DIGNITY OF LABOUR: WAY
OUT OF BEING VICTIMS OF
EXAMINATION MALPRACTICES.
One of the earliest great thinkers who gave expression to the idea of the dignity of labour was Booker. T. Washington. He said, “No race can prosper till it learns that is as much dignity in tilling the field as in writing a poem”. Our educational system has been so fashioned by the former colonial rulers of this nation to teach us the three ‘R’s – Reading, writing and Arithmetic. It was deliberately designed to produce literate men and women who would love white – collar jobs. It was to breed a race of pen pusher with a flare to consume the goods, and product of the colonial countries. There was nothing in the education system designed to make us produce anything for ourselves. Rather the colonial masters saw to it that they used our raw materials to produce whatever we needed. While they produced, we did not more than to consume the products of their industries. They developed their technological and industrial skills while we remained stagnant with open arms to receive whatever they chose to ship to us and at their price. Our country became a dumping ground for all sorts of inferior goods and services, thwarted by an educational system designed for pen pushers and educated men and women, who can read, write and solve problems in mathematics and science subjects on paper. The elites of our society have lost, the use of one of God’s greatest gifts to man – his hands – and with that loss much of the other grated gift, the brain, to the extent, that the people the elites are supposed to lead, live are dying in want, poverty and without proper medical care in a country that is so abundantly blessed as to the envy of the world.
If in their reading our educated leaders stumbled on Booker .T. Washington’s assertion that “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling the field as in writing a poem”; they have certainly not in the past seriously applied it in the training of our youths. The result is that we have a country with the highest concentration of highly educated men and women in the whole of black Africa whose training has polished their tastes and ability to consume goods produced by foreign countries but never to produce anything for themselves. Because we have not taken the trouble to cater for the use of the hands as well as the brain in our educational institutions. Though we now have technical colleges, polytechnics, universities of technologies we still depend on foreign industries and foreign technology for our very existence. If God had not been gracious enough to provide air free of charge, I am sure we would have imported it from foreign countries. In spite of the abundant blessings of our nation we depend on people whom we should be feeding to feed us. Our very existence is in the hands of foreigners to decide whether we should eat rice or have bread at our breakfast table or nothing at all. Meanwhile our economy is sagging under the burden of foreign exchange and the tyranny of industrialized nations that must keep the developing nations perpetually poor by milking them dry and so secure a ready market for their industries as long as the industries of the developing countries do not see the light, of the day. The first generation of Nigerian educated men and women have won political independence for the country. The second generation of Nigerian men and women still have the task of winning economic independence for the nation. This is where the student comes in. He is to recognize that the education that prepares a man for the use of his brain without the use of his hands in a new would of technology is not only obsolete but is a great threat to the welfare and the survival of the nation that refuses to read the hand writing on the wall. We blame our ancestors for allowing the white man to use the black man as a slave.
A new form of slavery is in the offing. Must the student fold his arms for history to repeat itself? If the answer to the question is ‘No’, then the student must embrace whole heartedly the one and only philosophy that can reverse the trend – the philosophy of the dignity of labour. He must accept the fact that the education that trains only the use of the brain without the use of the hands will make him an inferior being to his counterpart in Japan, Israel or Sweden.
It is very pertinent to mention here that while there are very studious and hard working students in our schools in this nation some are very lazy and are not prepared to work hard to achieve success some of such lazy students depend on expo and copy to pass their examinations.
The end result of depending on copy, expo or external aid to pass examinations is that it leads to turning out - half baked individuals from our institutions. Such half baked individuals are always problems to themselves and the society they belong.
It so happened some years ago, when a youth corper was posted to one of the prestigious model secondary schools in Edo – State.
Any time the coper is in class to discharge his duties as a teacher; his students would always argue with him. There arose a hot argument between the coper and his students on a particular topic he was teaching. The hot argument attracted the attention of the principal of the school.
The principal discovered that the corper was worst than the students he was teaching. The principal went into what the corpar has been teaching the student. He (the principal) discovered that the corper has been cheating the students but not teaching them at all.
The principal, there fore wrote to the director of NYSC in the zone for immediate withdrawal of the corper from his school what a big shame to this kind of half baked corper!.
It has been discovered today that most candidate that score high marks in JAMB (NOW UTME) examination are always those who could not pass the post – UME. What is the reason for this? The simple reason, is that, they must have hired mercenaries to write the JAMB (UTME) examination for them.
The most painful of this story of examination malpractices is that many of our elders and even our leaders in political elective positions are giving bad examples to our youths to copy from, let us carefully listen to this story by Dr. John Odey the parish priest of St. Patrick’s parish Kpirikkpiri in Abakeleke – Ebonyi State of Nigerian. The story goes: In may 2003, shortly after the so called election, a member as my parish, who is the principal of one of the secondary schools same where in Izzi, came to the parish. After we had exchanged greetings, I casually wanted to know from him the rate of examination malpractice in his school during the current WASC examination whether it was high or low.
In reply to this casual inquiry, he suddenly recoiled in to mode of total despair, shrugged his shoulder and said: ‘Father Nigeria is furnished.
Examination malpractice has become the rule and no longer an exception. When you tell young boys and girls that they should not indulge in examination malpractice they think that you must be mad to say that. I do not know where we are going. The future of this country took very bad’.
He went further and told me that when he told some of his students who were indulging in it that they should desist from doing so, one of the boys discourteously and boldly confronted him with the following:
“Excuse me sir, why are you disturbing us? You do not want us to pass the examination? In case you do not know. Let me tell you that the president of this country, the state governors, the local government chairmen and councilors and most of those who are now our leaders rigged votes during there cent election and nobody disturbed them. In fact, they employed the arm and the police that should have stopped them from rigging the elections to impose them on the people. Why then have you decided to disturb us when we are only try to survive in the Nigerian way?’
Finally, according to the principal the boy delivered his threat. He told his principal to get out of their way and allow them to do what they were doing. If he dared to disturb them again by telling them not to indulge in examination malpractice he would break his head with a stone.
The boy’s logic as morally reprehensible as it was, stood shoulder high over that of his principal and so sent the man packing in a plain language, the boy was telling not only his principal but all of us in this country that leaders who publicly and brazenly flout the law and the constitution of the land by retaining power through the most violent form of electoral robbery as it happened in this country in April and May 2003 and on March 27, 2004. The worst farm of elector it robbery was recorded in this country in -------------------------------------2007
Those who give tacit approval to such monumental fraud stand the risk of abdicating their moral authority to tell young bogs and girls not to indulge in examination malpractice. He was telling his principal that it dies not make any good sense in a country like Nigeria for the adult generation to keep pointing accusing fingers on younger ones when they copy whatever social vices they indulge form the same adult generation,
The boy was telling his principal that a man who watches the head of the family in silence while he breaks all the rules and regulations that are meant to keep the family alive, healthy and upright in order to achieve his unjustifiable ambitions stands the risk of being challenged by the young ones in that family if he dares to tell them to desist from towing the steps of their father by breaking some rules and regulations within their own reach in order to survive.
The principal on the other hand, could not pursue the matter further because he feared that a young boy who had the nerve to challenge him publicly when was caught red-handed doing the wrong thing must have made all the necessary` connections to squash the matter if ever he was caught doing it. That boy must had a godfather in crime that would have protected him and punished anybody who disturbed him as it is done in Nigeria.
Today, the genesis of the problem of Nigerians in all sphere of lives is that indulging in hard work and using one’s brain is denied. The few that are industrious who relay believes on the philosophy of the dignity of labour are relegated to the background. This is the simply reason why crime is getting higher and higher every day in this country.
Examination malpractice has ruined the lives of many of our boys and girls in this country. For instance, some couples of years ago, the university of port Harcourt took a drastic step and hard-line measures that may have surprised some Nigerians and taken many aback with the deregistration and withdrawal of 7,000 degrees (since 1996).
According to the vice-chancellor of the university prof. Nimi Briggs at Abuja when he delivered the first Wagnall lecture at the National University Commission (NUC), the University like others had been dogged down with rots and a clean up was carried out. The decision by the university to withdraw the 7,000 degrees of its grandaunts since 1996 is a step in the right direction that will have a far reaching and positive consequences and circumstances in Nigeria’s tertiary institution at all time.
Also, on Thursday, February 8, 2005 page 5 of the Nigerian Observer, the federal polytechnic Auchi expelled 254 students for forgery. On Monday February 7, 2005 page 9 of the Nigerian Observer, Ambrose Alli University Ekpoma also expelled 7 students for using fake matriculation numbers for clearance and other registration formalities into the various departments.
Furthermore, Saturday November 13 of this day page 5, Kogi State University Ayangba expelled 25 students for forgery while the Guardian of Saturday, January 22, 2005 page 4, the University of Maiduguri suspended 20 staff and 25students over their alleged involvement in admission racket and certificate forgery.
In order to effectively and efficiently combat the contagious disease called examination malpractice, our leaders in various leadership positions in this country, the school administrators and all and Sundry that have the love of this country and her future prospect in mind should always give good examples to our youths to emulate in all aspects of life.
APPENDIX II
Student Union Activities (Control and Regulation)
Decree 1989
Decree 47 27th December,1987
The Federal Military Government hereby decrees as follows:-
1 – (1) As from the commencement of this Decree, student participation in
all union activities shall be voluntary, and confined to individual campuses of universities or institutions of higher learning or any other similar institutions.
2. Nothing in this Decree or any other law shall prevent any Governing
council, Vice chancellor or any authority or person in charge of or in control of any University, higher institution or similar institutions from making regulations for the purpose of controlling student union activities within aforesaid institution.
2 – (1) where any society by whatever name called or known operating
within the campus of a university or any institution of higher leaning in Nigeria is pursuing activities which are:
(a) Not in the interest of national security, public safety, public order, or public health or
(b) Illegal inimical, destructive or unlawful the Governing Council, Vice-
Chancellor or any authority person in charge of or in control of the University of higher learning shall, after conduction investigations with respect thereto, proscribe any such society.
(2) It shall constitute an offence punishable under this Decree for any
student to engage himself or organize other students to participate in the activities of any society proscribed pursuant to subsection (1) of this section
3 – (1) The minister may, as from the commencement of this Decree,
whenever he is of the opinion that public interest or public safety demands, suspend of any specified period of time, remove, withdraw or expel any student (whether undergraduate postgraduate or otherwise) from any University, institution or higher learning or similar institution.
(2) The powers conferred on the Minster by subsection (1) of this section
may be exercise by:
a) any person authorized by the Minister to do so on his behalf; or
b) the Governing Council, Vice-Chancellor or any authority or person in charge of or in control of that institution. Provided that any student affected by paragraph (b) of this section may, within 28 days on receiving notification to that effect make representations to the president, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, whose decision on the matter shall be final and conclusive.
(3) The powers conferred by subsection (1) and (2) of this section shall be
to exercise without prejudice to any other legal proceeding (whether criminal or civil) as may be instituted or intended to be instituted against any student or any person aiding or abetting such student or person affected by this Decree by the appropriate authorities or persons.
4 – (1) If the president, Commander-in-chief of the Armed forces is satisfied
that any student union or association (in any University or institution of higher learning in Nigeria) is pursuing certain activities which are:
a) not in the interest of defense, public safety, public order public morality or public health;
b) illegal, inimical, destructive or unlawful. He may be Order published
in the Gazette proscribe such students union or association, shall as from the date of the Order cease to exist.
(2) Whenever any students union is proscribed under subsection (1) or this section:
a) the executive council of the proscribed union situated or operating
within any University in Nigeria or any other institution of higher learning shall be dissolved without any further assurance than this Decree.
b) the officers of or any members of the executive council of the
proscribed students union shall be removed from office without any further assurance than this Decree.
(3) Without any further assurance other than this Decree, the executive
council or any member of the executive council of the proscribed union, having possession of any property or assets of the proscribed students union shall within 14 days from the commencement of the proscription, surrender to the Vice-chancellor or any authority or person in charge of or in control of the University or institution of higher learning, as the case may be, such property or assets (including any subscription, fee or any other money howsoever described).
5 – (1) Any person who fail to comply with the provisions of sections 1,2, or
4 of this Decree shall be guilty of an offence under this Decree.
(2) Any person, whether or not, a student of a University, institution of higher learning or similar institution who aids, abets or participates in the violation of or non-compliance with any of the provision. Of this Decree shall be guilty of an offence under this Decree.
(3) Any student or person who commits an offence under this Decree shall be tried by any tribunal established by the Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offence) Decree 1984, as amended.
(4) Any person convicted of an offence under this Decree shall be liable to a fine not exceeding N50,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both such fine and imprisonment.
6. The provision of any enactment, law or instrument (including the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979, as amended) relating to any matter to which this Decree applies or relating to the admission of disciplinary control of student in any educational institution affected by this Decree shall have effect subject to this Decree.
7. The minister, with approval of the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, may designate, from time to time by order published in the Gazette, any other educational institution to be affected by the provisions of this Decree.
8. In this Decree, unless the content other wise requires. “Competent Authority” means the Governing council Vice-chancellor or any authority or person in charge of or in control or any affected institution as the minister may be order published in the Gazette, from time to time determines: “institution of higher learning” includes college of technology, teacher training college or any other educational institution as the minister may, by order published in the Gazette, from time to time, determine:
Minister means the minister charge with responsibility for matters relating to education.
9. This Decree may be cited on the Students’ Union Activities (Control and Regulation) Decree 1989.
