THE COUNTRY OF MY DREAMS-FOR THE GOOD OF NIGERIAN EDUCATION

I am a full grown Nigerian citizen, a student, an innovator, an entertainer and I'm also a concerned citizen of this great nation. I have a dream like Martin Luther King said and its starting to become like that dream might take longer than that of Martin Luther King Jr to come to pass. There has been lots drama that has unfolded this year and even though I don’t want to dabble into everything the main one I cant ignore is the issue of ASUU.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities on the 17^th of December 2013 called of the 6 month old strike and all that I could just think of is ‘if it was the same agreement the FG refused to go ahead with in the start was what they agreed on at the end why did they waste our time in the first place?’ although if ASUU had gone back to school after 4 or 5 months it would have been stupid on their part, in fact at some point I stopped listening to the news concerning ASUU and even the news as a whole. There have been arguments that ASUU is fighting for the future of the Education sector and I find it hard to believe that there is even a cause to fight. The problem with Nigeria is we always put the cart before the horse in all sectors.

We want to fix the education sector and we start from the Tertiary Institutions when the primary institution is not yet fixed, the young minds that would enter these Universities are not well acquainted and well tutored and yet we want them to enter an environment where we want them to become super students. Nigeria is blessed with youths that can acclimatize in any environment and that is why our students are excelling all over the world, and yet in our country we are performing below our normal capacity. There are a couple of things that should change from the roots before the top could actually change. I would give a couple that I think could do it (I'm talking as an aggrieved student that wants the younger generation to have a better education than I did) so if you don’t agree please you could always drop your comments.

The Entrance of University of Lagos

-   Change the curriculum: it is obvious that the curriculum that my parents used in the University is still the same that I am using right now except for some little changes even the ones that were somehow changed were changed awkwardly. My younger brother is in a class called ‘Technical’ in his secondary school and they don’t even go for Biology class or even economics class, is that a change for the better or the worse? If the curriculum is to be changed it is not to focus 15 year olds to specialties that they might not get to continue with in the Universities because some universities would make Biology a general course for all science students even if you are in Architecture, engineering, Estate Manager, quantity surveyor and the likes. So ASUU asking for funds for ‘research’ and infrastructure’ could be good but could also backfire when the students they are arranging it for might not even be prepared to use it, it’s like buying a car for someone that not only cannot drive but is scared of trying.

-    Start from the roots: This problem is not in the University although it’s obvious that it’s only the universities that can stand up to the Federal Government however the primary and/or secondary school should be put in a structural place whereby they would align with the mission and vision of the Universities.

-   PROPER COUNSELING: Most secondary students don’t know which schools offer the best in the courses they want to study and which school has the best structure that would aid their career in that given course they just choose a University based on other things that I don’t want to dabble into now. There should be a proper arrangement for counseling of students and the courses they want to study with either a tour of the school or a brochure even from the school they wish to study.

-    Conducive environment: The Universities should be suitable for learning from the lecture halls to the library and even the lecturers should be friendly. Some lecturers would treat students like they are still primary school pupils and in turn the students behave as such. Once there is a mutual relationship and respect between the students and the lecturers the environment would become more conducive.

In conclusion I would just point out that there could be more that could have been done in our education sector rather than just focusing on the tertiary Institution and thinking once that is fixed every other thing would fall into place. Not only should we train our children and guide them towards where they would be best suited right from their Primary education  but we should also accept their perspective of how they feel things would work because now that the world is a global village through the internet they could easily be sharing knowledge through a smart phone while our teachers still teach them some archaic things and believe they are right. Until we focus on what is right we would continue to fix a solution that would still be a problem to the problem we were trying to fix.

HERO AND VILAN: OSHIOMOLE AND THE WIDOW

The audience was there, the actor was set and the villain or boss as the case maybe was on her knees begging for mercy. Did I get the castings wrong because in this case it seems the vilan or boss is on his feet while the actor or actress as this case might be is literally on her knees begging for mercy.

 

According to reports Governor Oshiomole was on a routine of evacuating petty traders and street hawkers off the streets of Edo when a supposed widow whose goods were seized went on her knees begging the governor for mercy saying she was waiting for a cab and not selling on the streets and Governor Oshiomole was reported to have said ‘Go and Die’ referring to the widow. Now there has been an uproar about the governor’s comments and why should he has shown such cruelty towards the poor woman. I must say here that what the governor said was cruel and uncalled for no matter the situation the woman was and what position he held.

 

However, let us not nail Com. Oshiomole to the cross just yet. Even though he has portrayed such cruelty in his days as the Head of the NLC both to the advantage of the Labour Congress and also to their detriment. Each and every one of us has been in a situation as the Governor at one point or the other especially those of us that live in Lagos. Picture yourself sitting in a commercial bus and a woman comes to the window where you are seated and she starts begging you and the thought just crosses your mind ‘she has no defect why can’t she go find a job?’ or  even some grave thoughts and all. Like I said earlier the statements of the Governor is so cruel that I can’t even imagine what he was thinking as the Bible has said it already that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” therefore I assume there would have been worse words in his mind that he could have spoken.

 

I do not blame the woman I mean she saw the man as a savior and probably wanted to play on his sympathy but he was just having none of it. There are a couple of things the Governor should have done because he was the one with authority and everything he does would always be put into perspective. In this present age of YouTube and blogs it would be impossible for him to have gotten away with that, the man might have though he was still in the days of NTA where he could control what was being broadcasted in his state. So I'm going to write a few things I believed the governor should have done if I was one of his aides or his press secretary or chief of staff as the case may be.

 

One important thing the Governor should have done was keep silent and just walk away; that works most of the time because the crowd would be left with their assumptions and deductions and that alone would keep people divided on who to support and what to believe. With him speaking he has put everybody into a boat and even his supporters would not stick their necks for him less he tells them too to “go and die”

 

Another was mumble a few words to his aides making gesticulations and just go about his normal routine; with this move nobody would know what he said and the attention would shift from him to the aide he was talking to and that could give him a head start to his car or give him time to think on what to do for the woman.

 

 

 



 

 

The last option I would render is the one everybody would have wanted him to do which is tell the woman to get up and he would give her the goods back or better still give her a grant; politicians should know that every obstacle, every disgruntled voter or citizen is an opportunity to campaign for your career and your party. If it were to be in the USA the Republicans or Democrats would use that opportunity and feed on it till the voters are tired of it.

 

Now the PDP I don’t know if it is the old one or the new one now but the party has reportedly come to the woman’s aid and given her two hundred and fifty thousand naira. Even though Governor Oshiomole has come out to apologize it just doesn’t cut it, with election year just a year out I am very sure the memory would be kept in the minds of voters till the next election and the APC can thank the Governor for selling the state to the opposition. The damage has been done and with Olivia Pope not yet in Nigeria I’m yet to know what move the APC would use to distant them from this issue. Good luck to them and their mission of trying to save face before the election in the turn of the year.

I WAS ZONED

There have always been situations whereby guys have feelings for a certain girl or a girl does like a guy too much to be ‘just friends’ with him. Though it happens mostly with guys and we most times chicken out or even if we finally speak up it would be either too late or we would be turned down and equally confined in a safe spot called ‘Friend Zone’. That means we have been officially zoned, being friend zoned is even said to be fair compared to being Brother Zoned; now Brother Zoning is even tougher because she just told you ‘You are like a brother to me’ and that is very difficult to handle for some guys because good friends could end up being lovers but brother and sister? You don’t want to commit incest do you?

SIMPLY MY MIND

I have deleted what I wrote on here twice now simply because of the fact that i have nothing to write, maybe i should let my guards down and just write what i feel or i should rather go back and lay on my bed looking at the ceiling as there is even no power to watch the fan just roll at a slow pace. Everything is like its in a standstill but the funny thing is its not, some people get rich just at the fact that students are sitting at home doing nothing. While some get lowered down into the ditch of poverty.

There are now more bloggers than there are readers, a lot of these bloggers just write what has already been written somewhere else. In fact i do not count them as bloggers but as news carriers because everybody writes the same thing and there is not creativity whatsoever, it is either you write what another blog already has or you just create a twist into it and write a false story about something.

I mean there are more interesting issues to write in the world and you don't even need to break the news to us, all you need do is just write your own perspective on the issue. I am not writing this to tell you how to blog because in the real sense i do not even know the least about blogging, i am only blogging to fill my urge to write and put something out there. As "Freedom Writers" our words can change the mindset of a reader and we should not toy with that, that being said i am new to this and i hope i thrive under it and hopefully one day Readers would eventually become Leaders.

Peace!

WHICH IS THE BEST: LA LIGA OR THE BPL?

At the beginning of each season football fans are at loggerheads over which league is the best in Europe, the fans of English clubs believe the BPL is the best in Europe while the fans of Spanish clubs tend to disagree. I would not take sides here because that would just make things more blown out of proportion however, what I would do is highlight reasons why these two leagues are the best in their respective ways.

First the BPL is a very lucrative league, it has more investors in the league and the clubs are mostly owned by individuals. All the clubs in the top flight get a share of TV rights as all of the matches are shown on tv and for that reason alone any player would want to play in the BPL as even if you are not in the top clubs at least you would still be seen on TV. For the La Liga however it is not so, the TV rights are negotiated by individual clubs that is Barcelona has the right to negotiate with a particular TV station to show all its league matches played at their home ground and so the lower clubs suffer because little of their matches are being shown and they don’t have the kind of money to buy top players or they don’t have the players that can fire them into European competitions.

 The La Liga has produced more top players than any league in Europe and it attracts more South American players maybe because they speak similar languages or their style is similar but the point is the La Liga gives younger players more opportunities than the BPL. In the last seven years a Spanish club (Barcelona 2006, 2009, 2011) has won the UCL 3 times while the BPL has produced 2 winners (Manchester United 2008 and Chelsea 2012). Unlike the English clubs the Spanish clubs field more Spanish players and home grown while the English clubs whose owners are more interested in trophies than youth development go to the transfer window and buy players from all around the world to fulfill their thirst for trophies. Even Spanish coaches enjoy strings of jobs in the Spanish league while the English league is a home for all European coaches to ply their trade. That is one reason why the English national team has failed to perform at FIFA World Cup and the Euro cup alike and the Spanish national team has won the Euro Cup back to back and the world cup in between, though they failed to win the Confederation cup but still they got to the finals which shows that they are still a force to reckon with.

I do not know the side you are on but I am doubly sure that the aims of this two leagues are different, while one league is channeled to make the nation get more trophies and accolades the other is channeled to give the individual shareholders (from fans to the owners of the respective clubs) a satisfaction of their input throughout the season.

If you pitch an Almeria team and a stoke team today the Stoke team might defeat the Almeria team but if two years to come the players of the Almeria team would either be playing in the Stoke team or at bigger clubs in England and around the world.