Educational Issues
We are USOSA; We Are Nigeria -By Chidi Odinkalu
Fellow USOSAN, Fellow Nigerians
Congratulations USOSA!
My brother Wilbert Lawrence is passionate about FGC Ugwolawo, about USOSA, and about education generally. He has energised our association, forced a necessary debate over our direction and priorities and inspired us to find new energies in this cycle of institutional transition. He remains a vital resource in rebuilding USOSA and we will work with him to ensure this happens. You may have elected me as your president but Wilbert Lawrence will be our general.
This transition in our association has not been without challenges but we have navigated them with skill. I want to thank our long-suffering staff, electoral committee, the Chairperson and members of the Interim Executive Committee (IEC), the Chairperson and members of the Board of Trustees, and my predecessors as executives and Presidents-General of USOSA, particularly, my immediate predecessor, Alhaji Kabir Nuhu-Koko.
I also want to thank all in the USOSA network.
This transition has also been a mobilising opportunity for us. Many have heard of our association who never knew of it before. Many of our members only learnt of our existence for the first time during this process. The eligible schools and participating delegates have all made huge sacrifice to ensure we get a credible process. We owe you our thanks and will do our best to repay your confidence and leap of faith.
I also must thank the leaders of our #USOSA4ALL campaign team: Remi Adeseun, Femi Edun, Yusuf Tugar (FGC Ilorin), Francis Orbih (FGC Ogbomoso), Lucky Idike (Kings College), as well as our enthusiastic campaign volunteers and young people who believed in me even when I doubted myself: Mohammed Sabo Keana (FGC Keffi); Bello Lawan (FGC Azare); Kelechi Ibe (FGC Oyo); Chioma Okoli (FGGC Lejja); Halimat Edun (FGGC Omua-Aran); Uche Chuta (FGC Ilorin).
In particular, I want to pay special tribute to my own alumni, the president (Okey Chikwendu) and students of FGC Okigwe.
I want to remember in particular, my young brother, Muhammad Garba (FGC Kano), who was tragically killed in an accident in January 2016. Muhammad was the person who first asked me to present myself for this role. He insisted I had to. It is painful that he is not here today. This is work but I know you will be rooting for us, Emgy.
USOSA for All
USOSA has come a long way. We began on a high: to defend the patrimony of the Unity Schools as a public good. That campaign was successful. Today we are challenged to retool precisely the inspiration of that gestational moment in the life of our association and make it more relevant to the lives of our association. That is why the message of our campaign was #USOSA4All because we believe that we all have a stake in USOSA and our leadership must find ways to sustain this sense of shared stake holding.
I want to take a moment to lay out what this means. This transition has taken place amidst some difficulty. We can’t under-estimate the difficulties we face as an association. These are defined by three areas of serious deficit: an enthusiasm deficit, a credibility deficit and a fiscal deficit. We have less than 50 percent of our 104 schools under our roof and we appear to have lost the capability to hold the attentions of many members and elders from our ranks.
But this transition has also shown possibilities for how we can confront and ultimately overcome these challenges. During this cycle of leadership transition, we grew the number of eligible schools by over 70 percent and the number of schools in our network from 39 to 46, representing an increase of 7 percent. We have attracted a healthy number of young new schools. We have excited attention and interest by envisioning USOSA as an entity with a mission focused around public education.
The risk is that all the excitement generated by these elections will die as delegates leave. I hope not. I apologise to all delegates within and beyond these halls who suffered the inconvenience of being bombarded with unsolicited messaging while this process ended. By participating in this process, however, you permit us to continue to solicit your attention and participation as we begin the process of rebuilding USOSA into the biggest network for the defence of education in Nigeria.
We have to be ambitious for our association and our country. The challenge is not merely to rebuild an organisation; it is to build a movement for education. Nigeria gave us expensive education so that we can. Education for all must define what we do and how we do them. This means we have to envision new possibilities in rebuilding USOSA. I owe you an outline of what we propose:
• We must grow membership. Over the next year, we will look to achieve full coverage of the 104 schools in the USOSA Network;
• We will digitise USOSA’s operations, begin a proper membership database in co-operation with the member alumni groups and have a strategic communications capability that will generate both platform and content over the next year;
• USOSA has an inbuilt majority of girls’ schools. The safety of our children in the girls’ schools is essential in order to bring out the best in the learners in these schools. We will propose a special advocacy and partnership programme on safety & ethics in our girls schools with clear standards and skills support;
• To address the state of the Unity Schools, we will propose a new and standing policy partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education with specific deliverables and content. In particular, we will seek to address monitoring of appropriations for the Unity Schools;
• To define USOSA’s identity as the principal advocate for public education in Nigeria, we will propose to set up within three months an Independent USOSA Commission on the future of public education in Nigeria which will report to the next AGM;
• We will explore ideas for solidarity with parts of the country where education is under attack from violence, especially the North-East and South-South;
• We need to offer a deal to our young graduates to get them onto the job ladder. So we will propose a standing USOSA Schools-to-Skills programme (USOSA S2S) to be undertaken in partnership with Alumni groups and partners.
To achieve any of these, we will need a more nimble, capable organisation. We would like to propose the establishment of two programme areas in the USOSA Secretariat: a Membership, Outreach and Development Programme and an Education Reform and Advocacy. The former will be self-financing; the latter will be funded from partnerships. Internally, we will need to take another look at our constitution and rules with a view to achieving closer synergies with the member schools. We will explore ideas for how to de-concentrate USOSA by simultaneously kinetising the member alumni. Part of what we will propose here is that the more senior member alumni groups should accept to be twinned with more junior ones.
The logic of this is very clear: if we can deliver effective programmes, USOSA will grow in visibility and brand recognition. With that, we will excite enthusiasm so we can address all of our existing constraints. So we must rebuild our partnerships. We will propose three new areas of activity along these lines:
(a) USOSA Dialogue & Advocacy on Reform of Education in Nigeria (DARE-Nigeria)
(b) Independent Expert Commission on the Future of Public Education in Nigeria; and
(c) USOSA Alumni-in-Diaspora (USOSA-AID)
We need to constitute a USOSA National Assembly Caucus (USOSA-NASS). And we will constitute urgently a finance and audit committee to guide us through this rebuilding.
A More Exciting Task Than Politics
USOSA has elected an executive not a sole administrator. So this programme will be subjected to debate but with a sense of urgency. We will avoid paralysis by analysis. We will take risks and we will be prepared to listen and learn from mistakes. But there is urgency in this moment that we must seize. The moment is ripe.
So, I owe you an outline of a calendar. I have requested for an emergency meeting of the new executive. We will agree on a programme and budgeting skeleton which will form the foundations for a programme and budget. We will present this programme and budget for consideration and adoption by an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of USOSA which we will call in May 2016.
The tasks before us are both challenging and exciting. But they will also require discipline. As an association, we have lived beyond our means for long. We must accept new set of values based on living within our means in order to build a value-for-money organisation.
USOSA is a public trust. Education is a public good. Defending it is a task must exciting and much bigger than politics. Our priority must be to apply every dime we raise towards these and not the celebration of nostalgia. We must reflect the discipline of the difficult times we face as a country.
If we can agree to work together on these, then the only victor from today’s election will be USOSA; The only cause that profits from this process will be education; and only beneficiary will be Nigeria. In these elections we set up an executive that will work with us to achieve these.
Let’s remind ourselves – not that anyone needs to be reminded – that USOSA is the most enlightened network of Nigerians left. We come from every ward, village, district, emirate, community, ethnic or language group, constituency, LGA, state, vocation, profession, occupation across our country and beyond. We are bigger than any political party or partisan group. We are Nigeria!
Chidi Odinkalu is president of the Unity Schools Old Students Association (USOSA), Nigeria.
