Nigeria Content Online

In the Yoruba
movie, “Aye Olomokan” starring Funke Akindele, a mother demanded
“academic excellence and nothing else” from her daughter, and that is
what she got: Academic excellence and nothing else.

The girl faced her
studies, was diligent, hardworking, and did very well in school –
studies were paramount. She was not expected to tidy her room or the
house, cook, clean, run errands, be generally helpful….so she wasn’t.

When not studying,
she went out with her friends, hung out with her mum, or lazed in her
untidy bedroom watching TV, talking on the phone and playing computer
games. In a hilarious scene, the houseboy rigorously and courageously
protested having to wash her underwear.

We are bringing up
a generation of young people whose only set goals are to pass exams;
not to be good citizens, good neighbours, to contribute to their
community, to help the needy, to be self-sufficient, to be clean, tidy,
neat, to know how to cook and entertain, to have manners, to
automatically say please and thank you, to inquire after the welfare of
others.

And what are the carrot and stick, reward and punishment, for behaviour?

Purely material
things. Behave and you will get the latest mobile phone handset, IPod,
computer, clothes, cash, jewelry, watch, shoes, or bag.

Misbehave and have
those things withheld. Oh yes, and my driver cannot take you to that
party! Where is the naming and shaming? Where is the intensive home
training to become a rounded and responsible person? Who is sending
them on errands that prepare them for life? Learning to do something
for the first time. Making a mistake and living with the consequences.
Opening a bank account, making withdrawals and deposits, booking a
ticket, changing money, bargaining in a market for food or equipment.

Where is the
apprenticeship around the ‘village fire’, in the kitchen, or bedroom,
or at their parent’s workplace, to learn how to do things right.

When do they get
lessons on how to run a home, or a business, to impart wisdom from the
experiences of others? Where and how do we convey the values that we
loudly declare we live by, that the religious houses preach about? How
are they prepared for the required qualities to look for in their life
partners?

Growing without guidance

So, they grow up
without real guidance and home training; and then, for those privileged
to go to University, National Youth Service sends them away from their
home state to be a corps member and live in another part of the
country, interacting with Nigerians who they would be unlikely to meet
otherwise.

The objective of
the exercise is often achieved. Young professionals expanding their
self-identity to include Nigeria and not only their ethnic and regional
identity. Young ladies ready to live and work in other parts of the
country, having seen that life goes on there too. Young Nigerians with
close friends from every part of the country.

By the time they return home, academic achievers and Youth Corps
survivors, how well do we really know them? What we prepared them for
and focused them on – their studies – are over. Can we swear to what
they will or will not do? Can we predict the type of people they will
associate with? Can we gauge how they will react to the politics they
will face at work? Can we realistically expect them to react well to
the hardships of life?