A rusty reward system

Sir: Money is not everything, but in many instances, and especially in a country like Nigeria, where poverty is systemic, it is close to being everything. As the country has gradually witnessed a corrosion of its national values and ethics, money has taken center stage.

Historically a social lubricant, money has become a must-have in a country marked by gripping poverty. Unemployment, a broken healthcare system and non-existent social security mean that for many people, money is the difference between life and death.

Poverty is such a burdensome boulder in Nigeria, such that even those who bear it in the name of religion are rushing to set it down. As many Nigerians have adopted a transactional, mercantile mentality, an area of life more affected than others is education.

Some years ago, a Nigerian music artiste declared that school na scam in a song which went viral, with the line becoming the favourite of many young people who now jettison education for internet fraud.

To prove that school na scam, many people easily draw correlatives between education and unemployment; the fate of teachers around the country, and the crisis of the education sector in Nigeria.

At a recent convocation of one of Nigeria’s oldest universities, the best graduating students were gifted a paltry N30,000 for their efforts. Many Nigerians immediately compared the measly cash gift for years of backbreaking hard work with the millions winners of reality shows take home in Nigeria.

To go or not to go to school? What does education mean in a country where misplacement of priorities has become a national pastime?  Many years ago in Nigeria, education was the holy grail.

With public schools is top shape and conditions excellent for students, many people picked up quality education at almost no cost. Upon graduation, many of them had well-paying jobs waiting for them.

To repay the country, this generation of Nigerians, which enjoyed the first fruits of Nigeria’s independence and new round oil wealth, embarked on a destruction and desecration of the country’s values.

Charged with serving Nigeria with the skills the country sponsored them to obtain, many of them have overseen the corruption in public office which has destroyed the future for many Nigerians.

When young Nigerians embracing Internet theft look at this generation of Nigerians, it is with nothing but contempt and derision. This contempt, this derision, has today been fashioned into a dangerous weapon.

It is a weapon completely destructive of patriotism and irreversibly inimical to democracy and development, which depends on patriotism to grow. Incentivisation is innate to human beings. Indeed, it is an inheritance. People know, as a matter of primal instinct, that they should gravitate towards that which promises them the rewards.

This inclination to orbit around a reward system becomes a dangerous problem when the reward system is one which rewards venture that add very little to society, while ignoring endeavors with more potentials.

Many people may argue that education is its reward. But in a world of competing rewards, subconsciously forcing people to choose rewards that offer instant gratification over tangible long-term interests won’t exactly serve the national interests.

Kene Obiezu ([email protected])