Wake up! sleeping Giant of Africa.

There have been many dust raised over the present state of Education in Nigeria by a host of eminent Nigerians. I dare say that all these efforts are not likely to make any impression on the present parlous state of Education in our Nation because; we are approaching the whole concept of education wrongly.

Our present educational system was bequeathed to us by the colonial masters of old and we just continued to run things according to someone else’s vision for Education for our Nation. That was where we erred as we refused to chart a course for our future as a Nation by ourselves.

 I will term the education we have presently as Hunger induced Education as, if you ask an average Nigerian, why do you go to school, you are likely to hear statements like, I want to be able to live a comfortable life, get a good job and many other variants of the statement above. Let’s conduct a quick test, answer these questions and try to do so truthfully;

1.     Define Education in your own words?

2.     What motivated you to get an Education?

3.     Do you believe you got the right kind of Education?

4.     What have you achieved with your level of Education so far?

5.     How many others have you taught what you know?

I believe the answers you give to the questions above will give you a lot of insight into the present state of Education in Nigeria.

Let me not belabor the issue but attempt to give my humble opinion of the way forward. There is something called the American dream and every president that had ever ruled that country and will still do so works towards making it possible for every American to experience this dream. In fact, every migrant that has ever moved to and will still move to America does so because of this dream. This American dream is what informs every direction of the American Government in every facet of the American life, America, a land of opportunities. In fact, this same dream drives the quest for knowledge which forms the basis for Education in America. That is what makes them and other developed Nations set the pace and others follow. Any form of development is driven by Education therefore for Nigeria to develop our Education has to be right and for that to happen, we need to craft the Nigerian dream.

We have the capacity to get ourselves out of the situation we are in presently. If we look inwards, then we can launch outwards.

What is the Nigeria of your dream? 

 As long as we continue to import Education from other countries and apply it directly, we will never get to our el dorado. The key word is import verbatim. It is full hardy for us to continue in this same vein and expect to experience growth and development in our Nation. Education for us should be focused at building our Nation’s Human resources which will in turn translate to;

1. Studying our environment with the intent to effectively harness the resources available to our advantage and ultimate benefit.

2. Studying our environment to ensure that we do not unbalance it in any way

3. Studying our environment to ascertain how to make it conducive to support us.

4. Making every effort to preserve the sanctity of our environment.

In achieving the above mentioned objectives, we need to glean from the experience of those that have gone ahead of us, yes. But in doing so, we must be careful to see how we can adapt it to our own unique situation. Many a Nation have done just the same thing I am proposing here and it worked well for them, therefore nothing stops us from applying same. Nations like Japan, China, and North-Korea even India and a host of others learnt to adapt what they learnt to their own particular situation

Nigeria is unique in the variety and distinctiveness of its abundant natural resources, topography and land layout, seasons and especially the Human Capital plus a host of other unique attributes that God has blessed us with, we should therefore do all in our power to administer and utilize them properly. No one can do it for us. We are the ones in position to take our destiny in our hands and direct it appropriately. Let us do well to learn all we need to learn from others but then with the mindset of turning the knowledge to how best it will suit our situation. There lies the solution to our Nigeria, a great Nation peopled by a beautiful blend of a unique and talented people. A combination of diversity that when properly harnessed will produce results that had hitherto domiciled in the realm of imagination and fantasy.

I can imagine what is going through your minds right now, how can this happen when nothing works in this nation, when corruption is the other of the day et al. really, the truth of the matter is, it starts with me, yes, me. That is what I have come to discover. That is what I see and that is what I have chosen to believe and work on. The Nigeria of my dreams is a place large enough to contain and support every persons dream, a place that is conducive enough to nurture every individual’s dream and a place that is sufficient enough to allow every one to realize their dreams. Now, that’s the Nigeria of my dreams, what about you?