by Ifeanyi Okoli

Now, of all the dangerous trends which manifest in this society, the most frightening is the dearth of the zeal to pursue academic excellence, the lack of drive to get educated, the lackadaisical attitude of students concerning their education. 

 

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul – Joseph Addison

Maludum Obiora was super star. He wasn’t your conventional 21st century rock star, neither was he a dashingly handsome Nollywood actor. No!!! He was just a young teenager, but everybody loved him because he was a genius. He was exceptionally smart. Really, he was so brilliant that we fantasized about sharing just a tenth of his fame and popularity. Maludum Obiora was the darling of all the teachers, all the parents and most of all, our most shrewd principal.

“Maludum is my friend” This single statement from Mr. Obidike,our then principal,sent us wild and so green with envy and would inspire what would be a life long rage of academic quest and adventure.

Prize giving days in the good old days when schools were still schools was always a day of great reckoning. It was a day when the great book of academic judgment was thrown open and your reputation as a bright student for the next year would depend on if your name was found “in the book of life”.

Regardless of who you thought you were and whatever you thought you knew back then in secondary school, if you were not called up to the podium to shake the principal’s hand and receive prizes for academic excellence, then you have not done enough.
Prize giving days always coincided with our annual christmas carol of nine lessons at the end of each academic session. The parking lot of my expansive school would overflow with all kinds of cars from parents assembling from far and near to witness their children crowned in glory. Usually, the expectations were high: Dennis Memorial Grammar school was a government school,but it was a great citadel of learning. There was a spirit that roamed those walls then, it was the one of competition, motivation, soaring dreams and roaring ambitions.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled – Plutarch

After the rendition of the carols, with the moment of truth at hand, we would all stand silent, our little hearts pounding from anxiety of uncertainty, if we will win any prize. Our proud teachers would sit tight knowing fully well they had taught their students to the best of their abilities. Those days were not days of teachers selling chin-chin and soft drink in class to buffer their meager salaries, they were not days of having youth corpers making up a greater population of the teaching work force. Teachers were the pinnacle of learning, an encyclopedia of sorts,with magical answers to the most puzzling queries. They held their heads high, though not rich, but they weren’t complaining. I remember my chemistry teacher, Reverend Mbanugo (RIP) a great chemist, though he was the iconic teacher in the first few pages of New School Chemistry by Osei Yaw Ababio, but he would never hesitate to stop anywhere, anytime at the attention of any student to teach chemistry regardless the inconveniences of time and place.

The biology teacher stepping forward would announce:
“The annual prize for Biology this year goes to…MALUDUM OBIORAH”

Heart thumping I remember thinking “Ok…I didn’t write that essay on photosynthesis and Krebb’s cycle like I should”

Cutting a thunderous applause short,the English teacher continues:
“The annual prize for English language goes to…MALUDUM OBIORAH!!!”

“The annual prize for Economics goes to…MALUDUM OBIORAH!!”

“Hey”, I thought…”I was the best in my class in this subject!!!”

“The annual prize for Mathematics goes to…MALUDUM OBIORAH!!!!”

The crowd running wild in a rapturous excitement and applause,

“The annual prize for physics goes to…MALUDUM OBIORAH!!!!”

He was running back and forth from the podium so much that he was asked to just stand by the podium, since everyone was sure Maludum had no match in the school. The gifts were piling up so much that his mum and dad were invited to step up and help out with the mountain of prizes which kept piling up. What an honor! They were such happy and proud parents.

“The annual prize for chemistry goes to…”

The entire crown overflowing the hall took over the announcement from the gentleman Reverend chemistry teacher and all chorused

“MALUDUM OBIORAH!!!!”

There was pandemonium everywhere, as if a rocker was upstage doing the performance of a lifetime. So was Maludum Obiora’s legend.
This guy went ahead and won every prize in the whole senior category. He was merciless, he was passionate, he was hungry and he was greedy.

So you now understand what I mean when I said Maludum Obiorah was a super star back then in secondary school. He won my Alma mater so many prizes in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, further maths etc that almost every week the principal called him out to eulogize him before the whole school to our shame and intimidation. Humble pie was one meal Maludum Obiora fed all of us almost every single day through out our school days and we would never remain the same again. Maludum Obiorah went ahead to make nine distinctions (A1) in his school certificate exams and really,no one was surprised about that.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity – Arisitotle

Now the legend of this young man, Maludum Obiorah is intended to do a comparative analysis between the struggle of my generation in the course of our education and what is obtainable now.

Though outshone by a prodigy, we were equally motivated and inspired every single day to do our best, we challenged ourselves in very disturbing dimensions, we were passionate for academic excellence. It was difficult especially with raging teenage hormones, youthful exuberance and peer pressure but we were preoccupied by our dreams and we were always challenged by the daunting task of beating the likes of Maludum Obiorah on prize giving days,”oh what a glory it would be if I took it instead of him”

We were self motivated, never was there a need to be pushed or compelled to study, we slave drove ourselves and hungered to learn more every day. We had a clear dream of what careers we wanted to pursue after leaving school. We were very ambitious and had to start writing JAMB and GCE way early before it was deemed due.

We would sneak out of the dormitories after lights out daring the whips of our prowling prefects and house masters, armed with nothing but a kerosene lanterns and piles of books to “jack” for the night.

‘TDB’ wasn’t an acronym for an all night sexual encounter, rather, it meant TILL DAY BREAK which was a feat pronounced when night became day while you cushioned up in a cold windowless classroom uploading the contents of ABABIO and P.N OKEKE into your brain. I can never forget the scream of victory we would let out anytime we resolved a complicated algebra or the joy of nailing a complex physics equation. How can I ever forget the nick names we bore that emanated from the ability to draw complicated organic chemistry structures?

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in – Leonardo da Vinci

We invented several ways of staying up at night and making the brain absorb knowledge like a sponge. From forcing a siesta in the day, chewing cola and dipping your legs in water, but whatever ignorance we indulged in then was out of childhood enthusiasm to be the best.

We didn’t need our parents to remind us to study, we had our parents hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from us since we started living independently in boarding schools then. We knew that our future will be better if we “scatter” WAEC and JAMB in first sitting and secure admission to our dream high institutions. Before UNIBEN materialized, it was long a dream.

Being the top in your class was everything. You earned the respect of your peers, your seniors and the commendation of your teachers. There were no promises of a “wonder WAEC centers” there were no expectations of ‘expo’ or ‘sorting’ to pass exams, there were no parents who were going to pay hundreds of thousands of naira to settle teachers and examiners to enable their children pass exams.

“Who born you?”

Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends. – Benjamin Disraeli

Although I didn’t line up an intimidating nine distinctions (A1) like the legendary Maludum Obiora, I didn’t only pass my WAEC and JAMB in one attempt, I also secured admission to the medical school of my dreams at the age of 16 . Today, I have lived by the creed of hard work and passion to succeed and I can beat my chest proudly and say that through my entire travails in higher institution, I never for a fraction of a second asked any soul for help, much more cheat in any exams.

I earned my academic victories and today, I can stand before any authority and defend my qualifications. Though It wasn’t all roses but I learned even in my occasional moments of failure. I remember the sheer vengeance that overtook me every time I failed a test, an assessment or an exam in medical school. Have you ever seen a man who becomes a competition unto himself? A man who takes a test or an exam personal? Yes, I did because I cultivated an attitude of success, an attitude of ‘no retreat no surrender’. I would go in and give it my best shot, impressing my very shrewd lecturers, professors and examiners beyond words. At the end of the day, they are more than convinced you know your stuff, that you are worth your salt and deserving of resounding success. To show for this illustrious behavior I culminated from secondary school, I never had cause to graduate later than my peers. I became a doctor at a very impressive young age. This was all because I cultivated an early habit of beating the best.

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army – Edward Everett

Now of all the dangerous trends which manifest in this society, the most frightening is the dearth of the zeal to pursue academic excellence, the lack of drive to get educated, the lackadaisical attitude of students concerning their education. You see, I don’t loose sleep over the ills of this society that much because I know that everything has but a limited time to subsist. No matter how irresponsible these crop of leaders are, no matter how tenacious they hold unto authority, no matter how long they linger in the relevant offices and positions, no matter what they do to remain relevant, time shall pass, dust them up and turn them over to the next generation. I’m a passionate believer in the power of change. For all things that shall pass over, change in itself remains constant. This is the great solace. Therefore I believe that leadership, once entrusted unto an educated,competitive,illustrious and industrious generation, will inadvertently ease the downturn of an impoverished society. Therein lies my fear for this country.

It is a greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the word, than to rule a state – William Ellery Channing

Our educational system terrifies me badly. Graduates or undergraduates who can not make a proper sentence, write cohesively and defend the qualifications they possess is a real emergency. It terrifies the heart more than a person who stole 23 billion naira. Little wonder our standard of education is so poor that graduates are misfits when they hit the labor market. Outside the shores of this country, whatever academic qualification we wield amounts to nothing but a piece of paper. It’s a condemnation of our present educational systems and an indictment for our schools and academia.

Major things have gone wrong with our society and we all should be concerned. Students leave secondary schools these days with absolutely nothing in their heads, no clue whatsoever, no direction other than sagging of jeans and memorizing the names of Nollywood actors and actresses. It’s fancy for parents to send their wards to expensive schools, but what’s not fancy is paying large sums of money for their exams to be written for them. Our value system has degenerated so badly that impunity and shamelessness is now the norm. How do you buy your children’s school certificates, buy their university admissions, possibly buy their graduate degree and expect them to be leaders of tomorrow?

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones – Charlotte Brontë, ‘Jane Eyre’

No wonder the people who were once and long referred to as leaders of tomorrow, years after, are still waiting in a very long queue to assume their role of leadership, while men and women supposed to be cooling their pads in retirement are the ones dictating our lives. You don’t expect the future leaders of this great nation to drop from heaven, do you? We ought to realize that the future of Nigeria will solely rely on the army of youth, equipped with solid knowledge in sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences to mention a few.

We have a serious challenge in our hands. It is not enough to complain about a certain Obasanjo and Jonathan, meanwhile in our own little ways we have destroyed our future and that of our children. We have pushed them up without considering the consequences of such actions. They  are ashamed when standing shoulder to shoulder with their peers, they can’t defend their titles and degrees, they can’t even interact with their colleagues who made the ultimate sacrifice of laborious study. When they speak, act or write, to be put it midly, you wonder where the hell they are coming from.

When asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated, Aristotle answered, ‘As much as the living are to the dead’ – Diogenes Laetius

Whether we believe it not, the baton of leadership must be relinquished to a younger generation. In a year or in a hundred, it will be relinquished. The doctor who cannot diagnose malaria will never take the job of those who can, the engineer who can not make a simple design will be watching in disbelief as his brother takes his place, the lawyer who doesn’t know the law will be mocked by interns, the journalist who can’t write or make intriguing stories will be left behind.

A new Nigeria is emerging, and it will be for the prepared. It doesn’t matter the number of jobless graduates we have roaming the streets now, someday soon, the jobs will come. When they do and the norm of who you know or who your uncle is, is no more, the positions will be filled by competent scholars who went the extra mile, burning midnight candles, staying up all night reading, eyes burning from sleeplessness and drinking from an oasis of knowledge.

Let me note that as the glory of evil over good has been guaranteed not to last, so is the glory of mediocre over the substantial. Let this be a wake up call for all hands to be on deck. Parents, allow your children to get dirty playing in the muddy sand of the academia, your interference is but a distraction, a mortgage of their futures, you are allowed to inspire and encourage but never meddle.

Money I know, universally, can transform to quality education,but its not the conventional buy and sell transaction here. You can’t just go about doling out money to buy passes and certificates for your children. That is exactly what has destroyed our educational system. The ideal pathway involves the rigorous processing of their brains, ideas, thoughts and interest to a concrete and streamlined set of skills in a citadel of learning. Quality education is counter productive when its acquired black market style.

I don’t know where Maludum Obiorah is right now. I heard he’s a Havard trained medical doctor. I also heard he’s a Yale engineering scholar. Wherever he is I wish him well, but most importantly, I remember with nostalgia how people like him were able to inspire a whole more lot of people to aim for the top and shoot beyond the skies and in a very jealous fit of competition, he drove us to be the best we ever could be.

Hard work has no substitute. If you want to become educated, you have only one option: “you are going to have to do the field work yourself, its actually a sordid wet work, but the beauty lies in the finished product. It’s yours and yours alone, the glory, the fruits and the honor, once acquired, it goes into the kitty”

*This is a true life story. The author used real life scenarios and real names of characters involved to re-enact the events of the past*

————————-

Follow Ifeanyi Okoli on Twitter @countproject

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.