Our parents (elders/governments) destroyed our lives. We are now only trying to put the pieces together.
The sorry state of Nigeria's youths, struggling for themselves to make ends meet today is a direct result of what the persons in the category above did to us. They have made life hard for us. When they were supposed to be preparing us for a future, they were subjecting us to intellectual abuse at the dictates of colonizing forces.
Why have I said this?
We are now in the Technological age and Nigerian youths are not a competition in that field.
Why do you think that is so?
It is simple. Ask 100 Nigerian youths who went to different primary and secondary schools what they remember about their Intro-Tech teacher. 95 will say he knows how to Flog. Yes, that was something Intro-Tech teachers seem to know how to do best in our schools. Intro-Tech is supposed to be Introductory Technology or Introduction to Technology.
There was nothing about both our Intro-Tech and Physics teachers that suggested that they knew anything about training us to become competitive in the reality of today as far as the field of technology is concerned. They too were as myopic back then as the government that employed them. They just needed the job to pay bills.
Nothing has changed today.
The same useless curriculum that was used in the 80s to produce the clueless teachers that taught us in the 90s is still the same curriculum that is being used in this twentieth century.
We turned out useless in the technological world and our children and teenagers are also presently being taught the same things. As usual, the teachers are there clueless about what the future holds, they are simply working to have their bills paid and the parents are bursting their asses to pay the children's school fees to go and learn useless knowledge that won't make them globally competitive in this present age not to talk of the coming one.
Yet, nothing will be done. The Minister for education is simply there to collect salaries, carry files and say yes sir - in the hope that other "juicy" appointment might come in the future. Same as the Commissioner for education.
When Nigerian youths now graduate, the government will draft them into ₦30,000/month empowerment programs that will last for two years.
Can we blame the children and teenagers who are being sent to school? No, we can't. They don't know any better but those who ought to figure out what is happening in the present and chart a cause for the future don't see beyond their noses. Those who claim to know beyond their noses don't know what to do.
This post is a reality check.
The country is a destiny death trap. It is not designed to produce creators but consumers.
But the reason is not farfetched.
It can be traced back to the Berlin Conference which took place in Berlin, Germany in 1884-1885.
Some European countries under the watchful eyes of America met in Germany to decide the method of colonization of Africa. Colonization is another name for harnessing the resources of Africa for the colonizers good. They took over the lands and create the kind of people that they want to create from the population there.
There was a need: The European industries needed raw materials and also needed market to sell their products.
Africa is rich in resources (which they seem not to be able to use optimally), Europe wanted the resources (the raw materials). They met with few chiefs and land owners. Gave them Gins, Yards of clothes, mirrors and some money within the range of 150 - 250 pounds and they made the chiefs mark X on some documents. Unknown to the illiterate chiefs, they were signing off ownership of their lands to the Whiteman whom they considered generous.
Also, part of the decision at the Berlin Conference was the sort of education that should be provided for the colony.
The education was such that was meant to produce industry workers who can listen and comprehend instructions in English language, who could understand basic arithmetic, accounts and bookkeeping.
It was not meant to educate the colonial population on how to be self-sufficient nor to help them harness the resources of their lands.
The education that the Missionaries (the Jesus boys) brought was meant to keep Africa in a state of perpetual dependence on European for the produce from the industries owned by the Whiteman and not to create a system that can equip the Blackman to own their own industries.
The Berlin Conference, otherwise tagged "Mission to Civilize" was strictly for the economic benefit of the participating countries. The "Mission to Civilize" tag was just given to it to gain public acceptance. The purpose is to exploit the land.
And part of the strategy was to not teach the African how he can be self-sufficient.
Look at it from this angle.
If we are taught how to produce mobile phones and cars, then they would have created a competition for themselves in the market.
After they had engaged in slave trade for years, taking our best brains and hands to build their countries in forced labour and using our ancestral knowledge bank to gain speed over us, they came back to re-educate those of us that were not carried away in physical chains to become perpetually dependent on them. Slavery by chains was abolished and slavery by miseducation started.
As soon as we finished school, we got jobs that paid us salaries and we got comfortable, working to climb up the ladder for a period of 35 years. If you can steal, you steal but if you can't, you follow that process until you are old and retired. You will discover however that as you were going up the ladder and your salary figure was increasing, the value of the currency was decreasing. Why? Because you have no industries which is where you could have powered your economy and your government has to rely on loans from the countries that exploit your resources.
When your government borrows the loans at interest rates it cannot pay back, one of the ways to cover for that debt in order that they would be eligible for more loans is to devalue your currency and sell more natural resources to the foreigners cheaply.
African youths, let me hear from you what you consider appropriate to do to these countries that participated in the Berlin Conference.
Countries that participated in the Berlin Conference:
1. Austria- Hungary
2. Belgium
3. Denmark
4. France
5. Germany
6. Italy
7. Netherlands
8. Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
9. Portugal
10. Russia
11. Spain
12. Sweden-Norway
13. United Kingdom
14. United States
By Ayobami Ogedengbe
Copyright: © 2021
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