WHY YOU MAY NEVER BE EMPLOYABLE UNTIL... II

by Adedoyin Shobo

Someone said there's a difference between being ignorant and willfully ignorant. I can imagine how willfully ignorant I had been?

I recall as a kid my teachers (also in pursuit of this squalid cycle attaining the Nigerian dream) whipped the holy-living-hell out of my senses. The one thing I remember is the sound of the whip as it struck my bare African back sending shock waves that connected straight up to my growing brain.

The feeling?...
The feeling of excruciating pain while I convinced myself it was indeed for the best if this was what it took to be great. To be among the stars in the heavenly sky someday.

O God! I can't even remember shit of what I was taught in school and worst its relevance. All this obsolete data I sponged up in my wild unrefined mind. All I have as pips are long eerily-looking welts to bear witness. Give me that to take home to my kinsmen.

The system of education is so wrong and at best ineffective.

The varsities and colleges are no exception. At sixteen, I swore solemnly to go to the best school in the country. A prestigious name supposedly - the hallmark of global excellence. A bastion that had the spine to challenge the natural limitations placed on us by the great Earth.

I remembered my first day in school in the concrete jungle of southwestern Nigeria after the joint admission and matriculation examination (JAMB). By the stars, I sat for the stupid exam six times. I'd never been so confused after stepping courageously onto the cobble stone of the building that had once produced Nobel laureates, inventors and global personalities.

I willfully chose my school with the omniscient approval of my dear papa. He seemed so elated I had made a wise choice. The wonderful path to life I would regret henceforth.

From my days as a jambito, I had set off on the wrong note - something was off. In the varsity, the purported hub of research and the birthplace of technological breakthrough around the world, that produced minds like Adam Smith, Chinua Achebe, Albert Einstein, Phillip Emegwali, Wole Soyinka, Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, and Barack Obama among others.

In the lulling heat of the afternoon, I trolled uncountable offices laboring after signature from one Oga to the other. The name, Oga is used loosely for anyone that had the power legally or illegal to destroy your destiny.

All these people had one thing in common. There were the products of failed educational system, bad administration and greedy politics at the highest echelon that don't give a hoot about the people. The victims of these circumstances are what we collectively referred to as 'The Masses.'

 One day, a paid worker of one faculty after resuming by 11 am, got into a bantering with the other staff in spite of the gamut of students that had starve sleep to receive her high esteemed signature since 7 am. She soon settled to eat. The process didn’t start until 2:30 pm, then after 30 minutes, she claimed to be tired and had to close for the day. Most students officially registered for that course at the entrance of their examination that semester.

After such harrowing experience one day I recall my friend asking 'Na runs these oga dem use collect this work. Shooo!'

I sighed. A deep-knowing sigh. I knew this might as well just be the beginning. I needed a course on dealing with all this diligent servants of government educational propaganda. There were the totems of the rot in the once respected Nigerian education.

Right there including other factors, I knew it wouldn't mean shit if you graduate first-class or pass, your black African behind would been on the street in no distant time, telling the same story my elder brothers and sisters chant like a sworn creed. The song on everyone full lips. 

To be continued...