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Olivet Heights And Wale Okediran: Rewriting The Fate Of Public Schools In Nigeria

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Professionals In Government: Issues In Navigating The Policy Space In Nigeria

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Tunji Olaopa

In this piece, my objective is to celebrate the recent ascension of Dr Wale Okediran, medical doctor, public servant and writer extraordinaire, as the president of the Olivet Baptist High School (OBHS), Oyo, National Old Student Association (NOSA). For so many of us, Olivet Heights serves as a constantly unifying juncture that molded all those who attended that educational space and whose futures were somehow molded in one way or the other. Malcolm X once wrote: “My alma mater was books, a good library.” Olivet Heights for me is an alma mater of books. But it is also an alma mater of people. And Dr Okediran is one significant member of that space and remarkable old school that brought up all of us. And this is one choice I heartily applaud. With Dr Okediran, the national association of the OBHS has made the significant statement that the governance of old students’ association makes some fundamental addition to the understanding of the national context within which the association is situated. And this starts from the school itself that generated the association and the national space within which the association must operate. As the national president, Dr Wale Okediran, mediates this issue both as a writer and as a public servant who has a deep understanding of what reform requires.

Dr Wale Okediran was my senior at Olivet Heights, and his accomplishments as public servant, as a medical practitioner and most significantly as a writer, calls to mind the context of our intellectual and character development as students. And at a school whose fame then and now is founded on a firm educational and theological framework of a composite mental and moral development that seeks to make an individual useful both to the future of herself and others. The Olivet Heights that produced Dr Okediran and I is built on a triple heritage of character molding, spartan discipline and the instigation of productive ambition. Students at every level were stimulated into healthy competitions channeled through the quiz competition, the debating society and the competitive sports that gave Olivet Heights some of her glories in the Oyo environs and South-West Nigeria. Some of the significant names in Olivet Heights’ football achievements include notables as Lukula, Bajomo, and specifically in my set, the likes of Wale Odunayo, Willy Siyanbola, and Zege (the son of the famous Thunder Balogun), and Ajibola, his kid brother, Jagou Babayeju, Dipo Otegbade and Dipo Ojedeji. On the track and field, I remember a few names like Alloysius Egbakumeh, Bode Winsala, and Elizabeth Ajayi (now Oyedele) Nike Daramola (now Komolafe). No bona fide students of Olivet Heights in those days will ever forget the memorable chant on the field of football: “Olivet Heights, teach them soccer!”

READ ALSO: Toyin Falola Interviews Holds Conversation With Attahiru Jega

No one misses morning devotions at Olivet Heights. Anyone who does, does so on the pain of punishment. The singular motto of the school is direct: Cum Christo Progredere—Forward with Christ! Following the rigour of morning devotion was not a serious challenge for me. I came from a family of committed Baptists; my parents raised the children on a firm basis of Christian spiritual discipline, like the morning altar. While kneeling at the morning altar and invoking the name of Jesus Christ to guide our lives, many of us and our parents lacked the deep theological undertones that gave birth to Baptist beliefs within the heated cauldron on the nature of salvation, grace, and sin. The tenets of beliefs of the Baptist movement were forged in the theological disagreement between Calvinism and Arminianism. Both agree on the total depravity of humans and the substitutionary atonement of Christ, but both differ theologically on the nature of the election of the believers and of grace. While Calvinists hold on to the belief that election to eternal salvation is dependent on God and so cannot be earned, Arminians hold the belief that it is conditional on faith. And on the other hand, while Arminianism argues that God’s grace restores freewill to humans to achieve salvation, Calvinism insists that that grace is given only to those already elected. And yet, all this theological wrangling has nothing to do with the Baptist belief in living a good life in the light of Christ’s examples.

A core part of my present sense of service and professionalism derived in large part from my observation of the dedication of the school faculty—the principals, teachers and administrators, all iconic educationists – from Rev. J.B.P. Lafinhan, 1962-1972; Chief R.F. Fasoranti, 1973-1975; Chief S.O. Omitade, 1975-1977; Chief J.I. Popoola, 1977-1982; to Mr. I.A. Adisa, 1982-1989, who took the different dimensions of their work as a ministry to mold our lives and those of all the others who passed through that citadel. All the curricular and extra-curricular activities had a central goal. It was not difficult for me to find myself in the debating and the quiz teams both of which I led to represent Olivet Heights. The discipline, and joy for me, revolved  around the extensive research regime that attended the debating competition. Literature was a delight, especially with my teacher, Mr. I.A. Adisa, who would later become the principal, as well as Mr. Tade Ipadeola, the father of the lawyer and famous poet, Tade Ipadeola. Mr Adisa would later recruit me to take his literature class when he moved to Awe High School. And it was at AHS that I committed the sacrilege of undermining Olivet Heights’ longstanding quiz reign with a resounding defeat by the AHS quiz team I groomed.

READ ALSO: Lead City University: The Leap of Success – Toyin Falola

So, the ascension of Dr Wale Okediran as the president of the OBHS National Old Students’ Association generates nostalgia for me, especially at the juncture of our shared dynamics. My formative years as a writer began at Olivet Heights when I started as a member and then later became the editor-in-chief/president of the Olivet Press Club. When Dr Okediran commenced the Ebedi Writers Residency at Iseyin, Oyo State, I was deeply fascinated with the concept, and I had toyed with the idea of a similar project simply for book reading as it explicates public policy discourse which would be an appendage of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy but situated at Aawe. But then, Okediran’s presidency of the Old Students’ Association and my reminiscing about OBHS inevitably bring up a larger issue: what does the presence and educational dynamics of Olivet Heights spell for the state of public schools in Nigeria today? The existence of NOSA speaks to the enthusiasm and willingness by those who have been molded by its excellent educational and academic tradition to keep the tradition alive for other generations.

How many public schools have the tradition and trajectory of excellence that Olivet Heights possesses? Or how many of them have been able to sustain an erstwhile excellent tradition? Or even, how many public schools were ever able to take off excellently in order to be able to generate an excellent tradition? The public schools constitute the government’s foundational investment into the building of a human capital development that backgrounds the government’s development planning. However, if public schools have become so dysfunctional as to have been overtaken by private schools, whose primary objective is profit, then there are serious foundational problems with Nigeria’s development. Nigeria’s primary school education system is practically in shambles. I should know about this because I was once head of policy division in the Federal Ministry for Education and led the significant Education Sector Analysis that diagnosed Nigeria’s education dynamics. Indeed, the emergence of old students’ association goes beyond the need to give back to one’s alma mater. These associations have become the equivalents of the self-help strategy that Nigerians now adopt, in the wake of Nigeria’s galloping underdevelopment, to shore up what remains of the integrity of public schools in Nigeria. In plain language, old students’ associations are the signifiers of the failure of the Nigerian state to carry out her responsibility to Nigerians. Unfortunately, however, it remains to answer how many of such associations have the means and wherewithal to do what the government is meant to do. Or, even more pungent, how many of these associations are available relative to the number of public schools available to transform Nigeria’s human capital development need?

READ ALSO: Ibadan: My City of Fame 

This then becomes a clarion call for the Okediran-led administration of NOSA to buckle up about its responsibilities to Olivet Heights, and this more so within the context of a general rot in public schools in Nigeria. If I am permitted, one more matter needs to be added to the task of Dr Wale Okediran and the whole of NOSA—an advocacy campaign for the need to declare an emergency in Nigeria’s education sector. Dr Okediran is more than qualified to get this done. He not only possesses the creative imagination to outline the strategy that NOSA could pursue to achieve this. He also has the public service credentials as a former member of the National Assembly to understand the critical framework of power and its deployment, as well as the critical connections to get this done.

We can no longer continue with a piecemeal approach to individual development in Nigeria, from individual Nigerians to individual public schools. We need a better approach. And the starting point is to achieve consciousness building across the nation. This is my initial challenge to the OBHS-NOSA and its indefatigable leadership, and I shall return to make public their scorecard and to celebrate their achievements to boot. Olivet Height taught us to do good and to do well, and the Okediran-led NOSA should do no less than set standard for old school governance as vanguard for public school reform in Nigeria.

Olaopa is a former Federal Permanent Secretary , and Professor of Public Administration, National Institute for Policy & Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos.

tolaopa2003@gmail.com

 

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Opinion

The Decay Of 2024

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

Two days ago, that is, on Wednesday, 1st of January, we entered a New Year – this year 2025. Indeed, in the mid-night of Tuesday, 31st December, 2024 that rolled to join the mid-morning of 1st January, 2025 we entered another year, this year! At 9:00 PM of Tuesday, 31st, December, 2024 I was in bed gazing so much into the generator of my un-deep and deep learning and what would soon emerge as that of a new sensation that would conduct me to a new experience. My gaze was not an ordinary one. It had the expression and dignity of the spiritual and of the mystical. I enjoyed what came to me. But I dozed off only to be woken up by the chime of my phone’s alarm at that nicely delicate mid-night/mid-morning hour. A new year, another new year, had gently, softly marched in, marched into my life (and into yours as well). The alarm ceaseless chime interrupted my elaborate and expensive spiritual revue. But what was revealed in my short early night nap was intellectually, mystically and spiritually invigorating. But for now, what must be held back, must be held back. And what must be said now must be said now – as a curious or as an intriguing introduction to 2025. (Happy Yunyen! Yunyen!!! Oh! I recollect, recall A Garden of Moods. Mine.).

2024 was a wicked year; it was a very wicked year. Its wickedness in one instance we all saw in the hunger in the land – as the column drew concise attention to last Friday in its appearance in the gone year which mirrored the total decay of the country’s middle class. 2024 cruelly sent the middle classes comprising many retirees right from 2023 to a place where they would be eventually wiped out, if they do not resist frontally the decadent ones in political power and authority. How can they do this? Simple, I must say. But I won’t go the whole hog here – meaning that I won’t spell out what I meant and mean to say thoroughly and unreservedly. The little thing I want to give vent to here and now (as I am allowed to give vent to) is this: The Nigerian middle classes comprising our dons, bankers, oil and gas workers, senior civil servants and other professionals, including lawyers and journalists are no longer, under this democracy that is not really a democracy, morally committed to the aristocracy in power and authority. The listed middle classes and others not mentioned or listed here must realize as never before that they can no longer be dependent upon the aristocracy in the presidency, the national assembly and the judiciary as well. The middle classes really have nothing to lose because the ‘aristocracy,’ in actual fact, are subordinate to the middle classes – which are surprisingly giving acquiescence to the shenanigans of the ‘aristocracy’ which have gradually steadily been absorbing and destroying them through diverse stratagems. Things, from my observation, came to a head and to the acme in 2024, the year of decay.

As a matter of fact, our ‘aristocracy’ are a decadent aristocracy whose decadence especially in the just gone year is enabling me to label 2024 as the year of this country your country my country our country’s cheaply cheap and senselessly senseless decay.

President Ahmed Tinubu, our PAT’s first media chat (since his presidency) in the penultimate Monday of December 2024 clearly underscored this feeling in me, and I became more critical of him. PAT oozed confidence and spoke confidently throughout, but I did not give him a pat on the back when the media chat ended. Our distinguished PAT was all too meagre in his responses to the posers tendered before him. His confident mannerism did not translate to substance when he spoke his sentences of mostly substance-less ideas. I watched him long enough to come to the conclusion that the decay of 2024 will continue in 2025 if the middle classes merely posture themselves akimbo. And things will would be pretty, pretty bad for the lower classes or the down-trodden denizens and natives who still exist; but will cease to exist in no distant time if pretty President Tinubu the pretty dribbler continues with his pretty game. I swear! With what PAT has contrived and is still contriving – unless his own genie melts his heart – 2025 will be pretty, pretty horrible for them. They will dis-server themselves from the world – to deprive themselves of all interest in life – to vanish, to disappear, to give up their tiny places and meagre privileges that are really no privileges, without gaining admission to the portal of the dead. The down-trodden of this era of PAT’s civilization will be compelled to deprive themselves of all interest in existence. If PAT’s friend, as allegedly reported, has given up his five Rolls Royce for a secondhand Honda car, a Belgium-delivered one, and PAT relished telling us the story himself in his own Emilokan mannerism or artistic manner, you do not need this writer whose pen has no gramophone, to sound or re-sound the story with a thousand gramophones or loud-speakers to all and sundry. But know this very, very well: Tinubu is the president that has come to enjoy Nigeria, not the president for Nigeria to enjoy. And also note this capitally, even if you knew it before now: This president your president my president our president is cruising in a supremely expensive yacht, a customized state-of-the-art air-craft and cars upon cars whose costs must shockingly be out of the reach of our rich but poor clime as dictated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the lords pretty, pretty Tinubu cannot defy, not because he cannot defy them but because he enjoys defying Nigerians. He has, against our wishes, allegedly, in his own words, “been travelling round the globe to campaign and sell Nigeria.” Phew!

What I have dwelt on so far is not a bed-time tale. The fate that 2025 will throw at us will more than very rapidly follow the example of the decadence of 2024 of supreme or high decay. Soon, very soon, the Ibadan, Abuja and Okija stampedes will ease themselves from your and their memories, but hunger that is hunger and that is also more hungerful than hunger will keep its direct contact with the people. PAT’s vision-less economic civilization will force it to keep on visiting us. But the middle and lower classes can separate themselves from its fatal embrace. How? Figuratively, by not standing akimbo – meaning? Answer: By not doing the akimbo gait, each and everyone. All hope, however, is not lost and cannot and can never be lost.

I have delivered this little delivery that the Supreme Spiritual Masters of Merit (SSMM) asked me to reveal when I, as a visitant, tip-toed to them in their conclave of conclaves.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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Opinion

Extravagant Cost Of Funerals And Wretchedness Of Mourning Traditions 

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State
Dr Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

A recent Facebook post by a Danish woman, Anja Ringgren Loven, was a brutal reminder of the debauched mourning traditions in some parts of Nigeria. In the post, Anja noted how she and her team saw a “lot of children living alone in a house with the corpse of their mother”. According to her, it is common for many families in Akwa Ibom to keep the corpses of their relatives in a room because “they don´t have money to pay for a funeral”. This is deeply embarrassing. She further pointed out the troubling trend of abandonment of loved ones whose bodies remain in morgues, “driven by rising costs and societal expectations surrounding extravagant funerals”. Yes, extravagant funerals. I mean, why should funerals be wasteful? Why should bereaved families go through or be made to suffer this additional pain and loss?

Anja’s observation is apt and applies not only to communities in Akwa Ibom but also to other places in South-South and Southeastern Nigeria. When someone dies, people are twice as bereaved. They grieve not only because of the person who passed but also because of the cost of the funeral. This is shameful and needs to be addressed. I am from Imo State and moved to the Southwest in 1994. For over two decades, I had limited contact with relatives and seldom participated in their traditional rites and ceremonies. I heard people complain about the costs of funerals but I thought it was all self-inflicted and something that one could easily avoid or do away with. But it was in 2021 when my father passed away that I realized how profligate these funeral traditions are and could be. I came face to face with the lunacy and viciousness of self- styled custodians of ‘traditions’. It has been difficult to get over the pain and disappointment over the decadent funeral culture in my community.

Look, when people pass away, relatives should grieve but they cannot, because they are not allowed to. The bereaved are unable to mourn because of what Anja noted in her post as ‘costs of funerals and societal expectations”. In many cases, funeral traditions push families into debt. The funerals are more traumatizing than the death of relatives. If there is something a grieving person or family needs, it is not to be subjected to a grueling funeral tradition, to extortion at every turn in the name of Omenala (tradition). In my case, after the death of my father, relatives whom I never knew or could barely recognize started emerging from nowhere. They started calling and dictating various funeral traditions to be observed and fulfilled. For them, these traditions were sacrosanct and must be upheld. My father was sick and bedridden for years. Many of these relatives never cared. Some despised him. But as soon as he passed, they started making various demands, wanting and pressuring the family to do the omenala (tradition). If one takes a critical look at what they identify as the Omenala, it is all their fabrication; things that they made up and called traditions. At some point, I wondered “If my father was buried soon after he died in Ibadan or at his village, without these stupid and encumbering traditions, what would happen? Would heaven fall?”

Soon after the death of my father was announced, relatives from different sides of the family started sending me lists of things to do and buy including goats, chicken, cartons of beer, tubers of yam, coolers of rice, fufu, and assorted soup, etc. I noticed that funeral traditions were only devices to extort money from the bereaved. Funeral traditions were not really about mourning and grieving. The funeral was about eating, drinking, and merry-making at the expense of people who are grieving. I found this way of ‘mourning the dead’ disgusting and outrageous. Let me cite two instances that revealed the wretched and bankrupt nature of funeral traditions during my late father’s burial. When my father passed we needed to inform his maternal relatives. I informed them by phone that my father had died. I did this because I was not living in Imo State. But they said that it was not the ‘tradition’, and that I needed to come physically to inform them. Think about it. Is that not stupid?

This tradition started before cell phones were invented; when people traveled on foot to inform relatives about deaths and births in families. Why can’t we change this ‘tradition’ so that people can phone to inform relatives about the death of a family member? By the way, these same relatives accept monies electronically transferred into their accounts. They do not invoke tradition to reject such transactions.

I later traveled to my father’s maternal home to inform them about his passing. They told me that I should advance some funds; they gave me a long list of what to buy and bring along the day I would come to ‘properly’ inform them that my father had died. Imagine that. I was deeply embarrassed. These relatives conducted themselves with straight faces. Some said they were lenient and did not bill my family enough.

Fast forward to the funeral day, my father’s maternal relatives arrived and demanded a cow because they saw some cows in the compound. There was no cow in the list that they gave us. I told them that a cow would not be given to them because there was no cow on the list that they gave and they angrily left. I ignored them. Two days after the funeral, they messaged that my family should go ahead and fulfill the tradition as contained in the original list. And we reluctantly did.

In the end, after subjecting us to all the stress, I curiously asked them what they had for the family. One of them said, prayers and blessings. I said What! Prayer and blessing? From who? For what? I could not get my mind around this utterly pointless and senseless response. I thought they were joking. Later in the day, two ‘elders’ came and again asked for ‘hot drinks’. They said they wanted to pray for the family. I declined to participate in the prayer. My immediate younger brother accepted and they prayed and left. I could not believe that all that they had for the family in return was “prayer”. Look, the funeral tradition is not a scam. It is an extortion device. When I came home to prepare for the funeral, a relative told me that people were expecting a lot from my family. I deemed that a senseless remark because I could not fathom how those people came about their high expectations. And why we were obliged to fulfill them.

Indeed social expectation and pressure drive mourners into debt and bankruptcy. Many people borrow money or sell family property such as land to bury a family member. Just imagine that. There have been instances where people in the community lend money or buy some property of bereaved families at giveaway prices. Now the bereaved families spend the money fulfilling funeral traditions in the same community. I mean, people are so callous and insensitive.

Having said that I also noticed that some family members contribute to this problem because some use funerals to further some selfish goals and interests. Some family members see funerals as a business, as a way to raise money. Some people use funerals as opportunities to show off their wealth, status, and success, to let the world know that they have arrived. In my case, my father’s funeral was an opportunity for one of my siblings to advertise and launch his political ambitions, and invite and feast his political friends and allies.

For him, our late father’s funeral was a strategic opportunity to make a political statement. In addition, the funeral provided a platform to compete and know who would outspend others. So at the funeral, beneath the plastic smiles were microaggression, tension, vendetta, rivalry, and intraspecific squabbles. Whilst publicly the funeral was framed as honoring the dead, giving a befitting burial to the relative and protecting some family pride. And all the unnecessary, ‘extravagant’, and uncalled-for expenses were presented as efforts to ensure the family was not disgraced!

We need to change this wretched funeral culture and tradition. It is disgraceful and destructive. This funeral orientation hurts and harms people. We need to end a practice that continues to impoverish those who mourn. Funerals should be conducted in ways that allow people to grieve and come to terms with the loss of their loved ones. They should not be opportunities to rub shoulders, oppress, extort or exploit others. Funerals should not be avenue to display wealth and affluence. Funerals should be what funerals are supposed to be: ceremonies to honour and bury the dead. So a funeral should be a private affair and should take place at little or no cost to the relatives of the dead. There should be no need for families to sleep with corpses of relatives at home or abandon them in morgues for weeks, months, and years due to the costs of funerals and social expectations.

This cultural show of shame must stop. Let us end this costly and extravagant funeral tradition now!

Igwe, PhD , is a humanist and lives in Ibadan

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Withdraw The Charge  And Free Arrested ‘Witchdoctors’

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State

Hakainde Hichilema
President of Zambia
State House, Lusaka, Zambia

Your Excellency,

Withdraw The Charge  And Free Arrested ‘Witchdoctors’

My name is Leo Igwe from the Advocacy for Alleged Witches. We campaign against witchcraft accusations, witch persecution and witch hunting in Africa. We aim to end witch hunts in Africa by 2030. I am writing to inform you that the news reported by the BBC, Suspected ‘witchdoctors’ arrested over attempt to ‘bewitch’ Zambia’s president, has been so embarrassing to us all. The report is a setback to our vision to end witch hunting in the region. Your Excellency, do you really believe in witchcraft and in the potency of charm?

If you take a critical look at the report, it is the police that broke the law by arresting the so called ‘witch doctors’. It is the police that broke the law by imputing that what was in their possession was some charm that they intended to use in harming you. So I urge you to withdraw this bizarre charge which is making Zambia a laughing stock in the international scene.

As I have noted in this blogpost, how would the police prove that what was in their possession was some charm? How would they prove that beyond reasonable doubt as required by law? How do you prove that they intended to use that to harm you? Even if by any stretch of imagination they so confessed, how does it make any legal or criminal sense to you, Mr. president?

In addition this arrest is a waste of police and legislative resources of Zambia. The country is grappling with serious socioeconomic problems, so this arrest is a distraction. It is a deflation of attention from urgent pressing national issues. There is no evidence that anyone could kill or harm another person through witchcraft or charms. Such a claim has no basis in law, science or reality. It is a mistake to charge the ‘witchdoctors’ under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. It is a misreading, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of that criminal provision.

Once again I implore you to withdraw the charge and free the arrested ‘witchdoctors’.

End witchcraft accusation in Zambia

End witch persecution in Zambia!

End witch hunts in Zambia!!

Sincerely,

Leo Igwe, PhD, Director, Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

https://advocacyforallegedwitches.com/

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