El-Rufai, first class and academic Nazis on campus

In the Seinfeld television series, Jerry Seinfeld and his friends discovered a soup stand that was so good it caused break-ups between couples. Even though the soup was delicious, the customers were terrified of the chef, who was called the Soup Nazi because of the regimented behaviours to which he subjected his customers. “You’re kissing […]

In the Seinfeld television series, Jerry Seinfeld and his friends discovered a soup stand that was so good it caused break-ups between couples. Even though the soup was delicious, the customers were terrified of the chef, who was called the Soup Nazi because of the regimented behaviours to which he subjected his customers. “You’re kissing in my line, nobody kisses in my line! No soup for you!” This continued until Elaine, the plucky anti-authority friend of Jerry brought the dictatorship to an end.
I was drawn to recall this episode while considering the havoc the academic Nazis on our campuses could wreck on a new policy introduced by the Kaduna State government.
El-Rufai has offered to sponsor Kaduna State indigenes who graduate with first class in any field to any university of their choice. The beneficiaries are free to choose to go to the big universities, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford.
This is an excellent policy that gives hope to our university students. For example, anyone who graduates from Harvard knows that he has a meal ticket for life. The policy also gives them something to which to look forward to, something for which to compete. 
We have no doubt that of the fact that Kaduna would soon be bubbling with heady scholars who would be breathing new ideas. It appears that el-Rufai is trying to clone people like himself. It also appears that this is the smart way to do it.
Many individuals beg to disagree and argue that only children of the elites who graduate from private universities would benefit.
Others also object that the stated requirement was too limited, Kaduna State government should have also invited those who graduate with second class upper degrees – I have seen someone who wished el-Rufai should have included holders of third class degrees! Although I concede that government policies should benefit as many people as possible and should target the long term (what Henry Hazlitt’s book, Economics in One Lesson, advocates), scholarships such as this, are offered to those who have shown tremendous aptitude in learning.
It may be that someone with third class would do better than a first class student, but we have no neat way of knowing until that person proves himself in a vocation of his choice. The flip-side may also be true; a first class student may only be an unthinking automaton. 
But that is why universities such as Harvard do not only consider merit, but put much stock on leadership potential. Therefore, the beneficiaries of this policy should keep this in mind. When applying, show to the school that, although we don’t know what the future holds, you have the potential to be like el-Rufai, Aliko Dangote, Professor Attahiru Jega or a Muhammadu Buhari. Show that you can be a leader either in politics, business, academia or the civil society.
You can do that by demonstrating independent projects that you’ve undertaken in the past. Maybe you’ve organised a community to solve their water problems?  Or you’ve created an economic model for cash transfer that would empower rural women?  You get the idea. Further, because these universities value diversity, we also have an advantage. For example, someone from Kaduna with the same credentials with a student from New York may get in faster than the latter, because of the promise of diversity.
Finally, if you send someone with a lower second class, how would they compete with scholars with first class brains from all over the world?
Therefore, it is not the policy (which is excellent by the way) that is the problem. The spot of bother lies on our campuses – with the lecturers, the academic Nazis, if you will. The local universities, such as the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, are supposed to be feeders for this policy, but I can bet my last kobo that the students el-Rufai will get from these universities can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
For I’ve not seen a society where university teachers compete – actively – to deny their students first class degrees such as northern Nigeria. When they see that a student is likely to graduate with first class, they find a subject from which to deduct marks. “No one has ever graduated with first class from this department,” a lecturer boasts. Isn’t that an indictment of the lecturer that he’s not good enough to produce a first class student?
Life is complicated, teaching is not. Recently, I gave a keynote address at one of our universities. During the talk, I told the students and many of their professors who attended that if you ask a Nigerian which is the best university, they’re likely to give you a university where courses are difficult and it is extremely hard to graduate with good grades. They all laughed, not because it was funny, but because they knew I was telling the truth. Difficulty does not equal quality.
It appears that it is easier to graduate with better grades from the universities in the south. A friend told me that when he worked in one of the federal universities there, instead of adopting a cumulative GPA, the grades in the final semester or year determine your class. This is as bad as the tradition of conspiring to deny students their grades, but it shows that southern universities are not extreme about these things. 
Our northern universities are so settled in the tradition that many northerners go to the south for their master’s and PhD, because in the north, you don’t graduate!
What is not apparent to these evil lecturers is that they are cheating themselves because it is their sons, daughters, cousins and neighbours that should have benefitted from a policy like this. When Jonathan introduced the PRESSID and almost all the beneficiaries were from the south, we protested. They responded by telling us that there were no first class students from the north.
Like the Soup Nazi, what our universities are telling el-Rufai and others with similar policies is this: “No first class for you!”
El-Rufai’s best hope to include children of the poor may be to look for such candidates from Kaduna State University. State universities have begun to demonstrate that they have more sense than the federal universities. When I prepared some students from our state university for their postgraduate sojourn abroad, two of them graduated with first class. Therefore, I advised them to skip master’s degree and apply for PhD. The one who followed my advice emailed me recently that he had passed his PhD proposal defence.
Elsewhere, university teachers also have idiosyncrasies, but they tend to be colourful, fastidious and incisive intellectuals whose foibles hardly hurt anyone. Here, the teachers are unconcerned of their students’ future.