USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: ARE OUR PROFESSIONS DOOMED TO EXTINCTION?

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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>

Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:51:45 +0000 (GMT)

To: <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>

Subject: ARE OUR PROFESSIONS DOOMED TO EXTINCTION?

ARE OUR PROFESSIONS DOOMED TO EXTINCTION?    by   Ayo Olukotun        At the fourth edition of the Alumni Reunion of the Nigerian Law School (NLS) 1988 class held at Enugu last week, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) lamented in strong terms the decay of professional and ethical standards in the legal profession. Adoke fingered such matters as the declining standard of legal education, unethical practices as well as the general moral downturn in the ethos and profile of the profession.      Adoke's take on the legal profession provides a jump-off point for taking a long hard look at the status of our professions. For, obviously it is not only the legal profession - incidentally one of the country's oldest - that is in disrepair but the professional sector as a whole.     Let us situate this intervention by noting that vibrant professions constitute the centre of gravity of modern national and global economies. Accountants for example are critical to the financial and commercial infrastructure; lawyers and judges to the maintenance of the rule of law; lecturers and teachers to the recycling of cultural values and the learning process while a functioning health department cannot be maintained outside of doctors and nurses.  Professionals – never mind the British humourist, George Barnard Shaw's jibe that "they are conspiracies against the laity" – constitute an expert class indispensable in a knowledge society. By maintaining standards, regulating practice, informing public discourse and policy professionals and their associations constitute the lynchpin of economic development especially in the service sector and a meritocracy whose roles are similar to those of priests in traditional societies.      Consider for a while the halo of authority and awe invoked by a legal icon such as Chief Rotimi Williams who was nicknamed 'The Law', the air of sobriety and learned reticence that surrounded Justice Kayode Eso who passed on last week, the eminence of accountants such as Akintola Williams, the penetrating eloquence of Wole Soyinka and the mathematical genius of Chike Obi. Their prowess and outstanding industry provoked young men to aspire to their stature given that they are role models which those in their professions sought to emulate. It is true of course that for several decades after independence most Nigerians who went to school sought a niche in the professions which were quite rewarding and fulfilling. Then the bubble burst with the reckless and ill-thought unleashing of structural adjustment policies which threw the professional class into a prolonged swoon. Push came to shove and many professionals scampered abroad, migrated to politics or moonlighted in order to make ends meet.      Tolu Ajayi, a medical doctor and writer it was who poked fun at "doctors in molue" observing that economic vicissitudes were such that new entrants into the medical profession were forced to commute in that unique locomotive contraption called molue. The problem however was that in the bedlam that accompanies the boarding of molues it is just possible that the bulging stethoscope of a passenger doctor could be damaged. The distress narrated by Ajayi cut across several professions. I recall a lady Vice Chancellor of a federal university remarking that she could not in all conscience allow her daughter to marry a university lecturer because that will be sentencing her to a life of depravation. Although the wages of university teachers have improved slightly since that alarming statement was made there still hangs around our academics an atmosphere of financial incompetence resulting in many of them juggling several jobs or acting as publicists for political gladiators. We can go on and on but the point being made is that a nation's adopted economic and social programme resulted in the virtual ruin of several professionals with devastating consequences.     To be sure the economic dislocation of careers and professionals is a global affair although it must be noted that its character differs from one country to another. In the United States, the adoption of digital technologies phased out some jobs and the careers associated with them. The recession occasioning long term unemployment has not spared the academic profession in the United States where less than half of fresh PhDs are able to secure tenured track jobs. Perhaps if the Nigerian business mogul, Aliko Dangote, is an American he would have swelled his rising horde of truck drivers who have doctoral degrees. And so the advent of a professional meritocracy in distress is not peculiarly Nigerian. It should be noted however that its Nigerian manifestations as Adoke pointed out are phenomenal partly because of the moral capitulation and racketeering that have attended their onset.      Let us face it, there is salvaging moral dimension to the united appeal of a concerned professional class when it intervenes on topical national issues more so in a developing country where there is a need to oppose to an often autocratic state the power of intellect.  For example, the submissions of professional economists on the fuel subsidy palaver, the Nigerian Bar Association speaking out on human rights abuses, or accountants addressing themselves to the strengthening of accountability norms in our predatory governance clime possess both intellectual and moral leeway. But obviously, our professions cannot play this disinfecting social role if they are themselves immersed in the same moral miasma that prevails in government. Worse still, if professional associations that should act as counter weights to often errant or misguided officialdom rushes to coronate everyone of their members who is appointed to government positions then they trade off their clout for meagrely pickings from the table of power.      As has been widely noted the substantial and rapid economic ascent of the East Asian countries owes a lot to the flourishing meritocracies in these countries. What we have however on our hands is a professional class that is not locating itself at the cutting edge of contemporary developments, that is compromised and cannot speak truth to power. Of course, this deficit is related to a disabling governance clime which does not provide incentives for productivity or sustained outputs with the result that several Nigerian professionals have relocated to better climes in the search for motivational auspices. Dr Christopher Kolade observed in a recent lecture that he was amazed to find while serving as Nigeria's ambassador to the United Kingdom a flourishing association of Nigerian trained accountants in the United Kingdom. This suggests that we cannot tackle the decay of our professions in isolation of our persisting political afflictions.      Restoring the glory days of Nigerian professionals is a holistic agenda that must include the revitalisation of the educational system currently in tatters, the re-institutionalisation of professional norms and standards alongside with enforced disciplinary codes as well as an overhaul of the internal workings of our professional associations by those concerned enough to undertake thorough going reforms.   Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236