Should we rethink the degree rule for all political offices?

What is a degree? And why does one need a degree to become governor?

The ongoing debate about the authenticity of Senator Johnson Sakaja’s degree raises these two important questions. The first would seem relatively easy to answer.

By convention, people earn degrees after completing a set amount of coursework in university. There is also usually a certificate and a ceremony to mark graduation from university.

Online/distance learning complicates this a little, but the general principle of completing coursework after which one gets certification, stands.

Which is to say it should be relatively easy to figure out who has a degree and who does not. The fact that we seem to struggle on this matter is purely due to politics.

The political class has long bastardised the requirement of degrees for holding office by looking the other way in the face of glaring evidence of forged degrees by individuals who clearly did not attend university. This problem extends beyond political class.

To answer the second question, we need to understand why we adopted this standard to begin with.

Most observers would agree that the degree requirement was adopted to screen out certain types of politicians – many of whom had barely gone to school and were walking opposites of the ideals in Chapter Six of the Constitution.

We went this far precisely because our political culture had left voters at the mercy of parties dominated by ethnic chiefs in the habit of picking feckless candidates lacking even the most basic qualifications.

Unfortunately, this screening device has failed. Several governors have already been elected based on questionable university degrees.

Instead of being a rule that structures the behaviour of politicians, the very process of determining the authenticity of degrees has been politicised.

The fact that relevant authorities cannot adopt simple rules on this matter and enforce them with finality will continue to erode confidence in our elections. This is one of those cases whereby if the rule cannot be enforced it should be scrapped.

The writer is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University