Of Buhari’s sick leave and a Nigerian lecturer’s sheer folly by Mohammed Dahiru Aminu

The issue is that while the fact of a president’s travel to a foreign land to seek medical treatment proves nothing but an indictment of the situation back home, a student who seeks knowledge abroad is merely conforming to long-standing, known tradition and culture of knowledge generation and sharing.


Even the most prosperous countries of the world allow its citizens to go overseas for earning and sharing knowledge. The quest for knowledge is not to be damned, constricted, and restricted to a particular geographical entity or political boundary.

Suggesting otherwise is unnatural because, by its nature, knowledge is far-reaching. There is no nation in the world that has attained greatness by having all its people educated within its political boundaries. Nigeria cannot be an exception to this.

The American president doesn’t go abroad for medical treatment but despite its prosperity as a country, American citizens still go abroad to seek knowledge.

Now, judge for yourself if your wards deserve to be tutored by this ‘academic.’

“Why didn’t you seek your education here in Nigeria. What is the difference between you and who seeks medical care abroad.”

The comment above is from a disgruntled man—on Facebook—who is said to be teaching in a university back home. While I leave it to you to pity the students under his tutelage, let me address the main issues.

The problem with this type of analogy—if it qualifies to be called one—is that it is driven by confusions, to say the least. How a university teacher presents a problem as this without the inclusion of questions about the relationship between universals and non-universals—particulars—beats me.

Anyway, given his known pedigree, I wouldn’t expect him to be familiar with basic philosophical arguments that would have saved him from this cataclysmic embarrassment.

Now what are the issues?

The issue is that while the fact of a president’s travel to a foreign land to seek medical treatment proves nothing but an indictment of the situation back home, a student who seeks knowledge abroad is merely conforming to long-standing, known tradition and culture of knowledge generation and sharing.

Even the most prosperous countries of the world allow its citizens to go overseas for earning and sharing knowledge. The quest for knowledge is not to be damned, constricted, and restricted to a particular geographical entity or political boundary.

Suggesting otherwise is unnatural because, by its nature, knowledge is far-reaching. There is no nation in the world that has attained greatness by having all its people educated within its political boundaries. Nigeria cannot be an exception to this.

The American president doesn’t go abroad for medical treatment but despite its prosperity as a country, American citizens still go abroad to seek knowledge.

Now, judge for yourself if your wards deserve to be tutored by this ‘academic.’