Nigerian academics need to do more

The year 2015 was quite eventful in the area of academic research, scientific progress and advancing knowledge globally. However, the year just like many others, silently passed without significant innovative break-through from the Nigerian academia. For example, it has been 30 years since a new antibiotic drug was discovered. Early last year, a team from […]

The year 2015 was quite eventful in the area of academic research, scientific progress and advancing knowledge globally. However, the year just like many others, silently passed without significant innovative break-through from the Nigerian academia. For example, it has been 30 years since a new antibiotic drug was discovered. Early last year, a team from North-eastern University in Massachusetts, U.S.A discovered Teixobactin. The team used the drug to successfully treat resistant disease-infected mice and hope to begin human trials within two years. This new drug according to them could be instrumental in treating the mutated, resistant diseases that have become immune to the old antibiotics that we have been using over the last 30 years. Its method of discovery they say, could lead to more antibiotic findings.
In that same year, it was discovered that a fourth state of matter apart from solid, liquid and gas existed. A bionic lens with the potential to revolutionize eye care, designed to give patients perfect vision and ease eye operations was also invented by one Dr. Gareth Webb. A superior stethoscope with a smart adapter was also invented; it makes it possible for physicians to download heartbeat data to a smart phone. Water was discovered in planet Mars, a potential HIV vaccine and many other scientific discoveries were made over the same period, 2015.
The cold war between the USSR and USA that followed after the end of World War II was fought through different means. The scientists and academia of both countries played significant roles in trying to make discoveries that will strengthen their countries and outwit rivals. It was some of these discoveries that engineered the space race and popularized the use of artificial space satellites for gathering enormous information about the earth for human utilization. When Russia launched Sputnik in October, 1957, the world’s first artificial satellite, it was almost certain that world history would never be the same afterwards.
In the absence of reliable data, we may assume that the number of Nigerian professors that are still alive to be in the region of possibly 2500 or more especially if we consider the fact that there are more than 130 universities in Nigeria. Some first generation universities like University of Ibadan and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria may be having as many as or more than a hundred professors each. Such number of professors can change the fate of the world through research, not to talk of a nation.
Although many Nigerian academics and scientists have left their marks across various fields of knowledge, we are yet to effectively build on their foundation. Moreover, we are yet to transform many of our past and present academic achievements into tangible and impactful actions for development.
Despite the huge setbacks in the Nigerian education system which is primarily caused by poor funding and negligence, the Nigerian academics still need to do more. They must defy all odds and take it upon themselves to use their various fields to collectively rescue the nation and set it on the path of prosperity.
By Amir Abdulazeez, Abdulazeez can be reached via Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez