With the recent certificate scandal surrounding Kogi West Senator Dino Melaye, there has been a lot of questions being asked by the general populace as to why someone with questionable certificate credentials has made his way into the legislature.
A Nairaland user by the handle Doriana gave her take on the debacle. She wrote; “The ambiguities involving Dino Melaye’s certificate scandal has overwhelmed Nigeria’s news space.”
“The pertinent reality that only few people talk about is: Either a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did not graduate from a university or he graduated with an abysmal grade.”
“It is now clear that a major part of Nigeria’s problem is the high number of uneducated and underqualified leaders occupying important political positions. This is unfortunately accompanied with a populace that does not seem to care.”
“There was a recent thread of a proud third class civil Engineer Uniben graduate. While we admire the young man’s courage to accept his subpar performance in school, we detest the idea that third class graduates should be allowed to occupy sensitive political positions.”
“Nigerians have to realize that: ONLY excellent and qualified employers can make an organization excellent. Political positions should be treated as an important job vacancy and elections should be seen as a serious job interview.”
“It is because Nigerians don’t pay attention to the qualities presented by ‘prospective job applicants’ and majorly look at tribe, religion or ‘Number of Rice Bags shared’ that we are in this mess of a country.”
“Unintelligent people would reply by saying ‘Many People with 2nd class and 1st class are not as rich as some with 3rd class? They go on to proffer as an example, a detestable and morally reprehensible creature like Dino Melaye.”
“The obvious answer is ‘the ineffectual and unqualified political office holders are the cause of the failed experiment called Nigeria. The high rates of unemployment and wealth inequality are due to exactly leaders of such groups.”
“Another class of mentally myopic individuals would cite an example like Goodluck Jonathan, who was a PHD holder but was also mediocre as a leader.”
“The not so obvious answer to this comes in the form of a parable: ‘Lack of good tomatoes does not mean we should cook stew with sand’. The fact that GEJ was terrible should spur us on to properly screen our leaders (plus political parties) and request for even better qualities. We should not make the mistake again of selecting someone bad just because average did not work out.”
“A country of 180 million people demands someone intelligent and capable to run it. Lives and futures are literally at stake. We should not take the posts of the president and senators as a testing ground for failures in school. A successful organization like first bank will not employ a third class graduate as CEO so why should NIGERIANS accept third class graduates (or complete illiterates) as senators?”