daura/Mai’adua/Sandamu Federal Constituency raising a motion for the privatization of Nigerian universities on the floor of the Green Chamber. As expected, the motion generated reactions from Nigerians. One of the most incisive responses was written by one Prof Abdussamad Umar Jibia. In his piece titled How Daura People are Being Misrepresented, Jibia demonstrates that the motion presented by the lawmaker could not have reflected the opinion of his constituents and was in fact inimical to their interest.
I had no intention to comment on the Fatuhu’s motion largely because he provided no reason (whether cogent or otherwise) to justify his claim that privatizing Nigerian public universities is “the best way” to address the crisis wrecking them. If he had given some reasons to support/buttress his motion, one could have considered interrogating them. To be clear, the intent of this short piece is not to react to Mr. Fatuhu’s motion (though I don’t share his opinion). Rather, it was prompted by the lawmaker’s rejoinder to Jibia.
I was startled after reading Fatuhu’s rejoinder captioned “AU Jibia and Naivety of Understanding.” In the fourth paragraph of the aforesaid article, he accused Jibia of misrepresenting his position or failing to understand what he meant by privatizing Nigerian universities. Mr. Fatuhu had this to say: “you alleged that I call on my colleagues to support me in the bid to ‘sell’ universities… here, I ask you how can universities be ‘sold’? Which nation has ever sold its universities? To remind you, I suggested for ‘privatizing’ universities, not selling them, and I don’t know when privatizing becomes selling to any one who can claim having undergraduate certificate.”
To Fatuhu, privatizing universities could not mean selling them! Apparently, the lawmaker did not know (perhaps he still does not know) what privatization means. I was then looking for reasons to rationalize Mr. Fatuhu’s ignorance. I went to search for his academic background and, to my utter surprise, I found that he studied political science at the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria! I then suspected that the piece was written by someone, who mischievously affixed Mr. Fatuhu’s name to embarrass him. I believe so because I thought it was implausible for a graduate of political science to argue that privatizing universities could not mean selling them. In other words, my assumption was that anybody who studied political science or other cognate disciplines must be conversant with concepts such as privatization, commercialization, deregulation, desubsidization, concession, neo-liberalism, among others. Alas, I was wrong! I quickly reminded myself that it’s one thing to be taught and it’s quite another to comprehend what has been taught.
Having established that the article, AU Jibia and Naivety of Understanding, was written by Mr. Fatuhu, I then asked: could it be that someone wrote the motion and handed it Futuhu to memorize and present at the floor of the Green Chamber? Even if this is the case, he ought to have sought basic knowledge of what he was to be a chief advocate. All attempts to rationalize Mr. Fatuhu’s faux pas proved abortive as all the excuses I could think of were untenable!
Should we then beg Mr. Fatuhu’s constituents to forgive him since it’s likely that his call for the privatization of Nigerian universities was driven by sheer ignorance, not wickedness (the desire to deny them access to university education)? I think we can only do that if he explains his own version of privatization.
Mr. Fatuhu made another frightening revelation in his attempt to answer one of Jibia’s posers. He said that the “we” he used in his motion refers to “all Nigerians of like minds,” not the good people of Daura/Mai’adua/Sandamu Federal Constituency. Read in Mr. Fatuhu’s words: “I was not referring to people of my constituency…. I was referring to all Nigerians of like minds with me on privatizing University Education (sic).”
Since Mr. Fatuhu is representing “Nigerians of like minds,” not his constituents, we should stop worrying if he raises a motion that does not serve the interest of his people so long it serves that of his “like minds.” Do not bother to know those “Nigerians of like minds.”
Aminu Ali wrote from the Department of Sociology, Bayero University, Kano
