ALL communities including the wild world, ensures the future and continuity of life and living by preparing and procreation that the lineage and the legacies are not gone extinct. There are therefore, natural and physical processes for this continuity. Presently, Nigeria is only procreating without preparing what she is producing to properly take up the challenge of continuity and what you have when such things happen is anomie. Nigeria has a huge volume of young people, which ordinarily should be an asset but rather descending into absolute character and integrity doom. They have not seen any in the area of positive character to copy and follow. Any time this generation is challenged on character, I feel the pain because you cannot give what you do not have and has not been given. When the colonialists came and administer Nigeria, they saw potentials in Aminu Kano, Balewa, Zik, Awolowo, Okpara, Bello and the first-generation politicians. They prepared them for the task ahead and they eventually gave them the baton. These first-generation politicians prepared a next generation of their boys in the anticipation that they will take up the realm of leadership when their time is up and tactically had some placed in the military. When civil rule failed or so, the soldiers take up the challenge and rule the country for a few decades. The deep rot began when the second set of civilians prepared by the first-generation civilians took over from the military. All along, these later leaders never bothered whether there will be tomorrow again. They began the looting and all the political vices without considering the future, not even for their own because, they do not even bother about theirs. Today, Leadership has completely forgotten about the next generation. What they breed is a generation that will believe in the culture of the survival of the fittest and a complete lost on humanity. In this country, we are there already, the generation met only fraud and crime and they take it as the way of life. There will be no generation to take up the leadership of Nigeria after the next ten years except thieves, crooks and fraudsters. Now, we are also there already, where you have 90% of leaders been either ex-convicts and or facing criminal trial.
“Examination malpractice did not start from Ejikeme, it had been entrenched for so long now through the actions of those who are supposed to show the way. All the associated institutions from WAEC to NECO, state and federal ministries of education have the statistics of all miracle centers where examinations are negotiated. When students register for examinations, they are charged for logistics which includes the supervisors take home. Examination questions are released and leaked to candidates through dedicated portals and the security architecture has never bothered.”
Reading this article will be reading a few African home narratives of human experience. I had a client, a very decent, responsible highly principled and rich old Fulani man. My brief interaction with him filled the vacuum that would have been filled by a father having loss my father early in life. He told me a story of how a thief stole a goat from a neighbor and gave his wife to take to the market to sell. Then in the market, for some carelessness or so, the goat was stolen from the woman by another thief. The wife, though in fear, must return home. In the evening, the husband asked her of how much she sold the goat. The wife replied that she sold it exactly the amount of money the man bought the goat. The message was clear and direct and the man need no further clarification. The wife also knew the husband stole the goat.
I went to TTC, and many may not know what that means now. It is Teachers Training College and we were taught that the mind of a child is like tabula rasa, an empty blank board. What you write there is what you see. There is also the narrative of Mohammad Buhari who just left as the leader of Nigeria. He said if Nigeria fails do anything about the level of fraud and corruption that has engulfed this country, then the young generation of Nigerians will grow up to think that what is wrong is the right thing and what is right is the wrong thing. We are now there. Just another one of a man who works in a government agency from where he steals from the national pool every day. In all evenings, his subordinates will bring the money to him in sacks. In his child’s class, the teacher ask the pupils to define salary, one of the students define it to be what is paid a worker at the end of every month. The other man’s boy stood up and defined salary as what is delivered from the office every day. He was asked why, and he said, his own father’s salary is paid every day. Nigeria as a country is a father unto whom all the children look onto for character directions. As it is now, there is almost nothing that the country as a father can give positively in terms of character or integrity and therefore, won’t be expecting any much different from what it has. Examination malpractice did not start from Ejikeme, it had been entrenched for so long now through the actions of those who are supposed to show the way. All the associated institutions from WAEC to NECO, state and federal ministries of education have the statistics of all miracle centers where examinations are negotiated. When students register for examinations, they are charged for logistics which includes the supervisors take home. Examination questions are released and leaked to candidates through dedicated portals and the security architecture has never bothered. I’m sure, we have not forgotten soon how about 80 children being transported to a miracle Centre to write their final year exams had accident and were killed in Edo state some years back. These miracle centres existed all over the country and nobody bothers. Good government and mission schools are now only training grounds for children up to SS 11, after that, parents takes their children from there to register them at miracle centres. Until the current head of JAMB came in, even people who didn’t write JAMB at all were being admitted with JAMB scores. Even now, NECO and WEAC and other such exams are being written in proxy. Mmesoma only find herself in the wrong side of luck and the difference being made in JAMB. For a long time, Nigeria has stood logic on its head and education is currently the worst affected. It is the destruction in the educational system that has resulted in all the challenges in crime by young people who see no future ahead of them. Mmesoma is only a tip of the iceberg and parents are guilty as much.
“Considering the rot being exhibit by elders, Mmesoma only did what her generation saw the elders doing. To them fraud is an intelligent way of getting to your objective. Not every leader today is anything near decency for the children to copy and they cannot copy from nothing. What they can copy is what they see the elders doing and it is mostly fraud, which has become the norm and way of life in Nigeria.”
What character do we write in the mind of our young people apart from the negatives that has become our narratives in life. The children who you expect to know the different between the good and the bad are not exposed to the goods at all, how will they know what then is good hence they see only the bad. Young people watch thuggery, tears and blood in the election of their leaders, watch security agencies collect bribe from people on the road, children are extorted left right and centre in tertiary institutions by staff and it does not touch any conscience. In the eyes of the young people now, if you do not steal, cheat for survival and all the vices then you are not normal because that is what we register in their mind.
Considering the rot being exhibit by elders, Mmesoma only did what her generation saw the elders doing. To them fraud is an intelligent way of getting to your objective. Not every leader today is anything near decency for the children to copy and they cannot copy from nothing. What they can copy is what they see the elders doing and it is mostly fraud, which has become the norm and way of life in Nigeria. I know that the current JAMB head has always been a father to the young persons found foul of their rules all these while by giving them second chances as he blames our elders and parents whom he said procure most of this fraud for the children. I want to think this will not be an exception. Mmesoma has violated the rules and committed crime but young people in Nigeria today requires empathy, counselling and rehabilitation through a character reorientation. Punishing a few young people in Nigeria while the elephants in crime who are the elders and the leaders committing the worst with impunity are without consequences is not the way to go. If we focus on the young generation, we will be destroying an entire generation. Even in the shrine, churches or mosques, purification starts from the head. Where will be the moral, the justification, and the conscience in descending on the young fly in the society where currently about half of our governors and political leaders including presidents are accused of parading either fake education or NYSC certificates. Already in ten years from now, there will be no generation of decent character to take on the mantle of leadership. Then, they won’t even be able to differentiate between what is wrong from what is right. Today Mmesomas in Nigeria among the young people are in legions and sending them to the swine will drown a whole generation. Like Oloyede is doing in JAMB, talk to them and give them second chances. The destruction of leadership at all sectors in Nigeria is what has brought us to this sorry state.
Dr Alleh writes from the University of Abuja and can be reached via allehokpeh@gmail.com.
