IT’S TRULY PATHETIC. . .
Life has increasingly become difficult, so much that no single day passes without any news of death or the rumours of same all over the world. Life has become scariest in the face of no humanity, no compassion, no empathy… The struggles for survival has made man lose his very essence, the human kindness that we grew up to know has become like smoke in the air.
Seemingly unconsciously but gradually, we are approaching a time where life holds no value. The core of our existence has been seriously basterdised, the pursuit for good life is now the excuse upon which many evils are perpetrated daily right before our eyes. In as much as hard work used to be considered the only source through which wealth and fame can be built, the new world we have successfully created has proffered far more yielding ways to achieve same only within certain terms and conditions.
Pathetically, many have fallen victim to these abominable ways and activities of the get rich quick syndrome, which is why the killings have been unending and unabating everywhere you go in Nigeria. The problem of human trafficking, kidnapping, human parts harvesting and selling, banditry, armed robbery, thuggery, arm proliferation, bigotry, cyberspace fraud and many more has become the new lottery. Frustrations everywhere streaming from an unworkable economy generated through bad governance over the years…
Just a while ago and even now, most parents deny themselves good life in struggling to make sure that they get their children or wards trained in the best schools around the world. Attaining education was basically like the answer to escaping poverty and making the most of the best of life according to what our colonial masters sold to us or rather made us believe … white collar jobs were typically the answer to a beautiful rewarding life back in those days. Being the only way we knew how, parents never held back from empowering their children with good education, even to the extent of going hungry in the process, but today, not only is going to school not completely a guarantee for a good job or good life but it’s also not an automatic insurance to vanquish poverty. If that were so, I believe the First Class holders, Ph.D holders, Bachelors degrees, Master’s and other related degree holders in our midst or even the world over would have been the richest people indeed. While the white man sold us the idea of going to school and attaining all these different degrees and certifications, they where busy carting away our precious human, material and natural resources.
The truth is that the world has always been business oriented. To build wealth and make money was basically a practical process which does not imply the formal education as a criteria. At this point, my quarrell is not and has never been with education aquired but with how the false impression about the white collar jobs being probably the only way forward to a better life and economy has failed us. This false impression is indeed one of the cardinal reasons our economy is still struggling in the arms of diversification… our society is packed with hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates all over the place most times with no sense of direction… If we probably did not put all our eggs in one basket, this would or may not have been our story.
I wish the emphasis wasn’t so much on aquiring University degrees. I wish they also told us in good time that wealth could be created through informal education which traditionally comes most often in different skill acquisitions and that such skills could be exported the same way the Chinese and a few others are all over the place making money through rendering of services via their skilIs.
I believe many of our youths who as a result of unemployment frustrations have gone into the arms of deadly vices like kidnapping, banditry, money rituals and a host of other terrible evils constituting the list of insecurities in the land, would have long devoted their time in learning a skill or two to keep themselves gainfully employed and in due process become employers and even exporters of labour as well instead of lying waste and becoming agents of havoc and mass destruction in their own fatherland. Note worthily, I’m not trying to excuse crime or bad behaviour of any form, only emphasising the factors that could be responsible. We were made to believe that better life, good job and wealth making is completely dependent upon university degrees and qualifications only. Now, many are done with school with no jobs available. Sadly, what most can now aquire without applications or continous disappointing quest, is terrorism and its related members.
