The easiest and most attractive national pastime remains buck passing especially with the bunch of leaders that we have, that can hardly peel a banana nor wash an already white handkerchief. Not many of us want to take responsibility for anything, from personal, to family or national life.
The blame is on the system. We do not need to create demons out of our leaders because some of them are already specimens of demons, so we hang our sins on them appropriately and inappropriately too. And unfortunately, their behaviour has made it easy for the critic to descend on them.
We at most, talk, write and discuss the Nigerian myth with a sense of fatalism. If everyone thought as much as I did about justice and fairness, life would be better. I am a critic, but I am also the critics’ critic, the unrepentant believer that the best way to keep the government on its toes is to keep harping on their flaws so they can improve.
Often, I say I believe the things I write on are important for our nation as they are for other nations. But when it appears to me that Nigerians, especially those in authority, do not react to these issues as people in other lands do, I repeat them in new essays to remind old readers and recruit new ones to participate in the continuing dialogue.
Sadly, this is Nigeria where nothing works and no one cares. When it works, it is because someone’s interest is about to be served or being served, not the people’s interest. We talk about our institutions despairingly. Our leaders do not watch network news except when their faces would be there on occasion of their sons/daughters’ wedding or such. They do not need the newspapers anymore because it is full of their lies, or paid adverts exchanging banter.
Government bashing remains a national pastime and every drinking joint, and suya spot has a sitting parliament with an expert on every and any issue, but we forget that no matter the input, if the politicians and actors in our national scene have questionable lives both on personal and domestic level, nothing will change. The best government policy cannot change the individual. It is because the policies are formulated on a bad foundation and by people with warped thinking.
When a witch proclaims her presence, and an invalid does not make away; he must have money for sacrifices at home.
So, for some several weeks, it has been a back and forth between the regulator of our  education, in this case the Ministry of  Education and parents, on exactly the right age for a child to write the regulatory transitional exams. And let me say whether it is 18 years or five years, a dullard or an intelligent kid, it is garbage in, garbage out.
That may sound cold, especially in the light of the exploits of Nigerian graduates in other climes, remember I said other climes, and the few who do well here in Nigeria. Like my friend Ndo puts it, the quality is scarily dropping.
Have you noticed the ever-increasing cases of graduates and interview candidates having shallow knowledge of the subject matter, poor command of the use of English language, poor knowledge of the examination techniques, as well disregard for correct interpretation of questions before attempting them? Or that many candidates lack requisite mathematical and manipulative skills for subjects involving calculations, while handwriting of some are illegible and their answers scripts are full of spelling errors. (Not that my maths is so good either)
Many candidates try to cut corners by engaging in various forms of examination malpractice in order to obtain marks.
A good many of us spat on the education we had yesterday, and of course what passes for education today. And there is, certainly, a stratum of our society that looks back, nostalgically, at the quality of yesterday’s education”.
How many of us today can argue that this is not the truth, even the generation that had its education in 2000 now looks back with nostalgia.
By and large, however, most of us believed that there was very much missing in the content of our yesterday’s education. What we have today, in spite of innovations and the bold attempts to re-orientate it, remains, as it was yesterday, orthodox, slow foot, myopic.
Our educational system today only sharpens the head to near-pin end quality and this is even rare but it also makes the possessors limb atrophied by long disuse.
Our education is money-centered. It is an education which goads the possessor asking “what can my country do for me?”
In 2024, we are left to define the quality of education we want for tomorrow when our peers have gone far in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, neighbouring Ghana has even refused to wait for us. To chart out how to tread to win through, we now send our kids anywhere so far it is outside the country the education is better be it Iraq or Zimbabwe.
Do we have an education in which a possessor wants to elevate the less privileged that surge him round, the answer is no. Today what is the value of the education given to a young man who lives or is doing his mandatory service year in a guinea worm-infested area and yet is incapable of causing a revolution in the lives of the villagers by transforming their drinking water into healthy supply?
Please, what is the use of education given in physics to a young girl when the lights go out, she does not know what to do to get light again. In Nigerian  education, how many graduates can carry aloft an oasis of light, very few because the education is short on quality and is therefore poor.
While there is despair, there is hope and despair, a case of “we can” or “we can’t”. While we battle the scourge of local terrorism, bad leadership, kidnap, health, and countless issues, there is need to come up with some measures that could help both the students and schools to improve on their output, by extension resuscitate a nation’s dying if not dead  educational sector.
Our students need to develop a good understanding of questions and also learn the basic rudiments of the English language for better and clearer presentation of their answers. The sex for grade, bribe for certificate syndrome needs to be checked.
There is a need to ensure the appropriate textbooks in all subjects are procured and studied side by side with the examination syllabus, and should be completed before the commencement of examination. Libraries need to go info-tech, not littered with books of 1914. While practical hands-on learning away from just examination should be incorporated.
There is a need to provide basic infrastructure, and a conducive atmosphere in schools, only qualified and committed teachers who will teach their subjects effectively and guide students to become exemplary in their studies should be employed. Not like the teacher in Bauchi State (SUEB) that inherited his grandfather’s grade II certificate and was teaching with it or University dons that have become experts in plagiarism, selling handouts pirated from other works.
The question of whatever happened to the old school inspectorate system should be addressed.
We must move away from the exam-centric, conversation curriculum that takes away critical thinking and qualitative reasoning and educate with intention for a future world. If these and even more rigorous steps are taken, we may be saved the irony of the clowns we are churning out these days—May Nigeria win.
Dickson is a commentator on current issues.

By: Charles Dickson

If the viral report on the social media that the former Director-General of the Department of State Security, (DSS,) Yusuf Magaji Bichi, is currently looking for his son, Abba, who broke into his safe in his house and stole $2million (N3billion) cash and took off, is true, then Nigeria is in for big trouble. This is not healthy news in a country that is plagued by  multi-dimensional socio-economic challenges. According to the report, “sources in the DSS who confirmed the theft said Abba who had knowledge of where his father hides money he collects from politicians raced to his father’s house and took the box load of Dollars as soon as his sack was announced by President Bola Tinubu”.While about 200 million people wallow in an orgy of corruption- induced poverty, some public office holders are far richer than some states.
That the son of the former Director General of State Security Services allegedly “broke into his father’s house and stole $2million about N3 billion equivalent is one of the several known and hidden cases of brazen corruption that have dwarfed to a state of savagery Nigeria’s development. How could a public servant in Nigeria have such whoping amount of money at home? This goes to confirm the saying that loots of Nigeria’s public officers are hidden in foreign banks, GP tanks, underground safe and several other odd and unorthodox saving methods.Such startling revelations of alleged outrageous looting, siphoning of public funds and corrupt practices  attests to the fact that Nigeria is incurably sick and is tottering on the brink of collapse, if nothing is done to save the country. Nigeria is not a poor country yet millions are living in hunger, abject poverty and avoidable misery. What an irony!
Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous nation is naturally endowed with 44 mineral resources, found in 500 geographical locations in commercial quantity. According to Nigeria’s former Minister for Mines and Steel Development, Olamiekan Adegbite, the mineral resources include: baryte, kaolin, gymsium, feldspar, limestone, coal, bitumen, lignite, uranium, gold, cassiterite, columbite, iron ore, lead, zinc, copper, granite, laterite, sapphire, tourmaline, emerald, topaz, amethyst, gamer, etc. Nigeria has a vast uncultivated arable land even as its geographical area is approximately 923, 769 sq km (356,669 sq ml). “This clearly demonstrates the wide mineral spectrum we are endowed with which offers limitless opportunities along the value-chain, for job creation, revenue growth. Nigeria provides one of the highest rates of return because its minerals are closer to the surface”, Adegbite said.
Therefore, poverty in Nigeria is not the consequences of lack of resources and manpower but inequality, misappropriation, outright embezzlement, barefaced corruption that is systemic and normative in leaders and public institutions. Although, Nigeria is ranked as the economic giant of Africa, the most populous country in Africa and the sixth in the world with a population conservatively put at 200 million people, the country has the second highest population of impoverished people in the world.According to the World Poverty Clock 2023, Nigeria has the awful distinction of being the World Capital of Poverty with about 84 million people living in extreme poverty today. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data also revealed that a total of 133 million people in Nigeria are classed as multi-dimensionally poor.
Unemployment is a major challenge in the country.
About 33 percent of the labour force are unable to find a job at the prevailing wage rate. About 63 percent of the population were poor because of lack of access to health, education, employment, and security.Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) speculated that unemployment rate will increase to 37 percent in 2023. The implications, therefore, is increase in unemployment will translate to increase in the poverty rate.The World Bank, a Washington-based and a multi-lateral development institution, in its macro-poverty outlook for Nigeria for April 2023 projected that 13 million Nigerians will fall below the National Poverty line by 2025. It further stated that the removal of subsidy on petroleum products without palliatives will result to 101 million people being poor in Nigeria.The alarming poverty in the country is a conspiracy of several factors, including corruption.
In January, 2023 the global anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International, in its annual corruption prospect index which ranks the perceived level of public sector corruption across 180 countries in the world, says Nigeria ranked 150 among 180 in the index. Conversely, Nigeria is the 30th most corrupt nation in the ranking. It is also the capital of unemployment in the world. At the root of Nigerians’ poverty is the corruption cankerworm.How the nation got to this sordid economic and social precipice is the accumulation of years of corrupt practices with impunity by successive administrations.  Nigeria is not a poor country yet millions are living in hunger and abject poverty. The government can close the yawning inequality gap and increasing poverty level. There are several cases of corruption in Nigeria that have been swept under the carpet.
The case of misappropriation and embezzlement of pension funds is one of such ugly cases that stares the Federal Government’s anti-Corruption agencies and the Judiciary on the face. The Federal Government should be proactive and intentional in addressing the stinking wave of corruption in the country.

Igbiki Benibo

Over the years,  the remarks of Konrad Adenuar, (January 6, 1876 – April 1967),  a former Chancellor of Western Germany, that   ”in view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He (God) did not also limit his stupidity”,  has continued to agitate the minds of critics including public affairs analysts. This comment, which put succinctly, highlights God’s unfairness for  supposedly setting definite limit on man’s wisdom (intelligence) but  failed  to set the same limit on man’s stupidity, has  attracted wide spread condemnations from different sects; christians and non christians alike. Similarly, some critics, largely writers, hold the sentiment that society should not concentrate on juvenile delinquency alone but should also be concerned about what some identified as “adult delinquencies” since societal ills,grievious misdemeanors are traceable to adults, some of whom are leaders of thoughts occuping high offices.
Nigeria is replete with gutter Languages in public spaces deserving of concern and attention. One classic example is the recent outburst of Senator Adams Oshomhole, a former Governor of Edo State. It would be recalled that Senator Adams Oshomhole referred to the wife of the Governor of Edo State, Mrs Betsy  Obaseki, as a barren woman.Truly, it could be said that Mrs Betsy Obaseki  stoc the crisis when she referred to the governorship aspirant of All Progressive Congress (APC) Monday Okpebholo, as  a man without a wife. Political campaigns should be undertaken or conducted to discuss  issues and not insults to  enable the electorate choose a credible leader who can provide solutions to societal challenges. No doubt, it is regrettable that a former labour leader, governor and now a serving Senator, Adams Aliya Oshomhole, considered as  highly experienced to exhibit civility, maturity and superior acumen in a challenging situation such as this, particularly when viewed against the backdrop that the comrade- senator was not  speaking at a political rally ground.
Recently, the West, particularly Europe, is returning artefacts stolen from ancient Benin Kingdom more than a century and thirty years ago which politicians can discuss with respect to diversifying the economy as well as provide solutions to numerous difficulties facing Edo State and Nigeria at large.Worse still, can any parent boast of having or rearing children by his or her self as  to scorn an expectant family?. In the same way, the German statesman Konrad Adenuar cited above once  noted: “History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided”. For instance, the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru El-Rufai, once told foreign powers planning to interfere into the 2019 general election to  jettison the plan otherwise they would  leave in body bags.’Body Bag!’.
The expression “leave in body bags”,  is not befitting of a serving governor in all ramifications. As if that was not enough, the current Senate President and former Governor of Akwa Ibom State Senator Godswill Akpabio, referred to the contribution of a fellow law maker Natasha Akpoti Uduaghau as a “Night Club Comment”.This was another sad commentary and bad public communication made by a public office holder of equal ranking with a fellow colleague, because all senators are equal and therefore, the remarks by Senator Akpabio was regrettable even though he had apologized for his unfortunate outburst. Denigration of any sort should not be an option in pilloring the women folk in public places.
In fact, elder statesman, Pa. Edwin Clark, recently  called on the Inspector of Police and President Tinubu to arrest the minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Nyesom Wike, for saying he (Wike ) will put fire in the states of PDP governors and officials who want to interfer with his political structures in Rivers State.To put fire is ambiquous and has frightening implications. The Bible is apt and ever correct when in proverbs 15:1 noted that “Soft answer turns away wrath but grievous words stir up anger”. The remarks cited above traceable to public officials and leaders  in public spaces  show pride, selfishness, arrogance and are capable of igniting crisis, if not nibbed  in the bud. In addition to the provision of infrastructure, elected leaders must learn the acts of engaging in public communication, speaking life and not hate speach to build society for the better.Jesus Christ speaks in John 6:63 thus: “The words I speak they are Life and Spirit”.
It is instructive to observe that before David killed Goliath in it is recorded in 1st Samuel Chapter 17:24 – 45, that Goliath was very insultive, boastful, denigrating the army of Israel at the battle field before a non-soldier in the person of David over powered him- Goliath. Pride, they say, goes before the fall of man. This is why leaders in positions of trust should retrace their steps and be mindful of the words they speak and transmit in communicating with the electorate,fellow polititicians or their party members to engender peace in the polity and promote peaceful co-existence in Rivers State and Nigeria at large. The time to act is now.

Baridorn Sika
Sika, is a public affairs analyst.