THREAT TO EARLY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

The earliest days of learning of a child should be within the homestead and subsequently as the child starts to interact with other children in school, he begins to learn more. The school forms the bedrock of the foundation of the learning of children and utmost care must be applied in ensuring that the love for learning and studying is effectively inculcated in children from a very tender age.  In the usual way of trivializing issues and handling things casually, many stages of early learning have been circumvented and discarded by most operators of private nursery and primary schools in Nigeria.

The trend among many privately owned nursery and primary schools is to hire young school leavers who fail to secure admission into tertiary institutions as teachers for nursery and primary school children. It is now accepted in many private schools that as soon as the hireling secures something better to do, he or she will move on. These and many more acts of disservice came to the fore during studies we carried out on private schools in Nigeria on the necessary prerequisites for establishing a standard for private schools.

Owners of some private schools pay as low as N5,000.00 per month to teachers and during holidays, their teachers receive no salaries. This is absolutely scandalous and completely violates the minimum wage stipulated by the Ministry of Labour and Productivity. The domestic servants or house-helps of many families earn much more than N5,000.00 and many parents would cringe at the thought of having someone of less qualification than their house-help pretending to be erecting the foundation blocks of the learning process of their children. What manner of knowledge would an un-trained teacher who earns N5,000.00 per month pass to the children of families that can afford the service of a house-help at N10,000.00 per month?

The quality of education received by the child could be likened to the quality of legal service that one gets when one is being represented by a ‘pro bono’ lawyer.

Many young school leavers are sent to coaching lessons to prepare for the next Universities Matriculation Examination (UME) by parents who can afford to but for those who cannot afford to, they encourage their children to go and work and these ‘mushroom’ private schools are always on the look-out for young school leavers to hire.

A closer look will show that these ‘teachers’ are more or less dim-witted kids who can hardly cope with much academic strain. Once they spot children’s workings that are not exactly the same as what they managed to learn, the child is scored zero. These ‘teachers’ are unable to exercise much reason and they fail to comprehend the reasoning of the children they teach. They effectively dent the confidence and self-worth of these children so badly and many of the children end up being confused very early in life because of the confused teachers teaching them.

In addition, many parents hold the opinion that these schools are teaching in accordance with the same curriculum, using the same learning materials; this is quite correct but parents must also visit these schools during school-hours and see the caliber of individuals who are said to be teaching their children. Parents should not be deceived by lower charges, the lower charges amounts to loss of franchise as they can hardly complain over poor teaching service as they would be quickly reminded that there are many other private schools that offer the same service at higher rates. This argument can only hold in states where the governors have failed to make education a priority point of the government but not in a place like Edo State where parents are fast returning their children to government owned schools. Nevertheless, these small private schools are still in business and many of these ‘teachers’ are kids who should still be out at play or carrying out their own studies but due to economic reasons, they go out early in search of employment and these tiny schools eagerly employ them inspite of their inherent lack of teacher training.

Many private schools are known to pay well and they also embark on training programmes for the trained teachers that they hire.

The ‘mushroom’ private schools should be encouraged to restructure their set up in the interest of the children or they should be encouraged to close shop instead of confusing little children and making them hate school.

GOD bless Nigeria.

THE MANY UNDESIRABLE FRUITS OF QUACKERY

It begins to add up why we have the kind of results we have in almost all facets of life in Nigeria. Nigerians believe firmly in praying for little effort that will produce harvest in abundance; so much that it has become a philosophical approach to life relationships and business among most Nigerians. Take a simple example in something like confectionary available in our markets. What consumers are requested to pay for such products is so insignificant that it effectively takes away their franchise. The price they pay is so minuscule that we cannot even complain when we discover that we have parted with money for chaff.

I love Nigeria and I want to see Nigeria in a position to contend with other viable and respectable nations of the world; however do I sincerely and joyfully consume products that are produced by manufacturers established in Nigeria? The answer is no!

Again, the syndrome of ‘let’s just start’ is the culprit of choice and I make no ceremonies of fingering the syndrome as suspect. Good thing, we are faced with the reality of the undesirable fruits that we have produced. 

Nigerians have lost the essence of building from scratch having become fixated with fast-food/take-away mentality of processing life. The implication is that most Nigerians now prefer short-cut approach to making sacrifices of our time and resources. I had the opportunity to watch some movies made by Nigerians in Nigeria and London; it was clear that a lot of money had been spent but quality leaves a lot to be desired. I reasoned that the works of great performers like Hubert Ogunde and Duro Ladipo  produced several years before now are way beyond what this crop of actors, actresses and movie producers are turning out for consumers to pay their hard-earned money for.

Nigerian politicians are not trained for leadership positions they occupy and they find it easy to speak from the abundance of their heart without finesse or decorum. Some of them openly show total disregard for members of the public and the office they occupy not because they are not well brought up but because they do not have the necessary training to conduct themselves in public office and as public servants. In essence, they are not competent to occupy the position they do; I feel good classifying them as quacks.

People see training as a waste of time and as much as possible, circumvent training that they perceive to be taking too long. Many years before now, people who had interest in teaching started their teachers’ training education right from post primary schools designed specifically for training teachers from which they proceeded to Colleges of Education and Advanced Teachers’ College. Further trainings in education were offered domestically and internationally at Universities. Products of teacher training colleges were trained to teach primary school children in the past but with the UBE method of education, secondary school leavers who have absolutely no form of teacher training are now employed to teach primary school children. This is a form of damaging the structure of education and it becomes a burden when children continue along the defective track with the parents hoping that the defect will be regularized at some point. Sadly, the damage is done and if government does not quickly check the activities of most private nursery and primary schools the decadence will continue.

I emphatically and confidently conclude that not a single area of human endeavor is spared; not even religion or romantic relationships.

I am also comforted to believe that ‘a problem identified is a problem half-solved.’ We do not need to continue setting up committees and panels for investigating poor results; we have the results and the root causes sitting side by side.

It starts one man at a time; start by brightening the painting in your bedroom so you can see the clutter and litter easier; taking it a little further, a change in the way people think and approach one another will help to put ourselves in the shoes of the next man and be a little more considerate towards him.

GOD bless Nigeria.

GOOD FOR THE GOOSE, GOOD FOR THE GANDER

 

The rapid rehabilitation of government facilities and institutions in Edo State is one of the factors that has endeared the comrade governor, Adams Oshiomhole to the good people of Edo State. The projects embarked upon by the administration of Gov. Oshiomhole are presently centered on making life easier for the people of Edo State. Among these projects are improved education and learning facilities, rehabilitation of roads and drainages, improved health care delivery services as well as good transport scheme to ease movement. There is more than enough evidence of the commitment and determination of this administration to attain success.

It was a bit incomprehensible when opposing candidates contending with Gov. Oshiomhole for the office of governor of Edo State repeatedly harped on the weakness of this administration in not being able to bring about a turn-around in the position of most of the existing facilities and institutions. Some of the candidates did not seem to appreciate promises of the governor to establish many new institutions that would provide many more jobs for the able bodied people residing in Edo State. A visit to the civil service complex popularly known as ‘Palm House’ in Benin City makes it clear why the opposition would have deemed it ok to stress this weakness. The complex makes mockery of the many initiatives of this administration; it is in a very bad and dilapidated condition that groans and begs for executive intervention.

The ‘Palm House’ was a pet-project of the administration of the now retired Col. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia; majority of the institutions still existing in one form or the other in the defunct Midwest State formerly Bendel State which was eventually split into Delta State and Edo State were established by this administration. Focusing on Edo State, the administrators who have chaired the running and management of Edo State have not been able to salvage and redeem the once glorious ‘Palm House.’

The ‘Palm House’ in Benin is supposed to house many ministries and government offices; it is depressing to see that many offices of ministries still exist in the derelict complex while the state government maintains offices in other locations scattered all over the state capital. Many of these other locations are in equally poor states of existence like the Ministry of Education at Iyaro in Benin City. These are supposed to be symbols that represent the dynamic, youthful presence of the comrade governor and his cabinet; on the contrary, they seem to spell an aging city at the edge of expiration. The counsel given the governor to rehabilitate government schools in Edo State has paid off greatly as the people are being relieved of the bondage of high cost of educating children in privately owned schools in that many parents have withdrawn their children from private schools and transferred them to state owned schools.

The ‘Palm House’ being the secretariat of civil service in Edo State is like the reception area of the corporate organization known as Edo State; the Lagos State government did not take lightly the rehabilitation and modernization of its secretariat at Alausa and this sends a very strong message of organization and order to any one visiting the secretariat. Edo State government civil service commission secretariat should also be placed on the priority list of projects that must be quickly rehabilitated to help in redeeming the badly dented image of Edo State.

GOD bless Nigeria.

A CLOSER LOOK AT NIGERIAN BROADCAST INDUSTRY

There was a time Nigerians had no choice but love, welcome and accept the local TV and radio stations because they were the only ones on the air and government had total monopoly.  I remember as a child, we happily and eagerly waited for the TV station to commence transmission at 6pm.  The ritual before the opening involved some non-descript scratch-like sound, some music and eventually the national anthem and the citizens’ pledge.  After the children’s belt, the current affairs and news programmes dominate the airwaves until after the network or national news when a lean movie would be aired until the station would close at midnight.

More than 50years after the introduction of TV transmission in Nigeria, privatization seems to have provided some improvement in broadcasting.  Today, some stations air two or three different episodes of a soap opera in one day, some others show up to five different football matches in a day unlike when all that was available was the results of the matches played and of course seeing some snap shots of the action in newspapers, posters or cards of chewing gum, etc.  Today, one can programme your TV to record what is aired on another channel while away altogether.

Dark as those days may seem to a child of this generation, it was a period when TV did a lot in terms of enlightenment and entertainment.  News coverage was very much controlled then because of the military government which was quite understandable.  However, the news we got then was news that was useful.  Radio stations were equally exciting to listen to. It was pure joy listening to selections of music, drama on radio, football commentaries, sermons as well as debates on politics, consumer issues, etc.  One sure way to get the right pronunciation of some new words was by listening to the news broadcast.  There was not much of a choice to be made so we appreciated what was available.  However there must have been aspirations towards better coverage, reporting and production of programmes on radio and TV.  It is only normal that one expects that after experiencing a certain position the next position would be expected to be slightly better.

Professionals who were well trained, disciplined and dedicated to excellence were the ones on the airwaves then.  Among them were Bode Alalade, Siene Allwell-Brown, Bimbo (Roberts) Oloyede, Julie Coker, Rosemary Anieze Adams, Mike Enahoro, Kate Okwuechime, Bankole Olayebi, Alison Mesango, Willy Egbe, Ikenna Ndaguba, etc.

For the purpose of keeping abreast with happenings in our country, we had to check with our local news and that was when it became clear that a lot of people do not know when our news is broadcast either on TV or on the radio.  Further inquiry revealed that many Nigerians stopped listening to news on our local stations many years ago.  They listen to news of the world as well as news of Nigeria from other stations that are thought to be more credible and better prepared to deliver news.  Respondents indicate that our local stations have redefined free-style and audience participation presentations so much that it is the audience that is mainly reporting and of course such news is largely unverified.  Most news items are stale or inaccurate and one can hardly receive any breaking news on our local stations because of the political quagmire.   Also adverts are produced and packaged by one and the same person in some back studio without any professional input which results in very hastily and poorly produced adverts which offend and hinder rather than attract the consumer.  Many Nigerians report to only prefer listening to radio and watching TV between 11pm and 6am when they are sure there will be no defective news or adverts to air.

What we have come to understand is that broadcasting is one area that was established on a very solid foundation in Nigeria.  A lot of fund was committed by the government to equipment and manpower development.  Many radio and TV presenters were a delight to listen to then because they had been trained abroad before coming to take their positions in our radio and TV stations; more so, they took the job very seriously and being on air was a big deal. The exposure to foreign training made many of the ace broadcasters have a foreign sounding accent and diction and many of today’s broadcasters who are trained locally fake the accent and diction while shamelessly misplacing their tenses.

Many Nigerian establishments were founded on the basis of getting people to come in and then begin training later but broadcasting was not established like that.  Standards in broadcasting were very high in the formative years. Until Alex Ibru, came up with the need for better standards, newspapers were headed downhill. There is in an urgent need to raise the standards once again and flush out every element of incompetence and poor service delivery. 

We hopefully wait and expect the revolution and renaissance in our broadcast industry.

GOD bless Nigeria.

PROTECTING THE AGED FROM PREDATORS

 

‘Hustling and bustling’ have greatly altered the original arrangements of family structuring so much treasured by Africans. The African family arrangement was in the past structured in such a way that people were never completely helpless or exposed to predators in the society.  Children were cared for by parents and the extended family until they developed enough to be independent; as parents grew older, their offspring and other family arranged for caring for them. The barren and orphans were never left without care in African societies.

Not many aged people in Nigerian society enjoy the benefit of having quality care from their offspring in their twilight years. Defective family values and false doctrine have provided the perfect opportunity for young people to consolidate the excuse of ‘hustling and bustling’ as reason for not being able to adequately provide and care for their aged parents.

Predators in the form of sales people marketing obnoxious products including things that are supposed to promote good health and long life, employees who see to take advantage of them because they perceive that they are exposed since their children and younger members of the family are not immediately seen around them and religious zealots who go from house to house targeting aged people with pedestrian prayers and visions. Predators also come in the form of irresponsible children who resort to emotional blackmail by milking their parents of their lean resources and not leaving home or not living far away from home. These elements are very present in our society and people must become alert to their responsibility towards older members of their families.

There have been diverse opinions about signing up parents and the aged for care in old people’s homes. the few old people’s homes in Nigerian are more like homes for destitute and homeless senior citizens and many people feel discouraged about exposing their loved ones to such places.

Privatization of many businesses that had hitherto been established and managed by government has proven to be a sure way of rapid growth and development. Nigeria is still facing challenges in poor service delivery and the worrisome activities of ‘quacks’ in the society; these are issues that must not be used as excuse not to make effort in providing decent care for the aged in our society.

I recently came across an institution providing decent standard of care for the aged in East Africa and it seemed to be managed quite effectively and I wondered if such a template could possibly work in Nigeria. I gathered that the institution was started by two aged sisters who had a big expanse of property and needed companionship. Their children invited business consultants and that is how the institution came into being.

It required people to enroll and make contributions that would make them entitled to move in a stay in the facilities of the institution for as long as they desired and could afford. They had quality medical attention round the clock, excellent protection, satisfactory accommodation with feeding, recreation and exercise regimen. The aged made friends and were quite happy to be in each other’s company and they were clearly out of the way of busy children and their dignity was not in any way compromised. The aged people living within the home were indeed happier with the arrangement they had there than what they had at home where most of their contemporaries had become senile, incontinent and dead. The amount of joy and camaraderie they experienced was enough to extend their lives by a few more happy years. The aged people in our society will appreciate such opportunity if they had such facilities in Nigeria and if we truly seek to modernize, then it would be proper to modernize thoroughly and not shirk our responsibility of caring for the aged in our society.

GOD bless Nigeria.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE FAMILY

 

Women are excellent managers of home and business. Women are hardly ever entrusted with serious decisions or management roles without a fight. This conflict is one that has been on for years and the earliest thinkers and philosophers like Sigmund Freud did not help matters because they did not recognize women when they wrote and dialogued extensively on the workings of the human mind.

The activities of feminist philosophers like Mary Daly and women liberationist as well as personal determination have greatly influenced the opinion of many people about women in the modern society. However, many women still suffer discrimination and oppression especially in corporate environments of the world.

In Nigeria, many politicians in government pride themselves and arrogantly make elaborate declarations of employing women in their cabinet as if it is a special favour they do by recognizing the effort and the presence of women in the society. Also, many successful men owe their success in life to their mothers, wives, sisters or other female relatives who are most often unsung. Many men know for a fact that their finance is safer managed by women but they would resist the idea of a woman managing the resources of a state or a country. Many Nigerians will be quick to point at Mrs. Ngozi Okono-Iweala as the Minister of Finance of Nigeria. However she is just one person out of over 50million Nigerian women.

In Nigeria and many other African societies, the joy of being a female member of the family ends at the death of the father or the husband. If the female child is unfortunate not to have married and found a new father in her husband, she is systematically introduced to the fact that she has no more place in her father’s house. In some cultures in Nigeria, only male children are entitled to the family inheritance and in some cases, only the first son inherits all of the father’s property. If there is a strong enough bond of love in the family, he may choose to share with his younger siblings otherwise, he is not under any obligation to share with anyone. In this way many women, mostly widows have been denied the ‘fruits of their labour.’

Some women discover this truth a little late while few are fortunate enough to be aware of their lot earlier in life. For those who discover early enough, they are able to start early in building their own empire and they know they must defend and protect what belongs to them. Female offspring are often called upon and looked up to for support and care for the family and family property while parents and husbands live but as soon as death visits, these benefactors are shown the door.

Many cases of sibling rivalries escalated to become life-threatening battles and many successful business empires have collapsed after the death of the owner due to these irregularities. Many parents have made effort in addressing these issues in their life time and have in the process ensured peace and unity among their children. The more parents resolve these issues before they bow out of the stage of life, the more their legacy will last. If these family secrets are not confronted and ironed out accordingly, in a very little while, there will be no more family or family name. 

GOD bless Nigeria

REGULATION OF WORSHIP

 

The new thinking among many young Nigerians should be one that makes it necessary for them to review their religious preference and choice of religious group to associate with. Many years ago, the great Fela of Africa sang on the need for people to look around and see that our religious leaders live in affluence and in many cases, many of them are listed as some of the wealthiest members of the society.

Many religious leaders lay claim to ownership of their own businesses and careers although the account of the organization must have contributed in no small measure to the survival and growth of their private business. Many leaders of religious organizations are also known to employ the service of their members and paying them pittance which does not come anywhere near the prescribed standard of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity.

All religious organizations in Nigeria were established under temporary conditions and many of such organizations have grown over the years but they have failed to transform in accordance with what obtains with religious organizations that are established and managed in accordance with international standards.

The Lagos State government introduced and commenced enforcement of regulation of noise levels emanating from places of worship. Prior to that time, there was no regulation and in the course of worship, people made unwholesome noise that was more of a source of pollution than a form of spiritual edification or upliftment.

All the years that Nigerians have embraced imported forms of worship, there have been no clear regulations from government on establishment and administering many of the organizations. Officially, government recognizes Islam, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians in government institutions. In many other fora, Methodist, CAC, CCC, Baptist, ECWA, COCIN are also given some recognition as they are covered under the Protestant umbrella with Anglican churches. However, there has been a steady increase in the number of ‘mushroom’ religious groups in Nigeria. Many of them are so classified because of their small size and the fact that they are new; furthermore, many of them are products of irreconcilable differences in parent organizations.

Essentially, anyone who is able to raise enough money goes away with a few loyal members to start an organization with a new name. Many churches have come into existence as a result of such differences or conflicts; in some cases, the purpose of establishing the churches exclude evangelism which should be the main reason for establishing churches ordinarily. The fragmentization continues indefinitely and it becomes part of the identity of the church that there are seasonal break-away so to speak. The idea of breaking away is not foreign to Nigerians and the same ideology has seen to the creation of 36 states from the original three regions at the onset and there is no guarantee if many more states will not be created out of the present 36 states. By now, it should be clear that breaking away does a people no good at all.

Leaders of such churches have little or no experience in handling the delicate issues that arise within families and what results most times is that family structures are torn apart rather than consolidating on structures that already exist. Also essential values that make for harmonious co-existence with other members of the society are down-played so much and replaced with values that are not logical or indicative of having any fear of GOD and the sanctity of human lives.

For many of these ‘mushroom’ organizations, they must be made to affiliate with bigger, older and better-structured organizations. For teachings that will be made available to a section of the public, government must ensure that the ideology follows the same trend as credible and decent religious teachings and not just whatever any ‘preacher’ seeks to force down the throat of his followers.

The issue of Corporate Social Responsibility is one that many religious organizations are supposed to be firmly involved in but it is not the case with many of them. If government will need to lay down guidelines for the quality of CSR that these organizations must give then so be it.

 Religion is lucrative and organizations in the sector of religion must be made to make returns to government. If the organizations or the leader can afford to live in opulence and affluence, then it would not be out of place for government to demand ‘returns.’

GOD bless Nigeria.