Is Education In Nigeria Really Scam?

By

Vanessa Eke-kola & Pedro Godwin

Introduction

Few weeks ago, our course-mates dived into a heated argument about education in Nigeria. This
argument was brought about by a broadcast message titled "Education Vs Entertainment" which was
posted to our class whatsApp group chat. The post mirrored the sad reality that those in other non
academic sectors thrive financially over those in the academic sector. Please note that education is
contextual and in this context, the kind being referred to is tertiary education. While some us were quick
to resonate with the post, others argued that "the importance of education cannot be over emphasized".
We respected everyone's contributions and opinions but we just couldn't completely agree because to
us, they were missing the point the post was trying to make. The point that the world has revolved so
much that It doesn't matter whether you attend tertiary institution or not to be successful. The point
that not attending tertiary institution does not make you "stupid" but can even give you an edge because
you would have the time to explore more. The point that the importance placed on university degree has
watered down over the years. The point that what matters these days is what you are becoming
irrespective of where you are. However, they felt we were trying to downplay the importance of
education or that we were just being materialistic and placing money as the ultimate.

To cut the long story short, that argument is the birth of this mini epistolary you are about to read. This
write- up is the compilation of thoughts and ideas of two people who came together after the night of
that argument with the desire to give a satisfactory and balanced summation of what tertiary education
in Nigeria is and what we should truly make out of it.

This write up is not an attempt to impose our opinions on anyone neither is it an attempt to prove that
we know it all but it is our humble way of laying out the thoughts borne from our experiences with the
hope that it is honest and practical enough for you and that you make attempt to follow the suggestions
we would give just the same way we are in the process of following the suggestions. Welcome on board!
Dear Nigerian Student,

It is with mixed feelings that I write you this letter. My emotions are swimming in directions I cannot find
the words to express. I do not know if what I feel is sadness but I know it is nothing close to happiness.
Maybe it is bitterness or maybe it is frustration. I am at that point where I want to vent. Rant. Spit it out
quickly like you do do when you unintentionally taste something bitter. I once read somewhere that
confiding in others allays pain, who then is best to share with if not you who is a victim like I am?

For the purpose of this tale, permit me to call you Ore Mi, which means my friend because even if we
haven't played Suwe, that game played by drawing a long rectangle on Sandy floor and splitting it into
sections and hopping around the small sections on one foot trying to make it round the drawn rectangle
with small stones on the palm of our hands or played rock, paper, scissors like friends do, what I want is
that you and I are still able to feel that innocent connection that arises from sincerity of hearts. When
you are done reading this and have felt all that I want you to feel, pass it on to another of your Ore, your
friend. That one you like to share gossips with.

People say I like to think too much. I overthink. Maybe they are right. Only that to me there is nothing
wrong with that or is it my fault that there are many things in this life to think about? This country in
particular. My only fault is that when I think, I don't leave it to wander in my thoughts alone. I want to
express it. I want to make you see it too so that you and I can feel each other's plight like true friends
really do. So Ore, forgive me but I have done some thinking today; thinking about our educational
system. This one that we are both in that is leaving us frustrated, broke and a shadow of ourselves or
rather a shadow of what we thought we would be and now, some of us are silently wishing somewhere
in our hearts that we had chosen another path; like hairdressing, Makeup, Photography, Music, Business,
tailoring or fashion designers as they like call themselves to feel good.
Ore Mi, did you notice that a typical Nigerian has a programmed educational map that we unconsciously
follow? Attend Nursery, Primary and Secondary school. Write WAEC. Write JAMB. Write Post UTME. Get
Admission or like they say enter school but nobody sits you down to ask you what you really want like we
see in films. American films. Even you don't think you want anything other than to enter school. You
cannot think beyond it because it is the moment you and every member of your family have been
looking forward to.You have anticipated this day since the time you could sing twinkle twinkle little star.
You even imagine yourself matriculating. No wonder you wept like someone died the first time you
didn't make your JAMB or JAMB "gave" you that score you shy away from telling people. If you didn't cry
like I did, I know it made you unhappy. Unnecessarily unhappy. You kept trying like I did. It didn't matter
how many times you scored below the cut off or how many times you passed and your desired
institution wouldn't give you admission or even if they did, they gave you a course you never knew
existed. Your mother contemplated who to beg on your behalf or who to even pay to secure admission.
She intensified her prayers and sowed seeds of faith for this purpose. Your only wish was that you had
connection. The type your friend had. That friend that you even did better than yet got admission before
you. For once in your life, you shockingly also started to pray. You Promised God you would serve him
better if only He did this for you. Just this one thing you said. I said it too. How ignorant of us. But it
wasn't your fault. Neither was it mine. I mean, who wants to have a remix of those sunny and hectic days
on JAMB Registration queues? Those endless queues that made you realise the outrageous population of
the country. Those queues that some people came as early as 6am. I heard then that some slept over at
the registration centres. Our generation does the most hilarious,I tell you.

Who wants to continue saying that disappointing "No" when distant relatives throw the question we
didn't want to hear at that time. That question that reminded us of our grief. That "Have you entered
school?" question. Just who wants to continue staying at home and being everyone's errand child?

"Small Small Children Sef Don See You Finish."

And so it was no surprise how just like you Impeccable joy filled my heart that evening I reluctantly
entered the login details of my kofa page and saw "admitted". God bless that evening. The evening I
thought had brought an end to my problems. The first person I told was my mother. That effortlessly
charismatic and dramatic babe. As expected, she ran out of the kitchen and abandoned the pot of Egusi
soup simmering on the blue and yellow flame our stove produced. You know how dramatic our mothers
can be. This woman began to dance in circles even though there was no music. Raising and waving her
hands upwards and murmuring prayers of thanksgiving in our dialect because according to her, God had
put her enemies to shame. I told her it wasn't the course I applied for but she said it didn't matter
because man proposes but God disposes after all in our country, it didn't matter what you studied. Just
get the degree she said. She told me not to tell anybody because not everybody is truly happy for your
progress. Especially this kind of progress. By anybody I knew she meant those eye service relatives.
Those ones that do not really like you and you are aware and they are aware too that you know but you
all play along well. My mother did not fail to envelope a token of appreciation to our pastor. I'm sure
your mother probably did more. Cross sections of this new phase I was about to enter began to venture
in my mind. I could see imaginary clips of me doing the almighty stressful clearance I had heard people
talk about. You thought about it too right? Thought about how school life will be. How you would look
wearing that oversized robe with a blend of dark purple and light purple some call violet on your
matriculation day. And you smiled as you thought about these things. Felt fulfilled because "Like play, like
play,small pikin of yesterday Don finally turn babe"

And it was just like that you and I got to this place. This place we believed held the key to our future.
This place our minds were patterned to believe should be the ultimate goal. We have finally entered
school. The very school all other schools we attended prepared us for. The outdated big buildings
screaming with black and white posters of aspirants, overcrowded classes, stern looking faces of the
lecturers was a confirmation of this.

My stay in this place has opened my eyes to some realities. I hope yours has opened too because the
earlier, the better. Nobody ever told us about these hardcore realities that lay in the four walls of this
place or maybe we didn't bother to know because we thought it would be just like we had imagined.
Imagination we got from movies or the imagination that was painted for us. But the truth is even if
someone had told me, or even told you, we would deliberately have pushed it aside because we would
think it is only a bid to discourage us. How Ignorant of us. Ignoramus like us. Little wonder they say
experience is the best teacher because it is the only teacher that will flog you different strokes of life in
bits till you begin to hurt, learn your lesson and change your perspectives.

It is these realities.These experiences that I've flogged me that I want to share with you in the hope that
you too can relate with them with an open mind and be honest enough to acknowledge the truths
without giving false justifications which you would be tempted to give. Those justifications would not be
necessary here because from the deepest part of your heart and my heart, You and I know that the fate
of a typical Nigerian Student is that which when thought about can make you wrinkle.
There are some things about our tertiary education that experience has made me to now treat as
misconceptions and myths. The first is our initial premise about this place. The premise that made us
determined to become graduates someday . The premise that to become successful, you must be a
graduate or that this place holds the key to the bright future we envisaged for ourselves. The bitter truth
is that, this place is the opposite of all we thought it was or rather what it is supposed to be. Welcome to
the four walls that limits your potentials. The four walls that makes us Machines. Living Machines who
go to class and yet are unsure that the lecturer would come and when he does, he speaks in the lowest
of tone and you begin to regret why you came for the class but you will go again the next day even when
you are almost sure you won't get a sit and even if you do, you most likely wouldn't hear but you will go
because you want to scribble your name and Matriculation number on one paper that you think would
count as attendance because you have heard people say that attendance is important. That lecturers
award marks for those names scribbled on that paper. You even struggle to write your friend's own too,
the same way you struggled to keep a seat for your other friend even though you knew somewhere in
your heart that the lecturer will most likely not come. This is because like I earlier said, you are a
machine and that is the manual you have been programmed to adhere to. Not just you. Me too. That is
how you go to class by trial and error, Struggle for seat, struggle to hear, kill yourself for an assignment
that will end up beneath the lecturer's desk and after a few weeks, in a trash can. Exam timetable would
begin to scream at you and you too will begin to stark your bag with all sorts of books and go for that
thing you people call night class. The classroom at night is a den of mosquitoes but you will go and stay
till daybreak in the name of reading and "jacking". You must finish those bulky course outlines. Including
the one of the lecturer that came to teach once. In your mind you are a "jackophyte" but I tell you, you
are only a machine doing what best you have been programmed to do. I am not making a mockery of
you my love, I am a victim too and I salute you.I salute us. I salute the efforts we pump into such an
unworthy vessel.

What breaks my heart is that it is a different ball game in the examination hall. The lecturer who wasn't
audible during lectures, shouts the most. The lecturer who never came to class is the one that comes to
invigilate regularly and comes earlier than the others. The lecturer who couldn't impact knowledge, sets
the most brain-cracking questions. The lecturer who gave you area of concentration sets from entirely
different topics not enlisted. I tell you, the most ironic things happens in that hall. Let me not forget to
add how the lecturers derive joy when we fail. I will not forget in a hurry how one of my lecturers was
furious because he heard most people were jubilating that his exam was not as difficult as expected.
How sad!

When results are out, Your hope of attaining a first class diminishes and you start to pray for a second
class lower. You begin to see that your running to class was vain. That marathon you did especially when
they changed venues was also vain. Your sleepless nights would have been better spent clubbing. You
realize these things. You lament your plight but you know that history would repeat itself again because
that is the manual of the living machines that this place makes us become. It is no wonder students
resolve to suicide. The ones not bold enough to take their lives depend on cheating and "blocking" to
survive. If going to class is the premise of success then what would we say about Benjamin Franklin who
discovered how to create a steady flow of electric charge not in a classroom but while flying a kite or
Thomas Eddison who had little or no classroom education after being condemned by his teacher but
invented electric bulb. Maybe this would be a justification to the popular comic phrase; "last last, School
Na Scam. "

I am a lover of education and and I want to reiterate that I am in no way against going to school. Just like
you, no matter how much of a machine this place makes us, I still look forward to my convocation. What
then is the purpose of all my talk? What exactly is it that I am saying?

I am saying the system has failed us. I am saying let us help ourselves be free from this system that
doesn't support our growth. The system is inadequate to give us the lives that befits us so it is foolish for
us to loose ourselves in it. Foolish to spend four years or even more in the four walls of this place and yet
we cannot think beyond going to class. Tertiary education is more than just a place and should be
treated as such. It is a feeling and we must feel It. A once in a lifetime feeling. It is here that most of us
ripen and metamorphose into adults. In doing so, I have some suggestions in no particular order which I
hope are practical enough and useful for you .

First suggestion

Make Friends. Make the right friends. Plenty of them If you can. I do not subscribe to those in the school
of thought that like to say friends are not good or that "friends are this, friends are that." I believe such
thoughts were borne from their unfortunate experiences with people. This is probably because they
made friends with people whom they were supposed to just make casual accquitances with. In Choosing
friends, you must be deliberate. You must set a standard. Positive standard. Let every one of them have a
purpose in your life. Yes, do not make friends with people who do not have anything to add to your life
nor do you have to add to theirs . By this, I do not mean materially but other abstract values which aids
growth. Have the ones that would care for you academically, socially, emotionally and if possible
spiritually. Care for them too because true friendship is symbiotic and not parasitic. Surround yourself
with positive people. The kind of people you want your life to be defined by. Incase you do not know,
your friends define you. For instance, If I see that girl A has a bad attitude, my brain automatically
categorizes girl B, her best friend as such too. Yes dear, Your friends are your premise. It is from
friendship that you can build the right connections and network.

Second Suggestion

Equip yourself. Most times when we hear this, we like to think it refers to the big things like learning
business skills or going to makeup or catering school like your friends are doing. But I do not think that is
what it entirely means. I have a friend who makes sure he learns a new word daily. The end product of
this is that, when he talks, you want to hear more because this daily activity of his has sharpened his
communication skills. It is great things in little ways like that, that I am referring to. When I say equip
yourself, I am simply saying; deliberately sharpen yourself. Deliberately improve your thinking faculty.
You can do this by finding your niche. It could be through reading . I do not mean school books. I mean
novels, autobiographies, essays, motivationals, newspapers. You can listen to podcasts, subscribe to
YouTube channels, vlogs and blogs, watch movies, listen to songs, watch news, listen to radio shows,
watch sports, choose role models, attend seminars, concerts and conferences. The idea is to improve.

Third Suggestion

Take risks. You might have heard this so much that it now sounds cliche but it is one of the essentials of
life. You must take risks and this is best time for it. The best time for trial and error. The best time to fall
and stand, to learn and unlearn. By taking risks, I mean you should contest for that position you want
even if there are stronger candidates. You might loose, but a time would come in future when you would
be grateful for that experience. Go for that competition. Start that business and even if you fail,
strategize again. It is a shame that we unnecessarily care about what people would think and in the
process suppress what we want. We unnecessarily think of " what if it doesn't work out" forgetting that
It's not always supposed to work out. You are only supposed to always try. If you fail at it, you gain
experience and you grow but if you don't try, what do you gain? Make the conscious effort to plan the
path you want to follow and begin to trample on it swiftly

Fourth Suggestion

Discover and explore your talent. This is the time to be bold enough to explore. It is at this stage that
your blood is fresh enough to explore and so you must. There's so much in us that we let die because we
do not discover them on time. It is in exploring your talents, that taking risks would come in and you
must do it with all the passion and bravery it deserves.

Fifth Suggestion

Take a chill pill. Take things as they come. Be consciously aware that life is more that running to class to
scribble your name on attendance sheet. Do not kill yourself over a missed class or test. When you feel
like partying, please do. When you feel like sleeping, please do. The most important thing is that you are
able to find an equilibrium between your academics and other necessary aspects of your life. Don't you
wonder about the recent increase in suicide rate among students? It is the students who ignore this chill
pill that are faced with suicidal thoughts and succumb to them. It is always important to remember to
relax because nothing is a do or die affair.

Am I beginning to sound like one of those motivational speakers you see on TV?

I'm sorry Ore Mi. I just had to let out these things.

Thank you for your time.

With love,

Vanessa & Pedro.