A howl of angry protests has broken out recently over the increase in tuition fees in several state-owned universities, the most recent been the dramatic lurch of fees in Lagos State University (LASU). There is a crisis of models here: The old paternalistic state in which a Father Christmas government under-wrote the bills is exhausted and fast giving way to a market-driven mantra of cost recovery.But as Professor Kunle Amuwo argued in a pungent letter published elsewhere on this page, the question that needs to be asked is to what extent the state is fulfilling its part of the Social Contract, and to what extent it is back-tracking over it, especially with regards to the poorer section of the population'.True, in a unitarist federal political contraption such as ours where power, privilege, and resources trickle down from an elephantine centre to resource starved mini-states, the capacity of the sub-national governments to deliver on their part of the social bargain has been called to question. Push has come to shove for several states around the country in respect of the fundamental goals of state policy. And things are not about to get better until we re-negotiate and re-structure Nigeria in order that power may change hands or at least devolve more between the centre and the states. Having said that, it is difficult to justify the kind of outrageous increases in university fees that we are currently witnessing. There must be room for civility, decorum, advance warning, and bargaining in such ways that the citizenry is not taken for granted, or for that matter for a ride or brutalised. Was it not possible for instance to have graduated these increases, announced them well before they take effect, as well as organise dialogues with crucial stakeholders in order to cushion the effects of these seminal increases' Ironically, it is the South-Western governments who were elected on the battle cry of neo-welfarism who appear to be leading the assault on the residual underpinnings of the social welfare state, even if they are doing so in distressing circumstances where sub-national governments are caught on a tight leash. Getting broke should not translate into going for broke; there must be a middle ground somewhere between the financial exigencies of the state and the palpable pathos, even loud wailings of the desperately poor.Social tornadoes as we observed in England recently can engulf a nation if leaders are not sensitive to the heartbeats and the escalating woes of its people. Political thermometers shoot up wildly when an already depressed people are confronted with further deprivation. If the removal of fuel subsidy is a social tinderbox extra-ordinarily large increases in tuition fees may be no less combustible. It is time for us all to put on our thinking hats in order to head-off a doomsday scenario reminiscent of the boiling cauldron of North Africa. The question can be asked for example whether it is not possible to eliminate waste in the system in order to free resources which can then be gainfully channelled into the kitties of these institutions' In other words, if we address all the leaking pots in the system such as overlapping appointments, inflated contracts, as well as outright larceny, it may well be that there is no need really to task parents beyond their abilities to endure.Article first published on December 1, 2011Text only to:07055841236.
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