Professor Lateef Hussain,Vice Chancellor of
the Lagos state University is a fisrt class degree
holder from the university of Ibadan and a
Physicist.When I first met him in 1984 he told me that
he met with an Indian who told him he had no pity for
Nigerians when they complain about electricity.This
was when the energy situation in Nigeria was not as
bad as it is now. Quite rhetorically the Indian wanted
to know from Prof Hussain how many Nigerians studied
Mathematics,Physics and Chemistry,That was at a time
when the premier institution ,University ofIbadan was
graduating as few as five students in a year from
the physica department. Few of our students then had
physics as the first choice on the JAMB form.Many of
those in the physics Department were regarded as drop
outs from Engineering. We were also importing Indian
graduates of science to teach in Nigerian educational
institutions including our secondary schools.Nigerians
even now need to the informed that the man regarded
as the father of electricity is the British Cmemist
and Physicist Michael Faraday..Born on September 22
1791, and on October 28 1831 he dicovered the
principle of generating electricity. Indians have been
making their mark on the world of physics since the
19th century.We have a man like Jigadish Chandra
Bose whose work in the late 1880s and early 1900s with
elecromagneyic waves fetched him a US patent helping
to lay the foundation for modern Radio.. India won her
fist Nobel prize in Physics as far back as 1928 for
the work of V.Raman on ther nature of light. V.Ramns
nephew, S.Chandrasekhan also won the Nobel prize for
physics in 1983. People like lateef Hussain have no
business being vice chancellors they should be working
in laboratories but we just do not have the
laboratories in Nigeria. Because of the scientific
Know how in India major global corprations are keen to
park their investments for Research and Development in
India. Perhaos India was lucky to have Pandit nehru
as her fisrt Prime Minister. He Studied
geology,botany a bit of physics and then crossed to
Chemistry.,Today the Nigerian President is a
Scientist,precisely a Chemist. .I hope it means better
days for Science in Nigeria The Vice President is also
a biological scientistPrecisely a Zoologist.By
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth,London,England