Sadiq Abdullah's piece, Education and Democracy in Nigeria: Vision 2020 caught my attention for a number of reasons. The write up made certain valid pronouncements about the ills plaguing the education industry in the most populous collection of blacks in the world. Some of the incontrovertible deductions are that Nigeria has never lacked sound, workable and well-intentioned policy on education neither has the country lacked practicable system of education. Sadiq traced the history of development plans, which he said, started with the 1966-1970 prescription of Gowon administration. The place and effects of the political plurality of Nigeria and its impacts on the administration and actualization of education in Nigeria did not escape the writer's attention. He laid the foundation of the treatise by revisiting the concern of the current Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili's, report on education reforms. The report, he affirmed, failed to address 'the main problems facing education in Nigeria,' although he said his conclusion was informed by certain commentaries and not on his personal perception of the report because he had not read it. Highlighting the influence, which the three major ethnic groups wield on the socio-political events in Nigeria, Sadiq examines the place of the religious peculiarity of the major ethnic groups on the system of education being experienced in Nigeria.

Tethering his argument to the thought system of the American philosopher, John Dewey, the conclusion is that, ' the new education plan should endeavor to create viable and enabling programs amidst the challenges of private vs public education, funding, instructional methods, research, and teacher education, citizenship education programs, and activities that have crucial sustaining the goals, objectives and aspirations of the nation.' He has a word for the in-coming political ruler ship: 'as the nation awaits the new president, political scientist, educators, and others continue to express concern about the role of education in providing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for Nigeria. I am optimistic we headed in the right direction.'

This two-pronged summation is a veritable proof that the major problem intriguing the education industry in Nigeria is not the absence of informed, rational, insightful and directional submissions on how to pull the system out of the abyss of rot in which it is currently wallowing. Rather, it is the lack of willingness on the part of the policy makers and those charged with the responsibility of implementing the policies. In order to address the gargantuan challenges facing the industry, one should first make certain salient clarifications, which are germane to an effective search for remedies to the maladies.

Education is just one of the many stages in the process of nation building. Therefore, whatever discussion there should be must be made from the point of view of the other levels of the system. The nature of education is such that the consequences of whatever knock and bashing it receives may take several years to manifest. Education is a life-long activity; the fact that one has left school does not imply that one has stopped learning. So, what exactly has gone amiss with education in Nigeria? Who, when, and under what circumstances has the rudder been rudely uprooted from the ship of Nigeria 's system of education?

The active operators of any system are human beings. In an operation that involve

s imparting knowledge, they are three interactive partners: the policy makers, the implementers, and the raw materials. In the case under scrutiny, the policy makers include the minister, the permanent secretary, the governor, the commissioner and every individual involved in policy formulation. The second leg of the tripod, the implementers, lecturers, the governing council, senate, and all the individuals and groups involved in interpreting policies. The raw materials are the students and those who directly or are the teachers, the instructors, the vice chancellors, the rectors, the technicians, the indirectly benefit from the activities of the second group, the implementers. The dynamism of the interaction among these operators suggests that there is no sharp division in the membership of the three groups: a member of a group may necessarily belong to another of the groups, depending on what role he plays at the point in time.

The 6-3-3-4 system of education and the one before it are all brilliant ideas. The problem has always been the approach to actualizing the rudiments of the system. How does the rot set in? Very simple: the head of government mandates a minister or in some cases, the minister feels he has a good idea he wants the federal cabinet to examine and ratify. Therefore, he presents the idea before the federal executive council. The idea may emanate from the national assembly, it is debated and passed and the president gives his nod by appending his signature.This is the formality of initiating and entrenching policies, the ways of life or the identities, the modus operandi. An integral part of policy formulation is determining the amount of cash needed for the execution of the policy and it is the responsibility of the sitting powers to ensure that enough cash is made available for the actualization of the policy. Very relevant to funding is monitoring .It means, when a policy is formulated, cash must be released for the actualization of the policy and it must be ensured that the cash is used for what it is released for. That, briefly, is the picture of an effective system.

However, is that the case in Nigeria? The answer is a capital no. The very day a policy is put in place, the people who championed the course of the policy are among the first set of people to circumvent the success of its implementation: they explore and exploit all the susceptibilities of the policy to their advantage thereby rendering its essence ludicrous.A practical instance is the system of education in Nigeria. In a write-up titled Beyond 6-3-3-4: A Recipe for the Education System in Nigeria, I painted a modest picture of the how as follows:

It is an understatement that the system of education being implemented in Nigeria today has lost the quality of 6-3-3-4. If not for a handful of Nigerians who, through a dint of handwork, still reflect the indices of being educated, we should be talking of a total collapse of the sector. A discourse that aims to unravel the root-cause of the decay that has laid a destructive siege on the system of education in the most populous black nation on earth should visit each stage of the process, examine it in order to see where the decline began to set in and solutions must be proffered in view of the gist of the discussion.

The starting point is the pre-primary education, which is given to the child between ages three and five. These schools, otherwise called nursery schools, are run like private businesses, which should yield bountiful profits. As a result, the founders ensure that they do everything in and out of the books to maximize profit at the expense of rendering service to the Nigerian nation by employing qualified teachers. Emphasis is laid on rote learning, the hapless youngsters are made to recite stereotype lines day in day out without any regard for correct pronunciation, grammaticality, etc.