Toyin Falola, award-winning academic, speaks on turning 70, his experiences as a scholar, and issues around politics and education reform...
INTERVIEW: Nigeria must review power distribution in politics to avoid destructive resentment, says FalolaBorn on January 1, 1953, in Ibadan, Nigeria, Toyin Falola, award-winning academic and author of over 200 books, in this interview with RITA OKONOBOH, speaks on turning 70, his experiences as a scholar and historian, and issues around politics and education reform in Nigeria.I will leave all the positive values alone because they are too many.
As I enter the last phase of my life, I’m struggling; I want to become a missionary of something. I do a whole lot of peace work. There is also what is missing — community leadership. There was a tradition of community leadership; that is also dead now. All societies need community leaders — those who can resolve conflict, resolve issues, advise young persons, and be a moral centre holding that community together.
The true fundamental theories now shaping the humanities are not from my generation, not from Achebe, not from Senghor, not from Wole Soyinka; it’s from young people and we are not giving them credit. Ideas far more profound than what many of their predecessors have done. What are these ideas? Afropolitanism and Afrofuturism — those are the driving intellectual energies of the moment.
TheCable: The house of representatives recently organised a summit on education reform and there were varying views on funding education. Do you agree with the concept of student loans?Historically, Nigeria did it before. People forget that in the 70s, the Gowon administration did loans for university students — lots of money then. But they did not have the mechanism for people to pay back, and people were not paying back.
Two things that provide assent to that worry — the first is you use your resources to educate them. You go to the University of Ibadan, where you pay very minimally to become a doctor. Instead of your nation now benefitting from that investment, UK benefits from it. The second worry, a developing country is now a source of technical assistance to a developed country.
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