THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE By Olagunju Olayinka Isaac Apologies please! If writing an article means using semantics with words, writing big big grammar and vocabularies then I wont be writing an article this week. Am tired of writing. I finally give up. Perhaps, my choice of language is too ambiguous or the average Nigerian does not just give a damn anymore about the space called Nigeria. Of what use is an article when my people still remain the defending champion of mass docility. Nigerians are the breeds of Do Nothing. They have experienced the very worst. Nothing surprises them again and nothing are they willing to do again. The few active ones are misguided, they are championing a very wrong cause- a self styled revolution, a flawed misrepresentation of the word: survival. I hate complaining. I had love to stay mute like the millions of my fellow suffering and smiling countrymen but my own elastic limit has not been exceeded. Nigerians and Nigeria is a nation of complaints. Theres nothing encouraging about our Nigeria. Though, as an apostle of hope- I have often forced myself to belief that all will be well but it is obvious that all is in the well with Nigeria. Everything is wrong with the system. For instance, I have heard and read a lot about the death trap called Lagos/Ibadan express road and my opinion has always been that the state of that road is highly exaggerated. Lo and behold! Am so very wrong. Every bad thing you read about that road is true. I mean very true. My experience on that road last Friday was/is not funny at all. Just like Peter encountered Jesus in the holy book, I encountered the said road and my life has since never remain the same. The only difference is the befuddling paradoxical irony. The Association of Nigerian Graduates Against Unemployment(ANGAU) of which I am an acting executive was to hold its national meeting at Abeokuta by 2pm on the day. I left Maryland, Lagos by 8:30am so I that I will arrive at the venue early enough to attend to some other striking matter. I can only but thank God I even left home early for if I hadnt, only God knows when Ill get to the venue. Though, they claim the road is under repair, I saw no sign of repair on that road. In order not to bore you, I wasted more than six(6) working/productive hours on that road. I finally got to the venue around 3pm. By the time I got to the venue I had witnessed nothing less than four(4) accident on the road, 5 innocent souls had perished just like that in one day and it didnt make the news because the people that died are just ordinary Nigerians plus the holdup on that road had spoilt many cars. I got to the meeting disorganized, tired, angry and couldnt even give the speech I had planned giving. Then, I kept asking myself, whats the real cost of repairing that road? Is the entity called Nigeria an idiot? For an idiot is an entity of profound mental retardation, it is only an idiot that is always generally unable to learn. Do we really need the Julius burgers of this world before we can repair(not construct) our own roads? It wasnt long before I came to the conclusion that our problem is not really the state of our roads etc. But the state of our mind. Everything is wrong with the mind set of the average Nigerian. Todays national quagmire has its foundation, its root from our mind, that is why we carry our insecurities, ineptitude, as well as our sad, little corrupt ways wherever we go. Gone are the days when ordinary undergraduates of our tertiary institutions construct roads as their practical assignment. My daddy once told me that the Jibowu bridge, the one that leads to Yaba from Jibowu, Lagos state was constructed by Yabatech students. They constructed that bridge as their practical and that bridge is still standing and one of the best in Lagos state today. He told me because he knows, he knows because he was part of the then undergraduates that constructed that bridge. If they can do it then why cant it be done now? Where are the bridges constructed by todays undergraduates? Cant the Engineering students of Unilag and Yabatech be thoroughly supervised and deployed to repair a section of the Lagos/Ibadan express road? Why waste so much money paying a construction company to repair that road without giving undergraduates a platform to use that road as a learning tool (to learn a thing or two about the basics of Civil Engineering) ? You say graduates are unemployable but am beginning to realise that the miseducation of the Nigerian graduate is deliberate and on purpose. The powers that be in the country are merely toying with the mind set of the Nigerian graduate. For them to continue to reign supreme, the Nigerian graduate must be made half baked perhaps unbaked, empty and clueless. Hes taught dy/dx in school and hes never told how that works in the real life. Hes molded to fail. One can not blame todays Nigerian graduate because it is not his fault that he does not know. Infact, he wishes to know because that is the reason he went to school in the first place. Haven, realised that he knows nothing about how the corporate world works couple with the fact that there are no jobs out there, hes frustrated, pained and dejected. He falls prey in the hand of his molder. The main objective of his molders been to render him useless, unproductive and uncompetitive. He takes into prostitution, arm robbery, political thuggery, kidnapping etc. It has now gotten to point where the poor graduates knowing fully well that they have nothing to eat now focus on the rich. He is now a professional kidnapper by force not by choice. The Kidnapping industry is now the most lucrative industry in the country. It baffles me how Professional hypocrites in the country suddenly have found the voices. They are now ranting that they dont know why armed robbery and kidnapping is becoming more rampant in nigeria. How can they not know. As if it is news to them that 85% of Nigerian graduates in the past ten (10) years are jobless and government is making no deliberate attempts to create jobs. The nigeria senate and the ruling political elites are more concerned about the elections coming up in 2015. State governments have no idea on how to create jobs yet they are banning motor bikes that is employing millions of Nigerians graduates. Whenever any high profile kidnapping is reported. People will start running their mouths making their usual political statements as if they care. For those still pretending not to know why Nigerians graduates now feed on Nigerians flesh, God judgment is upon you. Fellow graduates, there are better ways of fighting this war, this is a civilised war and I bet our strength is in our numbers. Armed robbery, militancy, kidnapping etc, is not the solution. Let us shun all social vices for the now and come together to form an association. We (you and I) are our greatest asset. We need ourselves like never before now. Our interest can be best served when we unite. Please, join us, join the Association of Nigerian Graduate Against Unemployment (ANGAU) today and let us build the Nigeria of our dreams. Come, Let us reason together. Come, let us pool/garner our resources. Together we can leave our space a tad better than we met it. Please come, let us take our Nigeria back an inch at a time. Yes, these river is deep, oh yes! These river is wide but I can assure you my fellow graduates, that there is milk and honey on the other side. Come, let us cross this river together. Now, that we know where the rain began to beat us, come let us dry our body together. Remember, People of accomplishment rarely sat back & let things happen to them. They went out & happened to things. Together We can!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 06:52:20 +0000
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