A torrent of comments and discussions has trailed the recent announcement by the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that PhD holders were among applicants for the position of truck drivers advertised by his company. While some of the comments were objective, others were simply derisive, exuding a clear attempt to pull holders of genuine PhD degree down and make the degree look ordinary.
As shocking and embarrassing as the revelation is, some commentators, including a Punch newspaper columnist (Abimbola Adelakun), opine that the development is not abnormal. According to her, in the United States where she currently resides reading for the same PhD, there are holders of the degree managing restaurants and doing other odd jobs.
Other analysts even queried why the nation is alarmed at the revelation when our education sector is in ruins and we only now award degrees as a matter of routine. And they are right. The country’s university system is so depressing that it requires uncommon courage on the part of the few lecturers with some integrity to operate because the process is largely compromised. This provides a basis for those who now doubt the quality of even PhD degrees to do so. It is within this context that I shall proceed to dissect the Dangote PhD Drivers.
All over the world, the PhD programme is essentially a research endeavour, which requires the candidate to work on an issue for a minimum period of three years at the end of which a thesis is presented for assessment by a panel of accomplished academics in that area. The degree is recommended to be awarded if the candidate has done the work to the satisfaction of his/her supervisor, the department, the university and the panel of examiners. The programme, therefore, involves rigorous and painstaking process and, under normal circumstances, the candidate must be able to defend the work at the proposal level, in the course of the research at seminars, during viva and for the rest of his/her life in any part of the world.
It is sad that this process too has not been spared the rot that has engulfed the academia, as it is possible to now have people who brandish PhD degrees that were politically awarded. By this, I mean there are PhD holders who obtained the degree not because they have the intellect and ability to acquire such but because they saw it as a status symbol and employed all manner of corrupt instruments, including the connivance of their unscrupulous supervisors and other accomplices, to become a ‘Dr’.
I support the view of those who opined that Dangote could not have lied that six PhD holders applied to be truck drivers in his company. I have also been resisting the temptation to doubt the claim that those candidates actually possess the degree as details of their PhDs are still shrouded in secrecy. The applicants could be in the category of those who were awarded the political version and they find it difficult to offer their services to organisations in desperate need of them. For instance, I am aware that the nine new federal universities are in serious want of manpower at that level and are looking everywhere for such. In addition, private universities are always advertising vacant teaching positions. Besides, any good PhD student is a potential staff of his/her department, as all Nigerian universities continue to groan under a debilitating manpower deficit.
Even if a PhD holder decides not to teach, there are other areas where his/her expertise could be deployed other than truck driving. Blaming the country’s high unemployment rate on why a PhD holder should opt for truck driving is hyperbolic and a clear case of underemployment.
I do not by this insist that every PhD holder must be a university lecturer but even those who obtained the real PhD but are not into full-time teaching still long to impart knowledge on part-time basis because you cannot pass through the due process of a PhD programme and not want to engage in intellectual activities for the rest of your life. That is what the training gives.
Again, I agree we should not be alarmed by Dangote’s revelation, as it is possible the gentlemen actually possess the degree. And why doubt them? Some universities that came into existence less than 10 years ago and, which cannot boast of 20 PhD holders in the whole school, have been awarding PhDs. Alhaji Dangote will add value to the debate his revelation has generated by making public, details of his PhD drivers. The recently released report of a fact-finding committee to the country’s federal universities set up by the Federal Government revealed, among others, that the population of PhD holders in these universities is less than 50 per cent.
With such pressing manpower need, one wonders why some holders of the degree have opted to be truck drivers. We may be tempted to conclude that the decision is personal to them but an inquiry into why they had to obtain PhDs only to tender the certificate for employment as drivers, will advance sociological and economic studies in Nigeria. Citing Nigeria’s high unemployment rate as the only reason is simplistic and inadequate.
By Dr. Taiwo Oladokun Phd
