Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, has warned that lowering admission and recruitment standards in the name of inclusion risks creating a culture of mediocrity.
According to Otti, equal opportunity should never come at the expense of merit.
Speaking at the recent University of Northampton’s Annual Conference on Racial Justice in the United Kingdom, Otti said governments and institutions must ensure everyone has access to the tools and opportunities needed to compete on equal terms.
He said, “What hurts society in the long run is not the colour mix of the stars we see on television screens, the long-term danger is giving any group the impression, whether expressly or tacitly, that they cannot compete with the best so the standard has to be lowered to let them in.”
According to him, while such policies may produce favourable optics in the short term, they could have damaging long-term consequences.
“The short-term optics may look good but when a group of children grow up with the mindset that their maths score or performance in sciences need not equal the output of their peers for a chance to get into certain institutions, what follows is a pervasive culture of mediocrity arising from refusal to push oneself as hard as necessary to earn a place at the top,” he said.
Otti stressed that institutions must uphold objective standards while removing barriers that prevent people from competing fairly.
“It would be more ideal to set clear standards that everyone, irrespective of their racial identity should aspire to. I do not buy the argument that the standards have to be lowered to accommodate everyone. My view is that the opportunity, tools and resources for adequate preparation should be liberalised such that no one suffers the disadvantage of unpreparedness,” he said.
He added that “from education to sports, recruitment into strategic institutions and agencies, and across all other competitive career fields, merit and objectivity should be at the centre of decision-making, nothing else.”
The governor made the remarks while delivering a keynote address titled “Of Bridges and Walls: Finding Common Ground, Rising Above Divisions” at the conference.
While condemning racism and discrimination in all forms, Otti said equality should be pursued by dismantling barriers to opportunity rather than weakening standards.
He argued that the fight against racial prejudice should focus on education, dialogue and institutional reforms.
“My view is that the most effective response to the error of racism is enlightenment through education and consistent engagement with different stakeholder groups, especially teachers and persons of influence within the society,” he said.
He also advocated race-blind institutional processes in areas such as recruitment, scholarships and business grants to ensure fairness.
“It may also help to set up robust race-blind institutional processes in public and private establishments for activities like recruitment, business and scholarship grants and all such events that invite interests from persons of diverse racial origins,” he said.
Otti warned against narratives that portray any racial group as inherently superior or permanently disadvantaged, saying such thinking only deepens division.
“In all of these, it is quite critical to guard against racial indoctrination, whether it is telling one group that they are superior or suggesting to the other that they are victims. Such mindset makes it impossible to build consensus,” he said.
Otti said his administration has consistently prioritised investments in human capital by allocating 35 per cent of its annual budget to education and health over the past three years.
He said the state had also made basic education free and compulsory, resulting in school enrolment increasing by more than 150 per cent in the last academic session.
On public sector appointments, the governor said merit remained the overriding consideration.
“In recruiting close to 10,000 teachers recently and close to 1,000 healthcare professionals in the last one year, we paid no attention to state of origin. It was strictly based on merit,” he said.
Otti added that the same principle guided the appointment of permanent secretaries and heads of service, including the appointment of a Head of Service who was neither from Abia State nor the South-East.
He acknowledged that countries, including Nigeria, had adopted quota systems and federal character principles to address inequality but questioned whether such approaches might create fresh concerns.
“The jury is still out on whether this approach does not end up creating its own challenges with unfair practices and prejudices,” he said.
Otti further called for deeper cooperation across racial and ethnic divides, adding that societies must replace suspicion and prejudice with dialogue, fairness and equal access to opportunities.
“The hard truth, however, is that we are individually and collectively capable of infinitely great accomplishments — if only we put our minds to it. Ultimately, what we need are bridges of understanding and dialogue, not walls of division and hatred,” he said.
(The Whistler)