Yes as I was saying, my fellow discussant meant to say the country Nigeria has no rival in whatever she does or gets involved in, but suddenly …arrival. However, in which ever way you may chose to look at it or reflect at it he was correct in both senses all be it without any intention of so being.
Most of the things we do here or that take place here seem not to have happened in any society before whether civilized or not, so we remain unrivaled and because they will lead to no where we have no arrival as well.
The people and their leaders shout and insist on democracy, rule of law and due process with a promise to practice egalitarianism but their leaders are protected by the dictates of their democratic constitution which guarantees them immunity from any prosecution so, they do things with impunity both the imaginable and the imaginable. Yes because they are above the law otherwise why can’t they be prosecuted while in office and before the expiration of their tenure enough bias has been introduced into the body politic through the use of charlatans so that some will be singing their praises, while some will forget the misdeeds while a third group will be frustrated into a no comment situation.
Their citizenry do bizarre things such as armed robbery and refer to it as forceful redistribution of wealth. When kidnapping takes place in other lands, it is to prove a point and possibly force government to listen and do the right thing but here it is a commercial business aimed at extorting money from some innocent persons.
Their police is for who can pay hence the status symbol of arrival is the presence of police orderlies with their big guys, some having as many as (4) four. While the larger society is left unguarded and their society ravaged by both crimes and criminalities begging for prosecution.
A country that has no arrival sets up projects that last till eternity such as the much talked about second Niger Bridge and the dredging of the river itself. Their policy thrust run through blurred visions and shift from 2000 to 2010, then to vision 2015 and to vision 2020. Thank God we know impaired visions by these figures which automatically mean that some will not come to pass.
In politics, their opposition do not offer or proffer solutions or alternatives instead the policy is what we can’t have let’s help destroy. The only target is to pull someone down.
As for their academics, they relish strike actions. The academic calendar is bedeviled incessant strike actions. For as soon as the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic, ASUP, called off their strike after 4 whole months out of a less than 10 months calendar, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU embarked on another and after 2 months when there appeared to be a say of hope that it may be called off, the Academic Staff of Colleges of Education gave a warning strike to continue from where the others stopped or may stop. Can any country rival these and can these take any one to anywhere good? The same Nigerian Students whose interest the lecturers claim to be protecting remain the victims of either the government nonchalance or the lecturers over protective insensitivity. Yet both parties insist that the students deserve a better deal. Can any one fault that? Talk about one group losing head or tail or all at the same time.
A country that has no arrival build a team around one individual and hope to rake medals while fielding mediocre and in sports events they are not known or notable for.
Cuba is known for their process in amateur boxing and the East African for their long distance races. The Jamaicans has held a grip on the spirits but where can be said to distinguish ourselves. All these countries are in the third world class of Nigeria.
Come to think of it, there are more than 10 million school drop outs in Nigeria according to a UNESCO survey statistics.
Among this 10 million are those youths involved in street trading as hustlers and who can perseveringly pursue and overtake a very fast moving car over a distance of four hundred meters just to make a sale and another can tarry under the scorching heat of the run for hours on end while hawking. Yet the Olympic long distance races call for stamina and perseverance, two qualities not found wanting in our youths, the teeming hustlers. But who will galvanize or mobilize them when there is no arrival.
Any country that has no arrival does not have confidence in their youths but brand them as restive and radicals and make them the subjects of their campaign promises only to turn around and make thug out of them. The same country does not have confidence in their leadership and always approach them with suspicion. This is why their politician signs very discordant notes and their joint tax forces of the combined, military, police and civil defense still recruit civilian collaboration. They keep on winning the war against terrorism while the terrorists keep catching them unawares with attendant casualties.
Their law makers make laws not for the general good of the people but for their own good both for today and for their tomorrow. This accounts for why their Senator always see themselves as potential governors of states will never support local government autonomy because the local government has been seen as the place where governors make millions of Naira by the use of Sole Administrators and caretaker committees all in the bid to flout and circumvent the democratic principles and ruin them as they run them. At the end of the day, they walk home scoot free with their loots without any prosecution a la immunity.
Yet everyone keeps talking about the three tier system of government but only pay lip service to it. No wonder one governor even talked about a fourth tier government system. An illegal but brilliant idea to really reach the grassroots but will not perfect it. It is designed to fail so that it will not take the people anywhere. Any wonder that no other state has found the idea acceptable and adoptable so as to reach the grassroots well.
For a people with no rival and no arrival nothing ever projected or even properly defined even in policy planning and implementation. Now hear them! I painstakingly listened to a friend while drilling his two adult children who are now graduates of higher institutions, on the importance and relevance of the First School Leaving Certificate, FSLC. These children were very brilliant while in the primary school hence they all took the secondary school common entrance examination from primary 5 with others in primary 6. They were able to do this in another school altogether because their own school headmistress would never hear of it. She insisted the children must do primary 6 and take the FSLC and then qualify for the common entrance examination as at when due.
The children passed the common entrance examination with excellences and got admitted into their schools of first choice.
Note that the FSLC is not part of the admission requirements into the secondary schools and so the children continued without it. They did well in the West African School Certificate Examination and there after the Joint Matriculation Examination where they excelled and got admitted into the universities. They have since graduated and gone through the National Youth Service.
The issue at stake now is that they say that the FSLC is needed before a job could be secured.
In an attempt to overcome this dilemma my friend’s children have gone to a primary school write the FSLC so as to own one and the question is for what or as what?
It is obvious that there is no clear cut policy on primary and secondary school graduation and admission. Why did the headmistress obstruct brilliant children who would have been very able to write the FSLC from primary 5? Why must we toy with the intelligence quotient of such bright children?
According to the headmistress, it is as at when due and hot as they appear or consider due. This kind of scenario is only possible among a people without a defined destination, I mean arrival. Who is talking of modus operandi?
When these children appear for employment intervenes their WASC or NECO will read year 2006 while their first degree certificates; and wait for it a 2013 FSLC. Are we moving forward or backward? Do we have a clearly defined broad based policy on education fashioned with a new to accommodate exceptional children and same them from this kind of embarrassment.
You cannot rival a country where their retirees are called senior citizens but are allowed to suffer while collecting the stipend called pensions. That is if you worked for the government. As for the private sector, oh you just keep working until you are exhausted and then thrown out with ignoring. Even foreigners doing business in Nigeria exploit our own people here.
Their law makers talk so much about constituency projects designed to benefit their constituency but end up being sources of income for the person representing the constituency. Who uses the funds as if he is a father and nothing is seen on ground.
The country just prescribed a 5 year jail term or N200,000 fine or both for examination malpractice which will not be clearly defined. The malpractices come in various ways and there are accomplices. All eyes are on WASC, NECO, JAMB and may be the post UTME. Now what about session and degree examinations. What about lecturers and students who are involved in SORTING to earn more marks that merited or even evade examination completely and still graduate.
In a country where census figures gotten from physical counting are rejected and subjected to legal adjustments or manipulation, where will they get to in terms of planning for a people who number you really cannot vouch. Census figures become political issues for the purpose or revenue allocations.
This country is hurrying to join America, Russia and China in space research and developments with no clearly equipped secondary school science laboratory anywhere and their science tertiary institution are groaning under the weight of neglect waiting for lecturers strike.
In this country only institutions created by the military by fist are enduring ranging from local government areas to states just because the civilian law makers, who have the mandate lack the courage to face the truth, speak it out and shame the devil.
Until some one tells what is holding firm declarations on states and local government areas creations, let us keep reflecting.
