SO MANY SCHOOLS

Schools spring up at an astronomical rate in Nigeria; parents invest so much to educate their children - or so they say. Children are sent to school domestically and also abroad; Ghana, Benin Republic as well as Togo are also favourite education spots for Nigerians because of the delay in education arising from strikes, schools closure, etc.

Interacting with these kids can be such a pain because of the short cuts they have opted to take along the path of education. Frightening to see that today's educated people can hardly speak the lingua franca without rocking their speech through dangerous potholes. They dont write letters, memos, essays, memoirs, etc anymore. Many of today's graduates will find it very difficult to write a hand-written receipt or a bank instruction to transfer funds or to request for statement of accounts.

Whats trending today is the Blackberry way of doing things, facebooking, twittering and all the things that make the brain so lazy that it can hardly cope with any mentally involving task. This class is always quick to brand people 'old school'. Ok. What does the new school offer?

Every generation accuses the new generation of being on the path to decadence and so on; it is not the case with this generation but the education of today's generation is more like fast food. Save for a few parents who still get involved and insist on thorough education of the mind for their children; the education being offered by schools today does not go beyond the surface level. Kids today only study to pass their exams and they are on their way. A very shallow way of learning.

The schools abound and the teachers are available and willing to teach but how much knowledge do they impart? There is a yawning gap between education of the mind and the too many schools that are available in our system.

There was once a generation that studied Latin just like people are suposed to study the English language; that course is no longer being taught in our school curriculum today and it is quite understandable. However for courses like Geography and Civics, these are courses that students should not discard. These are courses that have a great impact on the horizon of a student, they affect their ability to aspire to see the world beyond their immediate family and their schools and they also enable students to have a clear picture of how to behave in the midst of decent human beings.

What these short cut approach to education of delivering to us are children who are basically all emotion and iota of giving  any form of help to another person.

DEVELOPMENT, SECURITY AND INVESTMENT II

Still on the South South Economic Summit 2012, thankfully, the issue of education was addressed. I was particularly charmed by the effort of Dr. Godswill Apkpabio, the governor of Akwa Ibom State. The governor made it quite clear that his administration is focused on education for the indigenes as well as all residing in Akwa Ibom State. Dr. Akpabio emphasized that his administration has put in place free education for all Nigerian children of Akwa Ibom origin and all children residing in Akwa Ibom State up to senior secondary school level. A number of state sponsored scholarships are available for indigenes of Akwa Ibom State who seek to study and train locally and in foreign countries.

Without mincing words, the governor emphasized that his administration has set out and is working vigorously to wipe out the scourge of citizens of Akwa Ibom state which in the past put them in the position of house helps. A lot of Nigerians and even expatriates have enjoyed the services of citizens of Akwa Ibom State in the past and it is now very clear why there is a dearth of such services from that end of Nigeria.

I am aware of the rehabilitation of schools project of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State. All the schools that had before his tenure fallen apart have all been rehabilitated. A visit to the schools in Edo State will reveal that children are now more comfortable in government owned schools than privately owned schools. Primary schools and secondary schools have all been rehabilitated giving the students and the teachers a new sense of purpose as they approach their schools.

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state mentioned that his administration has also embarked on an extensive schools project which is nearing completion and at the summit, he promised that very soon, the state would invite the President to come and launch the schools. These are laudable projects for the citizens of these states and they are well timed as well.

The call for review of the education sector is long overdue. Politicians are not giving schools administration room and reason to function normally; teachers are ill-equipped and mostly ill-motivated and the students just pass time within the school system without having a clear focus of the much desired need to broaden their mind by the experience of education. Where are our values?

The last UTME for 2012 again revealed that the quality of students passing through schools in Nigeria is not presentable in any education system other than in Nigeria. As many as 27,000+ candidates had their results withheld for various reasons and failure was on a mass scale with only three candidates scoring beyond 300 marks and others barely scaling the 200 minimum score. The results are the evidence as well as the proof of decay in the system.

The Nigerian Minister of Education, Prof. (Mrs.) Ruqayyatu Rufai is working ceaselessly to unearth the various problems of the Nigerian education system and only recently created a committee to look into the education sector to see how progress can be made especially among the universities.

The Nigerian universities have been besieged with too many problems and some of them have been identified to include the following:

·        Inadequate funding from the government

·       Erosion of values by a valueless political system resulting in a breach of universities protocol, the weakened internal policies in the area of union presence and activities as well compromised administrative procedures.

·       Government’s poor planning and implementation culture as major impediments to the achievement of university missions i.e. teaching and learning, research and consultancies.

·        Planning and implementation issues

·       Party politics –many lectures and professors shuttling between government positions and the university employment; bringing party politicking skills into the administration of the universities which students, parents and their sponsors at the receiving end of the detrimental effects that follow.

·       Business interest of lecturers in that they are more focused on juicy contracts of government rather than writing papers or carrying out research in their field of study.

Without a doubt, one must admit the strong presence of politics in universities where positions are vied for by suitable qualified candidates; there is also an opportunity for students to cut their teeth in politics while vying for student union positions. Cultism among students and lecturers also has its own position to play in campus politics and these have always been known to be part of the system right from the earliest days of universities. What obtains today however is a fearful departure from what was known to be the case several years ago.

School fees, levies and other costs are never reviewed downwards; this makes one wonder why it is so difficult to equip schools enough to ensure a safe and habitable enough an environment to promote academic excellence.

A complete review of the system and the challenges before the schools will do a lot of good and not just making schools available.

DEVELOPMENT, SECURITY AND INVESTMENT

The theme of the South South Economic Summit 2012 once again brings to mind the need to take a critical look at the present situation of the nation, Nigeria. The many speakers at the summit touched on various areas of human economic needs; the common denominator is the urgent need to address the issue of security in Nigeria.

The Publisher of This Day newspapers who was also the moderator of the summit was very much present and every time he appeared on the podium, one agonizingly recalls that as the summit commenced, the offices of This Day, Sun and the Moment newspapers at Abuja and Kaduna were attacked by terrorists who have held Nigeria by the jugular over the last one year. As with every such attack, lives and property were lost and again foreigners were cautioned by their respective embassies to stay away from Nigeria and from large gatherings.

Too many people in the northern states of Nigeria have one agonizing story or the other tell of how they shared in the grief being meted out against the Nigerian people by terrorists. For a very long time, the terrorists concentrated their attacks on the northern part of Nigeria and it seemed like it was a northern issue. Suleija, a commercial city between Minna and Abuja was hit during the festivities of 2011 and several Christians perished in the attack and every other attempt to hit the nation’s capital has been thwarted by the eagle eyed security operatives of government. The level of alertness is so high that people don’t overlook any form of baggage that appears to be abandoned anywhere anymore.

I had reason to go to the Lagos International airport a few weeks back and I was greatly disturbed because of the current state of security of Nigeria. Inspite of the security alertness, it is only normal for one to exercise some degree of fear.

Some states in the northern part of Nigeria have been delisted by the National Youth Service Corp; youth coppers are no longer being posted to those states for fear of terrorist attacks since the last attack in Bauchi when 15 youth corpers were killed. Many parents would spare no expenses in ensuring that their children are not posted to the north as a whole.

A number of non-northerners who have lived and traded in the north all their lives have been forced to return to the south. Among these are people who have established their businesses and have done well in the north but such businesses must have been closed down or sold at a token in order to return home alive. 

Following security, another issue that was mentioned and deliberated upon is electricity and power supply. This is another area of concern to all Nigerians. Providing alternative power supply is now at great costs and no business or home is spared the horrors of the difficulty of providing alternative power supply. Many businesses suffer the inconvenience of having to divert precious production allocation into providing alternative power supply and many of such businesses have been moved to neighbouring African countries like Ghana and Benin Republic. Much bigger companies are also groaning under the impact of epileptic power supply in Nigeria.

Students of the premier university took to the streets in rampage protesting over the failure of the school to provide alternative power when there was power outage. The students have been sent on a two-week break since Tuesday, 17^th of April, 2012.

Also in the second week of April, 2012, there was another power outage at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport which caused an aircraft from London to be taxing on the runway for over 90minutes. And of course there are always official explanations to these incidences by the Honourable Minister for Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji. The great professor has become a celebrity of some sort in Nigeria.

While the summit proceeded, there was another power outage although the governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan explained that the Events Centre where the summit took place is a new facility and had not been connected to the national grid.

Nigeria is one of the countries that seek to have its economy emerge on the world economic stage. Nigeria seeks foreign investors to partake in the rebuilding of the Nigerian economy. Nigeria still depends on the oil wealth of the nation and not much emphasis has been placed on other forms of economic activities like farming. News is that there are still many areas of economic activity that have not been explored by Nigerians especially we consider the fact that Nigeria is greatly endowed with vast land and enormous human resources.

In the face of all of these, it is of essence that a regulatory framework must be in place to attract foreign investment and the uncertainty of the true status of the Nigerian political terrain makes no room for investors to invest in the Nigerian economy. To a large extent, Nigerians are known to have a lot of regulatory bodies that pay salaries and other costs monthly but these bodies have no format by which they are operated and this gives the impression that there are no structures. If there were clear structures, it would not have been very easy for so many cases of fraud to be discharged without guilt. Also, the government’s position on the issue of terrorism gives the impression that some government officials have compromised the trust bestowed upon them by the people and this has allowed this injury to fester.

There is hope for Nigeria and very fact that the summit is holding at all has provided ample opportunity for some of our leaders to confront the issues that we are faced with. From this summit, the governors seem positioned to carry out some innovative exercises in their respective states and the initiative is laudable.

STILL ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

It gets more difficult to understand why there are now so many pending cases of violence against women. Some of these cases involve loss of lives - usually of women; it is not as if it is a new phenomenon but what is disturbing is that there is a steady rise in the incidence of violence against women.

I stumbled on a phone-in programme being broadcast by one of the radio stations in Lagos some weeks back and I was taken aback when I was able to put together that a lady on a marketing call had been sexually attacked by a male pretending to be a prospect. He had intended to rape her but when he discovered that she was menstruating, he forced her to do a blow job on him and when an asthma attack progressed into a crisis, he flung her out of his apartment.

The programme went on for hours but the long and short of it is that some people blamed her for taking a marketing call alone; others blamed her for positioning herself to be raped and still others cautioned her that it would be difficult to prove that she had been sexually attacked.

The attacker is someone the young lady had met sometime in the past through a mutual friend and upon confronting the middleman so to speak, they were able to contact the attacker and she made a recording of the phone discussion - a confession; this is said to be not enough evidence for prosecution. What next? No response.

I feel pained that the law would demand proof from such a woman; it takes courage for a woman to go public about such a disgusting attack in the first place and I dont believe any right thinking woman would jest to that extent. Worse still, the attacker is not even worth celebrating, he is just a complete layabout. A story like this makes me look inward and I say to myself "thank GOD, I am an African woman."

A bus load of young ladies was attacked on Ibadan/Lagos express a few weeks ago and they were robbed and supposedly raped but the school authorities have come out in a press conference to say that no one was raped. We are indeed relieved to hear this; we accept it.

A driver informed me yesterday that his bus was hijacked sometime last week along Lekki/Ajah express by three armed men who boarded on the pretext that they were travellers. They dispossed the driver of his personal belongings and when they demanded to rape the young women in the bus, he resisted and a fight ensued in which he was badly beaten and wounded and his vehicle seriously damaged. He defended the women with his life and fought until the robbers or attempted rapists fled.

I dont know why there is this sudden interest in violating women to the point of raping them; I really cant think of the reason. Hello? Is anybody out there?

TRUE AND FROM THE HEART

Memories of you. 

The lights are out and all the fans and praise singers have gone for the day. I am now able to sit in my favourite spot and take a closer look at what I see. I just see you. You gave me every reason to believe in myself; to have confidence in myself. You brought out joy in my spirit; my heart skipped a beat every time I heard your voice or looked in your face; you made me laugh and you made me cry. Too many times I just wanted to toss it all behind me and move on the way I am wont to so often do.

It hurts to finally admit that I knew from the onset that we were chasing after a lost cause. You could never belong to me; we both wished for what we could not have – we only wanted it to last for as long as we could make it last and boy did it last?

In the end, we had to go our separate ways and ever since I have sought that being who would take your place. I am tired of struggling to find that person who will fill the vacuum; truth be told, I don’t want to fill that vacuum. It hurts so good?

No. You are you and no one can be you.

It really does feel good to remember you. You were my friend, you brought out the essence in me – that little girl in me; that child who just wanted to be loved and accepted. You accepted the woman that I turned out to be and you fought beside me. You were my number one fan and my champion.

You made me happy and I have tried to forget all the darkness and storms of the last days but every effort at forgetting and walking away always ends in more anguish. I never really loved you and I don’t miss you but I acknowledge that you were indeed a good friend to me and now that I have let you go, I will tell myself the truth so I can peacefully move on without you but with memories that will live forever.

DEFINING STANDARDS AMONG NIGERIANS

Someone once told me that in a pack of Africans, you will always identify the Nigerian distinctly from the others. There is something unique about us Nigerians that make us stand out among other Africans. For many people who are non-Nigerian world over, there are diverse records of encounters with Nigerians.

It is a shame that quite a lot of Nigerian citizens have gone bad and are giving every other Nigerian a bad name all over the world. In spite of this infamous reputation that many of our people have brought upon us, there are certain circles where Nigerians are highly respected, appreciated and desired.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no general or common description that would fit majority of Nigerians and there are so many varied descriptions that I still cannot settle for as the official or general description of Nigerians.

I am a Nigerian and I have been one for over forty years. I have lived most of my life among Nigerians and I believe that I am in a good position to describe Nigerians. My description of Nigerians is neither official nor is it professional but by and large it is an accurate description of Nigerian people.

Nigerians are predominantly warm, laidback and very casual people in their approach to all issues. Nigerians may truly find some ideal that challenges their intellect but Nigerians will never stick out their neck enough to want to or agree to die for any cause. Just per chance someone comes up to say that a Nigerian agreed to suicide bomb himself, I’d say, “beware, the joke may well be on you.”

Italians are known to have a very high level of respect for their families and their roles in their families. These are the predominant traits among Italians wherever they are found in the world. Nigerians on the other hand are a pot-pourri of traits and characteristics.

However, what about the issue of standards? What are the standards among Nigerians? What is acceptable and what is not acceptable? What is the basis by which people are honoured in Nigeria? By what standard is success measured among Nigerians?

“GOD bless America” is a very common prayer among Americans at whatever age. Let’s not go into whether Nigerians can pray for Nigeria; but if you are praying for Nigeria, how can you succeed in Nigeria if Nigeria is left to grabbers and heathens? Are we proud of our flag, our national anthem or the national pledge?

At this point, I dare say that fewer Nigerians know that our national flag is made up of two and only two colours; fewer Nigerians know by heart the wordings of the national anthem and the national pledge. These three elements are common to all Nigerians, we as a people must know them just as we know our personal names.

For the entrepreneur who wants to record a breakthrough, he must be (seriously) familiar with the map of Nigeria, the culture and traditions of the people. Such a person must approach Nigeria with personal interest at heart. Be it in the service or production industry, he will have to come early to the realization that as much as he can offer sub-standard products and services, that is how the next entrepreneur can do same.

My people say that, “if you are so gifted to see someone in the dark, believe that he too has seen you.” This is applicable to each and all; no skills or strategies will exempt you as an entrepreneur who is fond of short-paying consumers from receiving and consuming sub-standard products and services and from being defrauded.

The fact that you maintain high standards in your business does not also exempt you from being short-paid because the general practice of cutting edges has become our way of approaching business. Please refer to my description of Nigerians one more time.

Once again, all Americans say “GOD bless America,” America is recognized by all nations as the most developed of all nations. I assure you that there is no basis for competition between Nigeria and America but there is no harm in aspiring to be one of the strongest and best developing countries. Margaret Thatcher once said, “she did not see the likelihood of a woman ever ruling as PM in Great Britain,” well history is the best authority to refer to over that view point.

Entrepreneurship is being introduced in Nigerian curriculum at a very early level now but people need to also introduce integrity in business to young Nigerian minds. This is an over flogged issue but we must continue to flog it.

Going into business does not mean an opportunity for you to express your skills at defrauding unsuspecting or even gullible customers. You may get away with it for a while but very soon, your reputation will go around and you will begin to seek other means of compelling or manipulating customers’ decision to or not to patronize your sub-standard business.

The truth is that you too will patronize another entrepreneur like yourself and as a result, you will curse Nigeria instead of praying for Nigeria like every responsible Nigerian should. How will the land of Nigeria yield her abundance to us who live off Nigeria?

What (where) are our values as a people? As soon as we can truthfully answer this question, we will be able to draw up a table of standards of how we approach business and life.

Approach to business and approach to life cannot be clearly separated. When we consider simple questions like these, it becomes clearer.

i.              Do you see the need to pay your utility bills? What about taxes?

ii.             Do you see the need to treat your workers like human beings or like you would want your own relative to be treated?

iii.           Do you bother to take time to consider what you intend to say before shooting it out; do you have any regard for your audience?

iv.           Do you take the pain to find out how the next man’s name is pronounced before you make an attempt to pronounce it?

v.            How do you handle power when you are given authority?

These are a few of the questions that we would need to address; whatever your answer may be, remember what they say, “what goes around comes around.” It is just unfortunate that it is poor Nigeria that takes the brunt.

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT IS THE KEY

 

This is what counts. 


Quite frankly, if we look around, we find that everyone is target for marginalization. There are people who for their own reasons would want to marginalize other people around them, but the key thing is “if people would allow themselves to be marginalized.” Who will save you from marginalization? It is only you who has the ability and interest to save yourself from marginalization.

By the way, its only in Nigeria that this word is used freely. It has become so used and abused that in a situation where one expresses dissatisfaction over service received, the first response will be marginalization. If a sloppy staff is reprimanded, he will scream marginalization. If a landlord serves a truant tenant a quit notice, the next thing the tenant will say is that he is being marginalized.

In too many cases, we blame other people for our misfortunes because we have not been able to see ourselves and our products or service as unique and different from a certain group or class to which we restrict ourselves. Until we rise above the contraptions of social groups or class; we will not see the need to add value to ourselves, to our products or to our services enough to make room for desirability. In the course of my development as an individual, I have come to see the critical need to add value to myself so much so that it is sufficient to add to every person I come in contact with and every environment I enter.

My parents are (first and foremost) teachers. My mother’s father was a lawyer (as well as a teacher) and my father’s father was a preacher (and a teacher). The most common trade among my kinsmen is teaching and preaching in one form or the other. I am a writer, an artist, an entrepreneur and a teacher.

My siblings are professionals in various fields but by and large they are also teachers. Simply put, teaching is a basic career in my family and in the community where I come from but we have over time, developed other skills and means of earning income. I have medical doctors, engineers, bank managers, musicians, etc in my family who has discovered ways of expressing that basic tendency to teach. It is our calling.

Now the fact that I come from a family of teachers does not mean that I should not aspire or work towards being the best teacher there ever was or being the biggest teaching entrepreneur in Nigeria. I that I am not restricted to teaching in the classroom.

That I am a Nigerian does not limit my aspirations to be best at any field I choose. I always tell young people that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s father is not the owner of World Bank where she rose to be the President until she recently returned to Nigeria to take charge of the Ministry of Finance. She did not have to know anybody to be at the top today.

D’banj, TuFace, Genevieve Nnaji and so many other Nigerian successful artistes are pulling their weight in their chosen careers inspite of limitations

There is nothing that cannot be achieved if one sincerely and consistently works at it. I am an African does not mean that I cannot reach the highest international height in my field. President Barack Obama, Beyonce Knowles, Oprah Winfrey are all Africans and they are still doing very well in their diverse areas of endeavour. 

This is the result of their personal effort to achieve distinction and excellence. This is personal achievement. Every individual has the potential to excel if they work at it and in the same line, every business has the potential to excel if the entrepreneur works at it. What I just want to reveal here is that it is not impossible. There are too many written material on success tips in personal relationships and in business but believing that it can be done is key and working sincerely and consistently are the major keys to personal achievement.