Rewarding teachers on earth, the Borno example

Rewarding teachers on earth, the Borno example 

By Clem Oluwole
(First published in February, 2013).

Overheard in February, this year, shortly after Vice President Namadi Sambo performed the foundation laying ceremony of the construction of the Monguno Teachers’ Village (MTV) in Maiduguri, Borno state:

Question: Was Governor Kashim Shettima ever a teacher?


Answer: No. He was never a chalkman but a consummate banker before he made a foray into politics and navigated his way to power.

Question: Then, why has he made education one of the top priorities of his government, recompensing teachers here on earth when their rewards are waiting for them in heaven?


How wrong the conversationists were! But you can excuse their apparent assumption. The truth is that the governor was once a don before he ventured into politics. However, being a former university teacher is not a guarantee that one would give education a pride of place as demonstrated by the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration. Remember that the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was a don. His tag team partner, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (Ph.D), also dropped from the ivory tower into politics. But how has education fared under their watch? Non-fulfillment of an agreement signed between the Yar’Adua government and ASUU leadership in 2009 has been the bone of contention till date. Not even when Jonathan took over as president did he give a damn about the pact. It was only this week that he deemed it fit to sit down and talk things over with the striking dons, four months after the universities have been shut down. At the time of putting this piece together, it was not certain whether the dons would sheathe their swords or the president had just wasted 13 precious hours trying to persuade them to go back to the lecture halls.

I have been following the exploits of Governor Kashim Shettima in the education sector in recent times with keen interest and for obvious reasons. Here is a governor of a state that is troubled by Boko Haram, a sect whose core agenda is to stamp out western education. But Shettima believes that the most potent weapon to counter Boko Haram in the long run is to employ education as a tool to liberate the youths who are vulnerable to Boko Haram’s indoctrination and manipulation.

He started by inducing parents with cash so that they could send their wards to school. He introduced a boarding system and ensured that the pupils and students are well fed at government’s expense. He followed up this policy by paying unscheduled visits to some of the schools and shared meals with them. This strategy was to ensure that nobody cut corners by putting low quality victuals on the table for the school children.

Only recently, he purchased 30 number 112-seater buses to be conveying pupils and students to both public and private schools within Maiduguri and Jere local government areas also for free. It is only Lagos state that has introduced this kind of free ride bus scheme and kept faith with it.

Then came the anti-climax: building a teachers’ estate. An estate for teachers here on earth when they have been guaranteed landed property in heaven! The teachers in Borno state are the luckiest chalkfolks under the sun. They are also among the well remunerated chalkmen and women in the country. I don’t know what the teachers have done for Shettima to deserve this incredible pampering. Indeed, the teachers deserve to have a good life on earth, but they have been taken for granted and denied such things as Shettima is doing for them now, for so long. If a group of professionals deserve to be treated well, it is the teachers, for they are the ones who teach (and by implication, make) all other professionals.

When I read the piece written by his chief press secretary, Isa Gusau, in this newspaper last Friday, I could not but envy Borno teachers. Here is a country where teaching is treated like a leprous profession and the teachers as lepers. Take a general overview of our educational landscape. The sector is in total disarray. Everybody is fleeing from our higher institutions of learning not only because of the perennial ASUU strikes but also because the quality of teaching has dropped… abysmally low. No thanks to the frustration faced by those who are supposed to make the environment a centre of excellence.

Shettima’s cap will be too big for the heads of many of his colleagues. The first time that this kind of gesture took place was during the Gowon era. However, it was not even General Yakubu Gowon as the head of state that demonstrated the unique gesture. It was his spouse, the elegant Victoria Gowon, whose profession is nursing. Victoria made sure that nursing was made attractive and the professionals were well paid. Today, nurses don’t loathe hospitals the way teachers hate the classrooms.

At the MTV, there are 300 units of 2-bedroom self-contained bungalows. It is said that when you stay too long in the dark, you begin to see. Shettima has stayed long enough in the enclave of big men and he knows their mentality too well. He has ensured that the estate is not only built exclusively for teachers in the state, but also made it very, very unattractive to housejackers. These housejackers are the big men who would use their clouts to deny over half of the beneficiaries the ownership of the estate, and acquire the place for themselves for use as guest houses or pass them over to their non-teacher relations, concubines and hangers-on.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recommended that 26 per cent of budgetary allocations should be pumped into the education sector in developing countries. I really don’t know the percentage of the state annual budget Shettima is funneling into that critical sector. But judging by the flurry of activities going on in the state despite the security challenges, he must be keeping faith with the UNESCO declaration.

What Shettima is doing for education in his domain cannot be said in most states and even at the federal level. Recall that back in 2008, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), like ASUU, had a running battle with various state governments for their refusal to pay the 27.5 per cent increment in Teachers’ Salary Structure (TSS) even after striking an agreement with the Nigeria Governors Forum. Aside from Borno, only Imo state has so far given education a human face through the exploits of Governor Rochas Okorocha who offers free education up to university level.

It is public knowledge that while UNESCO recommended 26 percent, governments at all levels are spending a miserable 2 per cent or less of their annual budgetary allocations on education. Whereas, over 50 per cent are set aside to pamper overfed politicians and thieving top government officials. And with peanuts going into education year in, year out, the standard is bound to collapse. Consequently, they ship their kids to such African countries like South Africa, Ghana and even Republic of Benin where the sector is stable and better organised. The super rich ones ferry theirs to places like the US, the UK, Malaysia and now Dubai.

And because their kids are getting the best education can offer far away from the Nigerian soil, the policy makers do not give a damn about the rot at the home front. Presently, Shettima is toying with the idea of making it mandatory for teachers and school administrators in the state to have their kids and wards in the schools they teach or manage so that they do not compromise standards. He should not toy with the initiative for too long. It is the right step to get these stakeholders to lie on their beds the way they lay them. If the policy works, and I believe it will, other states may follow suit.