Olumide Akpata, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, is the Chairman of the Kingsweek 2023 Planning Committee.
In this interview, Mr. Akpata delves into the theme of this
year’s Kingsweek celebration: ‘Dismantling the Barriers: Creating a Pathway for
the Emergence of Effective Leaders in Nigeria.’ He explores the pressing
questions surrounding leadership in Nigeria, especially the challenges faced by
educated and capable Nigerians in taking the helm of the nation. The aim is not
only to diagnose the issues but also to propose solutions that can have a
far-reaching impact on the entire education sector in Nigeria.
As King’s College marks its 114th anniversary, this
interview with Mr. Akpata provides a thought-provoking look into the challenges
and opportunities facing Nigeria’s education and leadership landscape. It
serves as a call to action for all stakeholders to prioritize education and
leadership development in the quest for a brighter future. Excerpts:
What informed the theme of the 2023 Kingsweek
celebration and how does it impact the Nigeria education sector?
At every turn, one is confronted by the myriad of
problems that afflict our country Nigeria and there is seeming consensus that
it is a failure in leadership, over time, that has brought us to this rather
sorry pass. However, this situation appears to be somewhat of a paradox because
when you look around, within Nigeria and in the diaspora, you find legions of
Nigerians, trained in schools like our King’s College, who are more than
equipped to lead and who are doing precisely that in their respective fields of
endeavour, but who somehow never get a look-in or, sadly, have become passive
when it comes to political leadership in Nigeria. Why is this so? Why are these
set of people “outside looking in” while the ship of state flounders? These and
many other allied questions, that have agitated our minds for a while now,
essentially informed the theme for this year’s Kingsweek: ’Dismantling the
Barriers: Creating a Pathway for the Emergence of Effective Leaders in
Nigeria’.
The plan is to intensely interrogate this issue in the
course of the Kingsweek, and hopefully proffer solutions to what is obviously
an endemic problem with mortal consequences for our nationhood. There is no
gainsaying that the outcome of our deliberations will have implications for the
country’s entire education sector as I think, for starters, it will become very
obvious to our education policy-makers that, going forward, they will need to
be more deliberate and forward-thinking about developing curricula that not
only focuses on how to train prospective leaders of this country but also
ensures they are future-ready. It goes without saying that the world these
leaders will need to thrive in, looks a lot different and far more complex than
what we know today. As such, it is paramount that we design the education of
our future leaders to ensure they have all it takes to compete with their peers
from other climes, especially in view of the global 4th industrial revolution,
which is well underway.
What is the biggest challenge facing youth leadership in the
country and how are organisations like the King’s College Old Boys’ Association
(KCOBA) helping in solving them?
I think the greatest challenge to youth leadership in
Nigeria is a lack of faith! On the one hand, of the older generations in the
capacity of the younger ones to take charge and actually do a good job. And on
the other hand, of the younger generations i.e. their trust or confidence in
the intentions of the older generations to serve their best interest and not
continue to pursue policies that appear focused on stunting their advancement
and/or will result in disadvantages as they look to compete in a rapidly
evolving world. Take my generation for example, we were once proclaimed “the
leaders of tomorrow!”. Now, we are over 50 and that so-called “tomorrow” has
come and gone. Yet, save for a few isolated cases here and there, we are
nowhere near assuming leadership in Nigeria….not to mention the generations
coming behind us. It is actually quite pathetic….the sheer waste of the energy,
vigour, passions and potential of our youth. KCOBA, strives to lead by example,
by preparing our younger members for leadership and actually encouraging them
to vie for and occupy positions of leadership in the Association. For example,
I was the General Secretary of the Association over 10 years ago, when I was
still in my thirties. You will agree with me that, for a School that was well
over a hundred years old at the time – with old boys who were well in their 80s
and who were still actively involved in the affairs of the Association, that
was a very welcome development. The remarkable thing is, this was no fluke,
because my successor was actually my junior, when we were at KC. The wider
society needs to take a cue from KCOBA.
How does KCOBA structure its Kingsweek programmes to ensure
that it can mobilise both the private and public sectors to address challenges
facing the college in terms of infrastructure?
Actually, for many years now, at least since 2007 when we
began the countdown to the Kings College Centenary, the focus of the KCOBA,
during our annual Kingsweek Celebrations, has been mainly on infrastructure in
the College and as a result thereof, in the last 15 years we have been able to
galvanise our old boys and, through them, the public and private sector within
and outside Nigeria to work with the Association in maintaining, improving and
augmenting the facilities and infrastructure at King’s College. This effort has
yielded massive results as we have been able, over this period, to attract
interventions in excess of N3B from old boys, corporate organisations, agencies
of the Federal Government, the Lagos State Government, amongst others.
When it comes to grooming quality leaders, Nigerians
increasingly list corruption, godfatherism as obstacles. How can these
pressures be tackled?
The answer is simple and straightforward. By enthroning
merit! This must be our national policy. I have no problems with affirmative
action…in its various iterations…zoning; women and youth empowerment; quota
system etc. These are aberrations that are sometimes necessary in the life of
any nascent nation. However, two key considerations must remain paramount.
Firstly, this deviation from the norm cannot remain open-ended and secondly:
merit must never be sacrificed. So, if we agree that an office is zoned to the
Northwest or Southeast? No problem. However, we must insist on producing the
very best from the Northwest or Southeast, as the case may be, and this must
result from an open and transparent process. This is how the continued
emergence of quality leaders can be guaranteed whilst ensuring equity and
inclusivity. However, when the enthronement of mediocrity becomes the national
dictum in the name of affirmative action, it can only result in catastrophic
consequences, as has become evident in our polity.
Partnership with the private sector is very critical to
maintaining the vision of King’s College. How do you see the role of
well-meaning individuals in the quest to enthrone qualified and capable
leadership at the Federal and Sub-national levels in Nigeria?
This definitely goes without saying. The task of ensuring
that there is a steady and unbroken process, call it a factory line, for
producing the next generation of leaders in this country is one that must be
undertaken through the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders. In other
words, the construct for designing and operating this conveyor belt of future
leaders cannot comprise and must not be the responsibility of government alone.
It requires active and consistent collaboration with the private sector and
successful individuals with high achievements across various endeavor. We say
in Nigeria, “it takes a whole village to raise a child”…by extension, it will
take enormous collaboration between government and the private sector to raise,
mentor and empower Nigeria’s next generation of leaders. At the KCOBA we have
never lost sight of the Kings College Charter which, essentially, is to train
Nigeria’s future leaders and we regularly collaborate with individuals and
organisations that share the same vision.
King’s College was founded in 1909. Photo credit: Wikipedia
For Kings college to be celebrating 114 years as an
educational institution, it must have gone through many challenges. What are
some of the high points in the schools’ quest to maintain excellence in
grooming next generation leaders?
Having been very involved in the activities of the KCOBA in
the last 20 years I have experienced, first hand, the many challenges
confronting both the management of the School and the Association in our joint
quest to maintain standards at Kings College – with a view to ensuring that the
School continues to bring forth the next generation of qualitative leaders for
Nigeria and indeed Africa. Top of the list would be what used to be the rather
haphazard mode of admission into the College. At a point, it was simply
bizarre, with the yearly intake into the College growing in geometric
proportions without any corresponding adjustments in budgetary allocation and,
more importantly, without any improvement in or significant expansion of the
existing facilities. However, I am happy to report that the KCOBA has been able
to successfully combat this existential problem and things have significantly
improved as far as admissions is concerned. Nonetheless, the problem of
inadequate and decrepit facilities persists and this is what keeps us, the old
boys, awake at night. We are deeply concerned about the present physical
condition of our School as this remains a major impediment to the School’s
ability to live up to its mandate.
When you look at economic indices like high unemployment
rate, low budgetary allocation to the educational sector among others. What
advice do you have for the present Federal government to address these issues?
All I would say is that governments, at all levels, must
prioritise education. We must invest in the continuous enhancement of our human
capital if we hope or plan to make any meaningful advancement as a nation. This
particular issue is very dear to me. I had the privilege of delivering the
46/47th Convocation Lecture of the University of Benin in November 2021, and
settled on the topic, ‘Re-Prioritisation of Education – A Panacea for the
Obstacles Challenging National Development in the 21st Century Nigeria.’ It is
not rocket science, and I am not saying anything new. Examples abound
world-over. The nations that have made significant strides in human advancement
have done so on the back of huge investments they made in training, developing
and capacitating their human capital. China is currently on the verge of
overtaking the US as the world’s largest economy and most advanced country,
because it has spent the last 50 – 60 odd years prioritizing the education and
up-skilling of its enormous human capital. In this country, we pay lip-service
to education and human capital development. Yet, wonder why things have gone
awry and the country appears stuck in inertia. In the last forty years there
has been a steady and sustained deterioration of education in Nigeria – at all
levels, and this flows from what I characterise as the gradual yet consistent
de-prioritisation of education. Predictably, we are now seeing, all too
clearly, the consequences of this tragic misplacement of our priorities. The
answer as I have said earlier is that governments, at all levels, and indeed
all Nigerians must re-prioritise education and by extension our overall human
capital development. Our greatest strength and indeed potential, lies in our
people. We must, as a matter of priority, educate, up-skill and empower our
people.
What has made King’s College different from other colleges?
KC is just different. So, it really is not a question of
“what has made KC different”, it was created different and it will remain that
way. It was set up, one hundred and fourteen years ago, for a specific
purpose…to groom leaders. So, we lead. We are in a class of our own. There is
no argument about that…there cannot be.
From your perspective as a King’s College Old boy, what
critical steps would you recommend to make the education sector better?
I think I have addressed this issue in a previous question.
The task of improving the education sector in Nigeria starts with government at
all levels. Government must as a matter of deliberate policy prioritise
education. Funding is critical so also is strategic planning. We must educate
our people with a view to ensuring that they are not only able to significantly
add value to the economy, but as well, sufficiently equipped to compete and
thrive in a world currently making quantum leaps in technological advancements.
Look at India…see how they have become such a formidable force in technology.
It didn’t happen by accident! Read about the Indian Institutes of Technology
set up in 1961 pursuant to an Act of Parliament. That is the sort of
intentional strategy you want to see implemented in Nigeria – along with the
political resolve to ensure its success and sustainability. Recently, the
Minister of Education set up a committee to fashion a roadmap for the education
sector in Nigeria with emphasis on funding in tertiaries institutions. This is
a welcome development. However the government of the day, and successive
administrations must demonstrate an unusual political will to implement,
sustain and institutionalize the positive recommendations of the committee.
What are some of the projections of KCOBA in the next five
years?
I think this question is best suited for those at the helm of affairs of the Association. Suffice it to say however that the ownership and/or management of the College, by the KCOBA, remains a matter of primary concern and I would imagine that this is something we would like to achieve within this five-year time frame.
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