Before December 24, 2009 I had written off the Nigerian youth as being too timid, too docile and too quick to supplicate to God asking him to descend from heaven and assume control of their problems even as they loiter around helplessly while their future is trampled and mortgaged by rulers of our land. Throughout my teaching career in Nigeria’s public schools and a tertiary Polytechnic institution, I have never met a student whose ambition is to grow up and be like the late Tai Solarin, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Adams Oshiomoleh, or the late Gani Fawehinmi.
Whenever I did ask them, which were more often than not, students often proclaimed that they wanted to be like James Ibori, the notoriously corrupt former governor of Delta State or Mr. BabatundeFashola, the current governor of Lagos State. The clever ones among them even when they are not good footballers, would tell me that they would like to be like the footballers Kanu, Anichebe, Drogba, E’too, Taye Taiwo, or Torrey to mention but a few.
Ask them why they do not want to be like Soyinka or the late Solarin? They would describe these men as “wretched people”, and cap off their response rhetorically with: “How many Jeeps and other types of four by four luxury automobiles do the likes of Soyinka and Achebe have? Some would go as far as asking me the number of girlfriends that Achebe and Soyinka control. There’s no doubt that merely looking at the late Solarin’s picture in his signature wear of khaki shorts and shirt was enough for many of the young people to come to their erroneous opinion that he wasn’t a worthy role model for them not withstanding his enviable life as an acclaimed fighter for human rights during his lifetime.
During the 2007 general electioneering campaign in Lagos State, (Musiliu Obanikoro) 'Koro Ibo' was the household name all over the place. At the time I ran into one of my former students one day amongst Koro’s gang of thugs somewhere in a Lagos street. After we exchanged greetings and I jocularly asked him why his gang didn’t want Fasola as governor, I was amazed when he told me that Fayose is “too educated and would not allow people to eat…Don’t we know how you wouldn’t allow us to cheat in your maths exams”, he made bold to ask me. I was too dumb-founded by his street-smart but warped sense of logic to argue with him even as I tried in vain to compare Fashola and Koro Ibo.
These mind-boggling experiences in my encounters with some of the students that I have taught in Nigeria are in sharp contrast to what I saw in China. In a class of 100 students—classes in Chinese schools are always large but at the same time they are still conducive for teaching and learning because of the seriousness of purpose shown by students in China—only 5 did not want to be farmers. A particular female student once told me that “a hungry individual can not think aright...” She buttressed her point on the importance of farmers in society by citing the starving children that she sees in pictures of war-torn African countries where children die of hunger and starvation. She went as far as accusing the God of Africa; if really He or She did exist, of neglect and wickedness for letting that happen. I wept that day when I got back to my apartment.
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No sane Nigeria parents would pray for their children to become teachers talk less of becoming farmers that those Chinese children made bold to disclose that they aspire to be on the logic that farming provides food and saves people from starvation. Nigerian parents would rather go to any length to find and purchase JAMB examination papers for their children and wards ahead of the examination in the bid to ensure push them unduly into the medical, law and accountancy programs in universities. It is in Nigeria too that privileged parents go out of their way to ensure that one or two of their children get admitted into the Nigerian Defense Academy, just in case power shifts to military again someday.
One of the likely social pathological outcomes of this warped ambition is that Nigeria bristles with multitudes of timid and docile students whose only ambition is to own or drive Jeeps overnight.
I’m thinking wishfully here, don’t get me wrong. Umar Farouk may have rekindled my hopes now that after all some of these children who are born with the proverbial golden spoons and forks in their indolent mouths might still have room for compassion for the downtrodden masses. Or could it be that because young Umar had the opportunity of receiving his education in places that isolated him from most other Nigerian children that made it possible for him to misplace his priorities even when he summoned the sort of courage that got the better part of him when he made attempts to blow an American jetliner apart over Detroit. Otherwise he would have directed his energy, his anger and rage at the terrorists within Nigeria who have been terrorizing our people since 1960. If he had gone to detonate that bomb in our ‘Motley Assembly’ in Abuja even if he wore it elsewhere instead of his underpants, there’s little doubt that he would have succeeded 1000% undetected. He would have become the liberator of all time of Nigeria. The Survivors of the mayhem he would have caused would have packed their bags and baggage and left Nigeria for good. Hope of good governance would have returned to Nigeria, because would-be-legislators would think twice even when they are asked, before accepting to serve their people.
The downtrodden masses of our people have two consolations now that Umar went astray and took his mission where he wasn’t needed. One, would there are still many other Umars who would eventually direct their anger at our home-based terrorists instead of innocent Americans—although America has tolerated Nigeria’s roguish rulers for too long? Two, maybe now that America has identified Nigeria as a terrorist country, there will not be any hiding place for our roguish rulers, especially if in deed America known for not taking permission from anyone, decides to launch air-strike against them as suspected sponsors of terrorism. That might be why Nigeria’s rulers are having sleepless night in their corridors of power in Abuja. Any wonder why some of them have been and talking like parrots?
We should therefore pause some and check our vilification of young Umar Farouk. Who knows, he might be the conscience of slumbering Nigerian youth whose future has been mortgaged by our home-based terrorists who masquerade as leaders!
Babatunde Ayeni ([email protected])
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