Kunle Ajibade poses a very sensitive question to all of us in his book titled, What a Country! He asks us if we have ever imagined the irony of a person who stands akimbo while his house is on fire. Such unfathomable calmness and ease must have alarmed and appalled his bystanders beyond explanation. His bystanders will be left to think that he has been shocked into trauma or that he is just wishing the miserable house away because he has several others or can easily rebuild it because he has so much money to throw around. I usually remember this question whenever I see how much the Nigerian youth have been overwhelmed by mundanity, and the leaders don’t feel any need for reorientation. The future of the country is running wild while we all are fine with it. It is as if we have all agreed to destroy it together or we want to create another future for an entirely different set of youth.
I mean, what kind of youth openly proclaim disregard for education when we all know that proper education is an assured legacy for the future? Classrooms are fast turning into prosceniums where a teacher is just a mere jester because what he is teaching no longer holds any significance. His students no longer see anything so importantly valuable to securing their future. Therefore, to them, in this jet age, going to school is scam. This means that they no longer believe in the value of education and in actual fact, there is a number of alternative ways they can attain success without having to go school. Have they not seen many ‘yahoo guys’ and motor park thugs become the newest moneybags in town? Have they not seen some frivolous youth pocket whopping sums of naira just for sleeping in cozy beds, eating free food, and having free sex all in the name of entertainment? And very sadly, haven’t they also seen a first-class graduate with a record-breaking 5.0 aggregate pestering the national assembly for paltry commendation? These are just few instances of how much the country has gone astray. How will the youth believe in education when there are several institutionalized unwholesome means of securing their future?
One of the strongest reasons I think our leaders may find it hard to celebrate academic excellence is that successive governments have created a rotten system of education. Education in Nigeria is fraught with under-funding, inadequate facilities, examination malpractice, incessant strike and so on. Hence, if a student rises above these odds to perform exceptionally, they still cannot trust such performance. Because with so much rot in the system, it becomes a rude shock (to them) for a student to do well. This is why academic excellence hardly moves anybody in this country. You rarely see intellectual achievement making headlines. In this country, we have been so used to the weirdest of things so many times that such things no longer alarm or amaze us. Kunle Ajibade summarizes our pathetic situation by saying that Nigerians have been shocked beyond the extent of unshockability.
The country has become such a madhouse where craziness filters through the top to bottom and from bottom to top in a cyclic pattern. As of now in our country, doing the right thing does not pay. Do what you like to get rich and ensure you don’t get caught. If you have the opportunity to get rich quick and you refuse to take it, that means you are foolish. Right things no longer matter; only the popular things do. So, when the younger generation already have this kind of weird mentality, what becomes of the future of the country?
Basit Olatunji
Founding Editor