Innovations, inventions and other
educational feats achieved by Nigerians in Diaspora are numerous, spatial,
temporal and cannot all be recorded in
this column. However, I must mention one giant feat scored by Jelani Aliyu as a
testimony that Nigerians have the capacity to excel in all aspects of human
endeavor, giving the right environment and motivation. Jelani Aliyu, a Nigerian
from Sokoto state living in USA is a celebrated car designer of General Motors.
General Motors is perhaps the world’s largest automobile maker. Jelani Aliyu is the designer of the Chevy
Volt, a car refuted to be an American Revolution and considered to be one of
the apt concepts in the design line. Globally, Jelani's work was considered to
be a masterpiece in the car industry because it was the best selection made out
of many entries from renowned automobile designers across the continents. Prof.
Carl Olsen, an American professor of automobile design, a teacher to Jelani
described Jelani's piece as the bright future of General Motors. He said
"Jelani is exceptionally gifted as a car designer..... he is representing
the future of the General Motors....every designer was giving opportunity to
design a car that can meet certain criteria, not only in the United State but Britain and
Germany submitted their designs for the project. In the end, Jelani's design
was chosen as the best design" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqx-xKGeDCA).
The car, Chevy Volt designed by Jelani was powerful, efficient, aggressive and
unique compared to other cars in same class. Jelani, himself made a confession
that he was inspired by "nature, ....a slick aggression of a cheetah"
- powerful, smooth and aggressive move, direct to the target, "a practical
solution to technological balance of beauty, efficiency and excitement at the
same time". Nigerians living in USA celebrated Jelani's feat in grand
style led by Nigerian Foundation in Michigan whose President Prof. Chile Chuku
described Jelani as "an embodiment of creativity, honesty and worthy
ambassador". No doubt, the event attracted accolades across the globe.
Jelani's
path to achieving his glorious performance was tortuous, achieved through hard
work, perseverance and self confidence. Right from a word go, Jelani loved cars
and loved drawing. He told Daily Trust during an interview when he visited
Nigeria "I would say I have been drawing cars and designing them as far
back as I could remember, probably from when I was six or seven. I would draw
them first, cut out the top and bottom, and then put them together from empty
tins. I did that a lot and I would imagine myself owning my own car company.
Whenever I thumbed through a magazine and saw the latest Mercedes Benz car, I’d
also do my own version. It was fun". For Jelani, love for cars and drawing
transformed into a dream of becoming a
car designer. After his basic education, he secured admission into Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria to read architecture but realized that he could not achieve
his dream of becoming a car designer. He moved to another Institution to
acquire basic foundation required to study Automobile Design abroad. That
institution was the Birnin Kebbi Polytechnic. He was there from 1986 to 1988
and earned a national diploma in Architecture, with an award as Best All-Round
Student. While there, he did some indepth research into home design and
construction, looking into materials and structures that would be most
compatible with his environment and climate; buildings that would stay cool in
a hot environment with little, or no artificial electrical air conditioning.
Upon graduation from the polytechnic, Jelani had a brief staunch in the
Ministry of Works, Sokoto.
In
1990, Aliyu moved to Detroit, Michigan where enrolled at the College for
Creative Studies in Detroit under a Sokoto Scholarship board sponsorship.
Having always wanted to study Automobile Design, this was a dream come true and
an absolutely fascinating experience. The course was very practical and
emphasis was put on creativity and the development of new designs to provide
solutions. He received his degree in automobile design in 1994. In the same
year he started his career with the design staff of General Motors. He worked
on the Buick Rendezvous and was the lead exterior designer of the Pontiac G6.
He also worked on the Astra with General Motors’ Opel Division. How did he achieve his dream and was not
discouraged? "we should never underestimate the power of human
determination" that is the answer provided by Jelani when asked the same
question as shown in one the video clips in the social media.
There are many Jelanis out there,
all over Europe, Asia and Middle East who are equally patriotic and with
unquantifiable love for Nigeria. "Each time, I think of Nigeria and the
potentials that exist, it is just amazing and mind bugling... something has to
be done by the Nigerians inside and outside to make Nigeria a great
country", this is Jelani's comment on how to move Nigeria forward as a
testimony to his emotional feeling to the situation of Nigeria. This brings the
question; why are Nigerians excelling educationally in Europe, America, Middle
East and elsewhere while achieving very little here in Nigeria?
The answer to the question of
Nigerians excellent performance educationally in oversea compared to their
dismal performance in Nigeria can be linked to the environmental differences for teaching and learning. These differences
are direct result of internal and external factors militating against the
educational development in Nigeria. some of the internal factors are:
1. Poor Physical infrastructure, the poor conditions of the physical
infrastructure in tertiary Institutions in Nigeria were vividly captured in the
report of the Needs Assessment Committee. The committee was set up to assess
needs of Nigerian public Universities as part of agreement between the
government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for ASUU to suspend
its industrial action in 2013. Although, the committee was set up by the
Federal Government but it included representatives of all the stakeholders and
was composed of individuals with high level of integrity in the society. The identified physical infrastructure for
teaching & learning were Lecture
Theatres/Auditoria, Classrooms, Laboratories,
Workshops/Studios/Gymnasia,
Libraries and Staff Offices. Similarly,
the learning resources were identified
as Laboratory equipment and consumables, ICT facilities and services, Books, journals and periodicals Machines and other research equipment. The Committee reported that physical
facilities for teaching and learning in Nigerian Universities were inadequate,
they were being used beyond the original carrying capacity. There were
inadequate office accommodation in almost all the universities as many
lecturers, including Professors were found to be sharing small offices. Most of
the infrastructures were dilapidated, poorly ventilated and illuminated; poorly
furnished and equipped. Lectures theatres, classrooms laboratories and workshop
were over stretched or overcrowded and were being shared by many programmes
across different Faculties. There were also improvised open air sports
pavilion, old cafeteria convocation arenas and even uncompleted buildings were used
for lectures. In some cases, workshops were conducted under corrugated sheds or
trees. In many universities,
science based Faculties are running "Dry Lab" for lack of reagents and
tools to conduct physical/real experiments. No Cutting edge research equipment/facilities,
no laboratory, workshop or library could be ranked among the top 1000 in the world.
Where major equipment existed, the ratio of one equipment to numbers of students
in some universities, was as high as 1: 500. The committee further found out
that basic learning resources were unavailable or in short supply. The
committee provided many proofs to support their assessment, for instance, less
than 10 % of the universities were found to be using video Conferencing
facility, less than 20 % of the universities used Interactive Boards, even the
ones that used such Boards were using them in less than 10% of their lecture
rooms/theatres, more than 50 % were not using Public Address System in their
lecture rooms/theatres. Internet services were almost nonexistent in some
universities, or epileptic and very slow when accessing. Library resources were
outdated and manually operated, no university library was found to be fully
automated while less than 35 % of the libraries were partially automated. The committee assignment covered 61 public
Universities across the country (27 Federal owned universities and 34 State
owned)
at the time when there were a total of 74 public
owned universities in the country. The total cost of rehabilitating the
universities was estimated to be around 1.1 trillion Naira. As part of the
agreement between ASUU and Federal Government, about 300 billon was kept aside
for releasing to the universities under strict condition of transparency and
accountability. Unfortunately, some of the universities could not benefit
beyond the first tranche of release because they failed to meet the criteria
laid for effective fund utilization under the watchful eye of ASUU. Consequently,
three
years after this report and release of the fund, the situation has not changed
significantly in most of the universities. The classrooms, lecture theatres and
laboratories are still jam-packed with students. Equipment and consumables are absent,
inadequate or outdated, Kerosene stoves are still being used as Bunsen burners in
some laboratories. Students' Practical for Engineering and related disciplines
is conducted under zinc sheds and trees. (To be continued next week)
