Wonderful conversations with Jega on the Toyin Falola Interviews. The call for progressives to get more involved in partisan politics is well taken. The point about leadership failure is well taken. Good to know that Jega grew up as Yaro Sabongeri and I would like to know more about his coming of age in the predominantly Igbo part of Kano. Did he have Igbo teachers in school and what is the position of his party, PRP, on the demand for reparative justice by the survivors of the genocide against the Igbo in Nigeria?
One issue that Jega surprisingly shied away from is that of education as an area where parents and children can show leadership even if the government is not interested. Kadira asked this question pointedly, also echoed by Kukah. Olutoye posed it at the NUC/ASUU level and Olugbemi reinforced it.
Jega's answers were about good governance and the ideology of liberal democracy, suggesting that China is not democratic even though China is more democratic than Nigeria in the sense that they abolished all feudal institutions that are being multiplied in Nigeria. What is the strategy for getting families to value education enough to insist on the schooling of all their sons and daughters to the best of their abilities even when the government is reluctant to fund education across Africa where the problems of underdevelopment are similarly connected to mass illiteracy?
I honor the memory of Abubakar Momoh who directed the INIC Institute that Jega set up and which hosted a conference on the 2015 elections.
Biko
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