Facebook Is a school of its own. I have learnt and unlearned more about the practicalities of life on Facebook probably more than my entire university education could ever teach me. I have a little story to tell… About three years ago, I befriended a young chap named Charles Ogbu His composure, diction, idiolect, articulation and wisdom intrigued me greatly. I have to confess in no time, I was blown away by his very erudite, sound and logical contributions to sundry issues on the social media. Based on his intelligence, I took it for a FACT that he must be at least a graduate. Somehow, we got close and happened to exchange ideas privately on Facebook. And that was when he mentioned his intention of traveling outside the country. Based on what I thought I knew about him, I said to him “As a GRADUATE, why not take time out and look for other jobs if your current job is not paying you well” Then came one of my most profound moments on Facebook…. The guy simply said “bro, I am not a graduate, I never stepped into the four wall of a university” Hmmm! To say I was shocked will be the understatement of the year. I was blown away! I was riveted on my seat for like 10 secs. I asked him again just to make sure my eyes was not seeing double. He confirmed by telling this.. Bro “I am just a…………. (his occupation) and this is how I earn my living. That day, this guy earned more respect from me than he would ever know. I could not believe this same guy who I thought had a masters degree had nothing but a secondary school certificate through no fault of his. I thought I was the only one to make this same mistake, but soon after, on another thread, he had to correct someone on the same topic. Sorry for the long gist. Now my point is this…. Intelligence has really nothing to with certificate, neither does leadership skills. Leadership has nothing do with how many paper certificates you acquire. It’s a puzzling how our world is so obsessed with certificate. I know of many who never acquired formal education, but who will trounce even Harvard educated persons hands down when it boils down to leadership skills. I honestly think one of our biggest failures as a people is our fixation on certificate. No wonder many people do not really care about how they earn their certificate, the most important thing is just earn it and every other thing is secondary. Little wonder, these days we have professors with certificates in engineering, power, information technology etc who profess nothing. These days we have first class geography graduates who can not point to the North pole. First class history graduate who boldly tell you I don’t know Napoleon Bonaparte. Graduates who spell “moi” as “mua” and when you try to correct them all you get is “whatever…” It is our craze for certificate that is running our country aground and we know it not. “Look more into the contents of a man’s character, this is bigger than a million certificate” Look not on Buhari’s certificate, look more into the man himself! NB I think Buhari has a moral burden to provide his certificates or at least explain why he can not provide them. This issue is very traumatic for me.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:57:28 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015