It is funny when some Yoruba try to project Northerners as ignorant while calling themselves the educated

By SHERIFDEEN ABBAS

Awolowo himself is no longer alive. The political and socioeconomic circumstances that produced the old Western Region’s educational achievements have changed dramatically. The question today should therefore be whether the contemporary South-West is still producing educational outcomes capable of sustaining the same confidence.

There is a certain irony in the way some Nigerians, particularly some Yoruba commentators, speak about Northerners and education.

The argument often goes something like this: the Yoruba are the educated people of Nigeria, while Northerners are largely ignorant, backward and dependent on the South for civilisation and intellectual development.

But how historically accurate is this narrative?

And more importantly, can educational achievement legitimately become a basis for ethnic arrogance?

These are questions that deserve honest examination.

There is certainly a strong educational history associated with the old Western Region. The free primary education programme introduced under Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo’s administration remains one of the most significant educational initiatives in Nigeria’s history. It expanded access to formal education and helped produce generations of educated people from the region.

That achievement should be acknowledged.

But there is a difference between celebrating a historical achievement and using it as a permanent certificate of ethnic superiority.

The story of Macpherson and Sultan Muhammadu Bello

One historical anecdote frequently cited in discussions about the intellectual sophistication of pre-colonial Northern Nigeria concerns a famous British visitor who met Sultan Muhammadu Bello (1781-1837). That person was Captain Hugh Clapperton, the Scottish explorer.

Clapperton travelled through the Sokoto Caliphate and met Sultan Muhammadu Bello. A historical account of his journey records a remarkable exchange between the two.

According to the account, Bello questioned Clapperton about Christian theological divisions, asking whether he was a Nestorian or Socinian. Clapperton replied that he was a Protestant.
The significance of the encounter was not lost on contemporary observers. An account published in Affairs of West Africa describes Clapperton’s experience as evidence of the intellectual sophistication he encountered in Sokoto.

Even more importantly, the same source preserves a statement attributed to Clapperton himself, in which he contrasted British knowledge of the world with British ignorance of the Sokoto region. He essentially said that while people in England could read and write and knew about many parts of the world, they knew very little about the country he had personally encountered—and that the inhabitants were wrongly regarded by Europeans as primitive savages.

The colonial conquest of African societies gave Europeans enormous technological and military advantages. That did not mean that African societies possessed no intellectual traditions, systems of scholarship or accumulated knowledge. Sokoto, in particular, had a long tradition of Islamic scholarship.

The intellectual tradition associated with the Sokoto Caliphate produced scholars and written works covering religion, jurisprudence, history, medicine, governance and other areas of learning. The writings associated with Sheikh Usman dan Fodio, Muhammad Bello, Abdullahi dan Fodio and other scholars are part of the historical record of intellectual life in the region.

Therefore, reducing the North to the stereotype of an “uneducated people” ignores a significant part of Nigerian history.

Education did not begin with colonial schools

This is an important point that is often lost in Nigeria’s ethnic arguments.

Formal Western education is not the only form of education.

Before the expansion of European-style schools, different Nigerian societies had their own systems of knowledge transmission.

In Northern Nigeria, Qur’anic and Islamic scholarship had existed for centuries. Scholars travelled, taught, wrote books and corresponded with other centres of learning across West Africa and the wider Muslim world.

Similarly, the Yoruba had sophisticated indigenous systems of knowledge, philosophy, literature, medicine, governance and religious thought.

The Igbo and other Nigerian communities also had their own systems of knowledge and social organisation.

The arrival of Western education introduced another model of learning. It was enormously important, but it did not suddenly transform Nigerians from an intellectually empty people into knowledgeable human beings.

Awolowo’s educational revolution deserves respect—but not ethnic ownership

There is no serious argument against recognising Awolowo’s educational contribution.

The free education programme in the Western Region dramatically expanded access to primary education and became one of the most enduring achievements associated with his administration. Generations benefited.

Many Yoruba professionals who later occupied prominent positions in law, medicine, academia, journalism, business, politics and public administration emerged from an environment substantially shaped by that educational expansion.

But here is the question: If an educational opportunity created by Awolowo is the foundation upon which generations built their achievements, should that achievement become an excuse for insulting Nigerians whose historical circumstances were different? Certainly not.

Awolowo himself is no longer alive. The political and socioeconomic circumstances that produced the old Western Region’s educational achievements have changed dramatically.

The question today should therefore be whether the contemporary South-West is still producing educational outcomes capable of sustaining the same confidence.

If educational challenges are now affecting communities across the South-West, as they are affecting communities throughout Nigeria, then perhaps the time has come to replace ethnic boasting with serious introspection.

The achievements of one’s grandparents cannot be used indefinitely as evidence of one’s own superiority.

What happens when a society’s role models change?

This brings us to another uncomfortable question.

There was a period when prominent Yoruba public figures who commanded respect across Nigeria included people such as Justice Akinola Aguda, Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin and Chief M.K.O. Abiola.

They represented different professions and public roles, but they were widely associated with education, law, public service, business, philanthropy and intellectual accomplishment.

The point is not that they were perfect human beings. They were not. The point is that they represented a particular conception of achievement.

Today, critics of the South-West sometimes point to popular entertainment and street culture figures—including MC Oluomo, Zego and Koko Zaria—as examples of a changing conception of celebrity and influence. But this comparison requires caution.

The individuals in the second category operate in very different fields from judges, lawyers, politicians and business leaders in the first category. Their professions, influence and social functions are not directly comparable.

Nevertheless, the broader question is legitimate: Who does a society celebrate, and what does that tell us about the values it is transmitting to the next generation?

Every society should occasionally ask itself that question.

If scholarship, integrity, public service and intellectual accomplishment are displaced by money, celebrity, political influence and street popularity as the dominant measures of success, the problem is not peculiar to Yoruba land.

It is a Nigerian problem.

The North also has serious work to do

None of this means that Northern Nigeria should become defensive about its educational shortcomings.

The North has enormous educational challenges.

Large numbers of children remain outside school in parts of Northern Nigeria. Insecurity, poverty, displacement, inadequate infrastructure, teacher shortages and other socioeconomic factors have made educational development difficult in several communities.

These problems should be confronted honestly.

Northern political and traditional leaders cannot simply respond to criticism by invoking the intellectual achievements of the Sokoto Caliphate.

History is not a substitute for contemporary performance.

If today’s Northern children are not receiving quality education, then today’s Northern leaders must answer for it.

The same principle applies to the South-West.

The educational achievements of the old Western Region cannot substitute for the quality of schools available to children today.

A degree does not confer ethnic superiority

Perhaps the most important lesson is that education should produce humility.

The truly educated person understands that knowledge is vast and that no ethnic group has a monopoly over it.

There are highly educated Northerners. There are highly educated Yoruba. There are highly educated Igbos.

There are highly educated people from the South-South, Middle Belt and every other part of Nigeria.

There are also poorly educated people in every part of the country.

The presence of professors in one ethnic group does not make every member of that group a scholar.

Likewise, a low literacy rate in a particular region does not make every individual from that region ignorant.

That distinction is fundamental.

Nigeria needs education, not ethnic competition

The tragedy is that Nigerians sometimes use education—which should be one of the greatest instruments for breaking down prejudice—as a justification for prejudice itself.

A person cannot reasonably boast about being educated while judging millions of people primarily by their ethnicity.

If education has taught us anything, it should be that historical circumstances matter.

Regions developed differently because of different histories, colonial policies, religious traditions, economic structures, government decisions and access to resources.

The appropriate response to educational inequality is not mockery.

It is investment.

If the North needs more schools, build more schools.

If the South-West needs better schools, improve them.

If teachers need better training, train them.

If universities need funding, fund them.

If children need protection from insecurity, protect them.

That is what an educated society should be discussing.

The real test

The real test of whether any Nigerian region is “the most educated” is not what its people say about themselves.

It is what its schools produce.

It is the quality of its universities.

It is the number of children who can read and write.

It is the quality of its teachers.

It is the standard of its research.

It is the innovations coming from its young people.

It is the integrity of its public institutions.

It is the quality of its intellectual discourse.

And, perhaps most importantly, it is how its educated people treat those whom they consider less educated.

If education becomes a weapon for humiliating another Nigerian, then something fundamental has gone wrong.

The Yoruba have every right to be proud of Awolowo’s educational legacy.

Northerners have every right to be proud of the centuries-old scholarly tradition associated with places such as Sokoto, Kano, Katsina and other centres of learning.

But neither history nor geography gives any Nigerian an inherited monopoly on intelligence.

The generation that benefited from Awolowo’s free education must now demonstrate what it can do with that inheritance.

The North must confront its own educational challenges with equal seriousness.

And both regions must recognise that Nigeria’s future cannot be built by one ethnic group declaring itself educated and another permanently labelled ignorant.

The real measure of education is not how loudly we proclaim ourselves superior.

It is how much knowledge we acquire, how wisely we use it, and how much better we leave society for those coming after us.

That is a standard no ethnic group can claim to own.