REVISITING EDUCATION AND CHANGE THE CAUSE OF OUR COUNTY.......... By Dotun George

Let me begin my discussion by asking what are the building blocks of development required for countries to attain the status reached by developed nations.  Education, to me,  is the matrix of development. From either infrastructure or agriculture, the influential factor of education cannot be controverted. The question is:  why is it that the most developed of economies are the most developed in education? And, why do the most underdeveloped of economies have underdeveloped education? These are not conundrums after all, as the answers to these questions are not far-fetched. One of the answers is in the fact that the place of education in the growth of the development of any nation  is paramount.

Any nation failing in education is on the cusp of failure. Why? It is so because nations need educated citizens to formulate government policies. Without education, how can economic problems like inflation and devaluation of currency be addressed? Or, how will nations tackle unemployment? Developing nations,  as we know, are plagued with these problems. This emphasises the need for human development in these countries.

There are countries with high rate of maternal and child mortalities. HIV/AIDS and other life- threatening diseases are also pandemic in these countries, simply because they lack sufficient health workers. Citizens of ailing economies sometimes go for “medical tourism” to developed countries which offer better health care services though at pricey costs.
Needless to say that when we say that a country is developing, it does not mean it isn’t endowed with natural resources.

Africa as we know, is still in the backwaters but paradoxically, has numerous resources to boast of. The continent provides approximately 98% of diamond needs in the world. Also, Africa has some of the largest deposits of tin, uranium, coal, and so on. Therefore what is wrong? This is where education comes in for capacity building and human resource development. These are sine qua non to the development of an economy.
But, what is the condition of our institutions like? How capable are our pedagogues? How relevant are our curricula? How much is voted for education?

Education goes beyond what is acquired within the walls of a school going by the etymological root of the word education which is educare and it means “to bring up”. So, education, in fact, is any system that’s concerned with unearthing the latent skills of a child, and it is a truth that it isn’t only our – decrepit – schools that can do that. In fact, what our schools do more often than not is to kill those talents in our children by omission or commission.

The idea of education becomes so affiliated to schooling during the epoch of industrialism in Europe and this insidiously made non-formal education a second fiddle to it. But the truth is that non-formal education caters for over 55% education while its formal counterpart only caters for 22-25%. How mistaken our priorities are.

Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, Churchill Winston and Abraham Lincoln are examples of people who demonstrated great erudition in their capacities but they didn’t have much of formal education due to poor backgrounds. It was even worse for Lincoln who was said to have attended school only for one year! Dickens and Lincoln were autodidacts whose accomplishments live on. American history is incomplete without a mention of Lincoln’s 13th amendment and so is a list of literary magnum opuses incomplete without Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

Nigerians  have a lot of potentials,  but the craze for certificates is really hampering the realisation of these potentials. Schooling is great but the government’s insouciant attitude towards it has hampered the fructification of its purpose in the life of many  graduates, which has ultimately placed them in the paradox of  being schooled but not educated. I’m not advocating a recycling of our educational policy. We have done that far too often since 1977 when the first one was drafted. Instead, we need to fashion out an educational policy aimed at Nigeria’s development. We tout our MDGs, but do we ever pause to ask if they are achievable going by the grim state of our education?

Government needs to build more schools and vocational centers, spruce up existing ones, allocate more funds to education, train and retrain teachers and do lots of things. We need to realise though that the task of rejigging education – formal and non-formal – is a communal duty. We are all stakeholders.

THE REALITY OF REALITIES. – By Dotun George

What is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: The lives of average Nigerians are miserable, labourious and short. People are born; they are given just as much food as will keep the breath in their bodies. Most people in Nigeria do not know the meaning of happiness and leisure. Freedom and comfortable life become elusive.
The life of average Nigerians is misery and slavery and it looks as if nature has created man to suffer. The soil of Nigeria is fertile and the ground can produce more than enough for the living. People suffer here in Nigeria because nearly the whole of the products on our labour is stolen from us by those who forcefully claimed they are in charge. Most of our problem is summed up in a single word “the political ruler” they are the only creature that consume without producing. They only set people to work, forces them to work and seizes their produce, all the people have in return of these is bare “ration and a stall”.

When we as a country focus more on accelerated development of our land, we will spend less time in future on amnesty as is being presently done as if the people granted amnesty are political prisoners. By definition, amnesty is an act of pardon by a legislative authority which effaces not merely a punishment inflicted but the cause of it as well so that no fresh proceedings can be instituted. What the Niger Delta needs in addition to the current ceasefire and disarmament is the whole-scale development of the area.
A system that permits the unjust killings of our people, only to turn around later to compensate the families of those killed, places no value on human life.

The tyrant political rulers do not allow the miserable lives of the people to reach their natural span; they killed people through bad roads, poor health and medical services, lack of security, poverty, lack of quality education, corruption and what have you. Those who served the nation with all their strength and power and cannot work again or produce are sent to the grave when they are struggling to get their entitlement, gratuity, and pension.

I came up with a write up early this year, it sound prophetic, and little did I know that my aspiration and dream will be fulfill so soon. Read part of the lines……..

The panacea to the tyranny of the political ruler is “Rebellion” or Revolution, how do I mean, the revolution that we need is the one that will make us appreciate the magnitude of our problems and the urgent need for solutions. It is such a revolution of mind that changed Singapore from poor filthy country into a global business hub. Change in our way of life, we should stop accepting anything they throw at us, we must make them accountable, tell them they are our servants, they must listen to us and do what we want and not what they want, we must let them know we have what it take to change any government that is not producing and we must be proactive at it. I don’t know when it will come but very sure sooner or later, it will come and justice will be done. We need to teach our children in school and pass the message of Revolutionary change to them, so that when we are old they can carry on the struggle until victory is won. I want all Nigerians to be firm and resolute and not be discouraged by the wiles of the tyrant men in power.

In order to avert this embarrassing situation - this inglorious march into the precipice of national decline and disintegration - Nigerians from all walks of life must rise with courage and determination to sack our purposeless and clueless undertakers from the seat of power. IT IS TIME TO TAKE OVER.
The assignment is daunting but it is doable. In spite of the recklessness and discouraging tactics of political jobbers, it is time to rise up and build.

KADUNA STATE ON MY MIND: MY REFLECTIONS......... By Dotun George

You don't know and neither did you have an idea of the security situation of Kaduna state. You don't even know how volatile the state has become in the name of religion and religious activities, you stay, and live in the south but you don't have idea of how fearful some people who are not fundamentalist and not radical with their religion is up there in the north are.

You wrote long article telling us the disadvantages of the religion regulation bill but you have not told us or write about the advantages the state like Kaduna tends to get if such bill is passed into law.

I would rather have a sane, regulated, orderly and serene state devoid of killings, fighting, disorder and violence prone, than having absolutely free state, where people live in the fear of known and unknown, where known and unknown men rain terror on them and wasted innocent lives in the name of religion and service to god.

You arrogantly arrogated to yourself the position of God, who can kill and make alive, you have signed his obituary while is still alive and still govern of your state. I saw one of them rascally shouting and sweating that he gave  ultimatum to the governor to reverse and withdraw the bill.

You argued about freedom of speech, expression and association as if there is anything called absolute freedom in the law you are quoting and making reference to.
Can we for once drop this sensationalism, razzmatazz, mixed emotions, reactionary attitudes and talking before thinking.

We can do a thorough appraisal and examine things well and accurately before we kill it. Why frequently visiting the past and allow fear of the known and unknown to dominate our lives and our thought process?

So many thoughts on my mind and I cannot express all at once because, its like I am living in a different clime and planet.

THE BEAUTY AND GAIN OF FAILURE....... By Dotun George

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case you have failed by default. Any attempt to play safe in order not to fail, is an attempt to fail.

Failure is not an option in life, it is part of the deal we all made with success if we must arrive at that destination called Success. Failure is a grace, an opportunity to do it better and to shine brighter in what I couldn't able to do well or unable to at all in the first place.

You don't abandon your dream because of failure, don't give up because you fail once or severally, you don't throw you child away because he/she fail at school, you don't abandon your business transaction because the last one fail or not scale through.

The beauty of failure is that, if you keep doing what you fail at once in several way, you have discovered the better and best way to get things done without failing again. At the Long run, a point of your weakness will now become your point of strength.

Show me a man who had not fail at anything before hitting the target, I will show you a man who has not attempt anything great and significant in his life.