If there is hell in Oyo State today, it is perhaps because Governor Abiola Ajimobi drove on the road of good intentions. He says he wants to reform public education and to this end, introduced an initiative that conjoins private partnership with the state’s efforts. The idea, perhaps expectedly, is being contested by the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, certain religious groups, and of course, secondary school students themselves who recently revolted against the idea of their schools being subjected to capitalists’ vagaries. The initiative – and any – that seeks to revamp education in Oyo State should not merely be resisted on murky ideological grounds but vigorously debated until parties can find a common ground.

In his recent interview with Splash FM, the governor spoke on the initiative. That conversation sparked mixed feelings in me. One, he seemed unwilling to empathise with those resisting the idea. The Nigerian economic situation is currently creating casualties and suggestion of further sacrifice on the part of the people will necessarily activate angst. Ajimobi should hold his internally generated rage and inquire the basis of public scepticism. Beneath that veneer of cynicism is their experience of bad faith; due to years of governmental deceit, people cannot simply trust the government anymore. Ajimobi cannot simply beat people on the heads with his lofty ideas. He needs to signpost his sincerity by addressing and redressing their distrust.

He should understand the disenchantment of the generation of citizens born after the locust years. They have never derived an iota of benefit from the government yet they are called to make sacrifices all the time. We can catalogue the registers of austerity the government has inundated us with over the years – from subsidy removal to belt tightening, sacrifice, trickle-down, and all that jazz, to attest to the non-benevolence of the Nigerian state.

Ajimobi says the state is no nanny, and Nigeria should not be a socialist country. Here, he misconstrues the architecture of relationship that has existed between the state and the people till now. What subsists as socialism in Nigeria is more or less the state’s dubious means of placating public restlessness. Those hand-me-downs are not engineered to generate productivity, but defer any revolutionary ideas that hunger pangs may trigger. Even more, it saves our leaders from the tedious task of thinking through our intricate problems.

Some questions that I waited for during the interview but never came were whether the state, with this initiative, was not merely dancing around the idea of returning schools to the original missionary owners. Why is he seeking partners to take over 10 per cent of the schools when the missionary owners alone can do just that? There are many areas of clarification that I expected the interviewers to sound him on. One was to elaborate on the initiative and clarify how it might work. I am interested in knowing how the state intends to partner businesspeople that will invest their money in the schools and then recoup their investment; how the schools will be valued monetarily; and how the state proposes to still regulate the schools with the new ownership.

Also, what becomes of the other 90 per cent that are not selected by partners? Will they receive inferior quality of education?

Another question I expected was whether the idea of free education was not outdated and should be phased out. After all, as things stand now, students are variously levied and it may be productive if the money collected from them are standardised and channelled towards improving the sector. Why, for instance, make them pay education levy yet insist education is free? Why should they supply their own furniture and other materials while “enjoying” free education?

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