FOR the past fortnight I have been searching for answers to unravel the unstated mysteries behind the recent ill-advised and astronomical increase in the tuition fees of the Lagos State University.

A few weeks ago, the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, in consultation with the State Executive Council, increased the tuition fees of the Lagos State University from N25, 000.00 to N250, 000.00. Haba Governor! I could not believe the news when I first heard it, not because it lacked sense and reason but because it was just unthinkable that such decision could be made in these modern times without a broad spectrum stakeholders’ notice.

I expected the papers of the next day to refute the rumour but instead I was in for a shocker. The papers were awash with the story and a smiling Fashola majestically imposed on the cover pages. The Governor was even smiling. What a shame.

So many thoughts ran through my mind. I have always admired Gov. Fashola’s leadership in Lagos State because I am one of his greatest admirers.

I even made further efforts to show this admiration to the Governor and the state. All these to show my love and respect to a Governor who has so much to give back to the society that nurtured him to this Senior Advocate of Nigeria status. It would be recalled that Gov. Fashola is a 1987 alumnus of the University of Benin and some of his former lecturers like Prof. Itse Sagay can vouch for his brilliance and erudition.

However, my greatest disappointment in Gov. Fashola is that the university students of his era were firebrand optimists who had an incurable vision and obsession to change the then perceived ills of society with an inalienable focus to change the status quo and reverse the pyramidal structure of an unjust and wicked society. I therefore counted the Governor then as one of us who enjoyed free education ( zero tuition) in the Nigerian university system up to the ’80s.

Alas how mistaken I was! Governor Fashola met Lagos State as the Area Boy headquarters of the world .Today after over four years of governorship, things are even getting worse as Lagos State is still listed as one of the “educationally disadvantaged” by the Federal Government.

For this reason Lagos State has to shop for its “educated workforce”, including commissioners and even governors from the other South-Western states which boast of the largest number of professors and unquantifiable number of educated elite that distinguish them from the Northern and Eastern states of Nigeria. In fact, the greatest asset and forte of the old Western Region of Nigeria was education.

But today politics is having a reversed role with education. And today the Area Boys syndrome has waxed so strong that they are even a threat to the ruling “godfathers”. A case in point is the current court case involving Lagos State and the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, where the area boys flagrantly displayed an open show of force with firearms with government forces.

When Governor Fashola came to power I thought he would reverse the mistake of his predecessors and concentrate on transforming Lagos State from a bastion of hooliganism and lawlessness to a State where positive and meaningful education mattered most. In Plato’s Republic, the great Greek philosopher posits that “if education is neglected, it matters little what else the state does”. Plato believed that with a good system of education the state can achieve any improvement in the interest of the governed.

But instead of tackling the massive illiteracy of Lagosians, the Governor dissipated so much energy and valuable time on the “Lagos Beautification Project”. We started seeing interlocking blocks adorning public streets and culverts, flowered boulevards, painted streets, etc.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not against all these beautifications but where are the people to maintain and manage these facilities. Soon these interlocking bricks started disappearing. Some market women /men vandalized them to set up informal tables for their wares. Others took them home to adorn their compounds. Now most of the beautification programme is in ruins ans abandoned.

The greatest curse of our modern democracy is the illiteracy and crass ignorance of our leaders, some of who even though formally educated, exhibit so much incompetence and folly that you would be wondering whether they ever went through school or whether the school “went through them”.

Our leaders have concentrated too much on politics to the detriment of even their own education. Some one has just reminded me that our present Governor is a qualified lawyer and a SAN too. I then retorted: Then he must have read about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, etc. But is this knowledge of our great philosophers reflecting in his governance and political philosophy?

The leader himself must train and retrain himself. Behind this training lies the need of knowing what to do and what to expect from your workforce. It can never be assumed that someone already has the knowledge with which to govern human beings. The most salient factor here is more knowledge-as much as man can acquire.

Our present crop of leaders relies too much on wealth and political abracadabra to perpectually remain in power. With money they believe that power can be retained forever.

For instance, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was convinced to introduce free and compulsory state-run education after reading Plato’s Republic where Plato enunciated a compact and comprehensive state-directed scheme of compulsory education for Athenian citizens in ancient Greece 17 centuries ago.

Chief Awolowo was a bookworm, a workaholic and a visionary avatar and he did not become a leader of the Yorubas by oppressively flaunting his affluence but by reading so widely, working so hard and by achieving so many firsts in Africa and being a democratic model and pride, not only to his South Westerners but to Nigerians in general and the world as a whole.

Dr.   ABIMBOLA THOMAS,  wrote from Lagos.