This is it, a classic condemnation of the unreasonable first prize of some talent-based competitions: Big Brother Africa, sponsored by Coca-Cola, $300,000 (N48m); Maltina Dance, N10 million; MTN Project Fame, N7.5 million, plus an SUV; Etisalat’s Nigerian Idol, N5 million, plus multi-million naira contracts; Glo Naija Sings, N5 million, plus an SUV; Gulder Ultimate Search, N10 million, plus endorsements and an SUV. But compare and contrast with academic equivalents: Cowbell Mathematics Competition, N100,000; Lagos State Spelling Bee, N50,000; School Scrabble, N25,000; Cool-FM Spelling Game, goodie bag filled with Amiladrink; UNN Best Graduating Student, N50,000. And someone wonders why there’s so much failure in WAEC and JAMB? Soon, parents will no longer ask their children to read their books so they get good grades but to read their lyrics so they could make hit songs. Nigeria, we hail thee!
One reads all sorts of stuff on the social media, much of which is either funny or outright silly. However, once in a while, if you belong in the right crowd, you stumble on posts or tweets that are so factual, so ‘eye-openingish,’ and, as in the above case, so damn shameful. I do not know why the people at Guinness Book of Records have not deemed it fittingly-wise to come up with the world’s absurdest nation. If they already have, it must be Nigeria. If it’s another, they should recheck. My country’s absurdist tendencies are out of this world. Samplers: raped serially for years by people posing as leaders, she mocks economists and such other bookmakers by still standing when other nations that faced a tenth of her troubles had since fallen. My country pushes on in sheer daredevilry in spite of and despite the daily routine of her human components pulling away in different directions. This is my Nigeria, the only country on earth that sows tares, which nature transforms into gold and diamond ready for harvest. Nigeria’s input and output have never tallied. The latter almost always defies logic!
The foregoing dovetails with the anonymous commercial lifted from the social media, which forms our central theme. The Nigerian reward system, like everything else Nigerian, is tilted massively in favour of chaff to the detriment of substance. Hardworking citizens have nothing to show for all the years of labour, but idle opportunists live like kings and queens, princes and princesses. Nigerians who make honesty their watchword have to wait to see if they would make Heaven to receive their rewards; yet scoundrel compatriots reap instant benefits from the same system they have hurt so horribly. To rub it in, everyone smiles at the situation in the acknowledgment that the gods are forever on our side. This is no superstition as teeming Christian and Muslim faithful also brag that God is a Nigerian. Up and down, the bragging rights are accentuated by the reality that Nigeria and Nigerians get away with everything, almost everything.
Coming to the specifics, Nigerians should know that Nigeria would only make progress when the right people are in the right places, doing the right things at the right time and, of course, receiving the right support from the right people. We must realise that, no matter how fond of us nature is, it might only insulate us from the danger of perishing. It will never give us Eldorado, meant to be achieved only by careful planning and implementation. Therefore, educationally, politically, economically, socially and what have you, we all need to be up and doing. For instance, the stubborn asterisk that remains on leadership nationwide can be obliterated by a conscious reengineering of the ad hoc recruitment process. Yes, it’s that simple: the right leaders would emerge once we play the right politics, of less money, through rancour-less, transparent and people-oriented primaries, with free and fair elections and an all-inclusive, not winner-takes-all, tenure. Economically, the powers that be across every stratum of government must recalibrate their capacity with a view to drawing up workable, customised frameworks, eschewing policy somersaults, and generally ensuring at all times that Nigeria is in sync with global best practice.
When we keep right on these and sundry fronts, the national march to our dream destination would not only have begun in earnest but shall also be easier, faster and fruitier. We must reassess our education approach and reward system. A society that rewards exceptionally brilliant or honest citizens with crumbs from the table peopled by known numbskulls and criminals only teaches the few good people to emulate the many bad ones. A society that doles out tiny prison terms for monumental crimes while simultaneously locking away petty thieves prepares the ground to transmogrify into an underworld. A society that celebrates money, music, acting, football and such other talent-based stardom, without commensurate education, may indirectly send the message that even basic education is not the indispensable all-round criterion that it has always been, is and would forever be. Public and private sector sponsors must reduce the annoying jumbo cash prizes they allocate to these competitions, which require little or no education. Nigeria doesn’t only need more of academic events but far higher and more attractive incentives and prizes. Enough of this slavish treatment of literacy and princely exaltation of illiteracy!
Tackling the scourge of rumour-mongering
I haven’t had the privilege of being in many third world settings and so cannot agree or disagree with the school of thought that insists that rumours are a poverty- and illiteracy-induced vice. However, I’ve been around in this country long enough and am old enough to talk authoritatively on the Nigerian experience. Yes, poverty and illiteracy are critical agents in talebearing, but they pale into insignificance here in Nigeria because of pride and culture. Most poor or uneducated Nigerians are too proud of their name or ancestry to descend to being rumour-mongers. No, rumours in Nigeria are generated and spread mostly by a five-some: pettiness, politics, hate, envy, ethnicity. Kill these and you hear no more rumour. NOA, over!
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