Let’s Have Truth First, Before Change!

THE way and manner we, the innocents, holy, and righteous ones of this country are debating whether to give death penalty or jail sentence to treasury looters after recovering all they have looted, makes it look as if we have found a never heard and never seen before technique of belling the cat and ending corruption. What is worst, we sound as if we have finally found the holy, fearless and sacrificial one who will actually hang the bell on the cat’s neck. On this hang the hopes of the mass army of cattle mentality.

We knew, at least, we heavily suspected that the immediate past administration was massively looting the treasury, and that was why Nigerians clamoured for change. But it is beginning to be disappointing that this government doesn’t seem to have any higher purpose than the ‘kill or jail after retrieving’ agenda. Thus far, she has only been doing more of blaming, accusing, threatening, and bandying allegations on the past administration. Actually, it has been helping us to suspend our disbelief that something worthwhile is happening. But is that the best she can do?

Can the recovery of loots and jailing or killing of culprits alone educate Nigerians that the ultimate expression of life is not money, a fat bank account, properties, fame, and exotic 50 or 100-bedroom homes, but simply living a high quality life? Can it teach Nigerians to ask, “What, for me, should be a high-quality life?” Most likely, it won’t; thieves have been known to steal even at the very arena where robbers were gunned down by a firing squad. The catching, jailing or killing of thieves are mere reactions and are never transformational. Whatever ‘good’ is obtained by threat and fear is cosmetic and never lasts. Enduring change cannot be obtained by glorifying ignorance in the name of virtue.

Treasury looting is actually a symptom of a disease and not the disease itself; in manifestation it is just like the leaf of an evil tree. What is needed is to uproot that tree: merely hacking on some of the leaves cannot bring it down.

And what is that bulldozer that can uproot that tree? Right education! Right education is the only thing that can genuinely change anyone. Nigeria lost it when she messed up her education and felt “it doesn’t matter”.

The so-called education of the Nigerian child, sincerely speaking, is a massive fraud, a state orchestrated ‘419’ scam that like Abdul, the trickster, sells ashes in the name of sugar to a naïve people; it is akin to a trader who gives rabbit-size value at the price of a cow. Teachers whose consciences are still alive and responsive, no doubt, must be troubled in being part of this ‘obtaining by trick’ education scheme. Why would university graduates roam the streets for years without being able to either produce something worthwhile or get employment based on their training? Meanwhile ‘schools’ continue to mushroom all over Nigeria with no commensurate socio-economic impact.

Now, is it not clearly evident that the existing education system is not really equipping citizens for true success in meeting the challenges of the times? Loading people’s head with information is good but not enough; the people should equally be trained and grilled on how to effectively engage and employ the information for every need. It is foolish to assume that people can actually be trained just by getting instructional information for a couple of yeas. Would anyone, for example, become a great footballer just by studying football playbook for some years?

Trees are known by their fruit; good trees bring forth good fruits, but corrupt trees bring forth evil fruits. What then should we say are the fruits of the colonial arrest of intelligence in the name of education? These, perhaps, are a few of them; people with swollen heads instead of loving hearts; people who prefer to fake it rather than make it, people who will do everything and anything to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labour than labour for others to share in their joy; insatiable consumers who will not think twice to eat-up their future today.

Until we get down to authentic education for Nigerians, we cannot get our place in civilization. Until we rightly and radically transform our education curriculum and system, the situation is not going to change: Nigerians, in and outside government, will continue to be sadistic looters. Society cannot continue to produce and celebrate chicken hearts and expect tigers with ‘tigritude’.

Individuals with true entrepreneurial spirit, smart brains, and intellectuals have all run away from the education sector, mostly leaving it for brains who ‘beg to apply’. Since iron sharpens iron, what sort of products should we expect from these people who we employ as teachers? By a law of nature, everything produces its kind; in this case, more and more illiterates who will, like destitute, ‘beg to apply’.

Please, reflect well on this: going to school should prepare pupils/students for life. But how come, as critical as money is to life that majority of Nigerians go through the entire gamut of our so-called education system without learning anything about money except what they are able to pick from the streets and gutters of this world? Students are made to sweat and keep late nights writing term papers on some stupid subjects which they may never use even if they lived as long as Methuselah. In the discipline of money, for example, our schools system has completely failed.

It is so terrible that even Mr. President, in spite of all the fat pay checks he received for years in various juicy top government services and all his mouth watering pension (and perks) as a former head of state, still had to borrow money from a bank to buy his party’s nomination form. People can continue to have fun attributing it all to his honesty, but the fact of it is that it is a manifestation of financial/money illiteracy. A good money literate person, having enjoyed all such privileges of life, should be giving loans to banks (even if it is only community banks), not borrowing from them. Mr. President’s example is typical of the majority of Nigerians who were never, all through their school years, taught the discipline of right savings, investments, and entrepreneurship, to say the least.

To continue to display and tell millions of young Nigerians about the beauties and wonders of the new world and pushing them out without giving them the keys (financial intelligence) to that new world is to make the treasury looting scourge of today look like a child’s play in a couple of years more to come. Nigerians urgently need to be well educated on money. Right entrepreneurship and education about money should be made a compulsory part of our schools education curriculum if we ever hope, some day, to be rid of this devil phenomenon of stealing and maniac looting of our treasury.

And, while the government is still sleeping on the matter, I humbly urge you my dear reader to help yourself and help Nigerians to learn about money: Attend seminars/workshops, listen to teachers, preachers, and pastors on the subject, read all you can, and begin to practice, update, and upgrade your money skills. I love you and I love Nigeria, let us tell ourselves some home truths first, else the change we are asking for will really make no welcome difference.

Truth first, before change!