₦airaland Forum

Aloy.Emeka,

The only thing I don't like about your post is the title. In Black Africa, We should try to cultivate the concept of supremacy of the institution over the individual. Obama talked about this in Ghana that, “Africa does not need strong men; Africa needs strong institutions”. This is the way to build continuity from one administration to the next and respect for the rule of law, rather than adulation of the individual in power.

The title of the post would imply that Fashola imposed by fiat, the sealing of the property in question, whereas a state agency did so in carrying out its statutory duties. I know you didn't mean it like that, but this idea of “strongmanism” is where we always fall flat in Africa. The state institution that enforced the law should be larger than the current chief executive of the state. I would have preferred to read, “LASEPA Seals Oyakhilome’s Warehouse”. This relegates Fashola, the man, to the background.

Sorry if I sound like nitpicking.

I have a few comments I would like to contribute to this discussion. I am new here; in fact, this is my very first post on NairaLand and perhaps the sixth or seventh time I’ve ever posted a comment in an online forum. I don’t usually post in online forums because of the inevitable squabble and insults that often arise when people find other people’s comments disagreeable. This thread seems different, however. So bear with me.


Take Responsibility; what has God got to do with it?
The first comment I’d like to make is about a trait I've observed among Nigerians for a long time: that is the invocation of God in every aspect of life. Read the Deputy Governor's remarks to the school in question and you will notice how she injected God into her remarks. This is a universal trait among Nigerians. What happened to the concept of rational thought? What has the fear of God got to do with the inability of teachers to master English, the adopted language of instruction in our public school system or to show up for work as required?

In the audience was the person responsible for the public school system in Lagos: the Chair of the State Universal Basic Education Board. I do not know who hired this gentleman to head the public school system, but I can tell you that in the US, the first casualty of this debacle would be his head and the entire board. I've been out of Nigeria for two decades and plan to return home next year. One thing Yankee has ingrained in me is taking responsibility and taking the fall when you screw up. When you're the head of a parastatal such as a school board, you're held responsible when the students are not learning.

We need to cultivate the concept of holding people accountable for their actions, if the country is to progress into the ranks of developed nations. Furthermore, we need to develop an aversion to mediocrity. Just showing up for work is not enough; you must innovate, develop, and improve to stay or move ahead in this increasingly competitive world. This teacher situation calls for leadership and action by the government, not the invocation of God.


English as the Official Language
As some have advocated here, I have no problem at all, if the school board determines to make the local language the language of instruction in public schools. In fact, this will facilitate learning as kids will not need to translate in their minds what they hear in English to their native language in order to understand what the teacher is teaching them. It's very difficult for a child to speak one language at home and go to school to be instructed in what is not his or her primary tongue. This is why in the early school years, our children will always perform lower than their counterparts in countries that use their native tongue as their official language. But be careful what you ask for.

One of the problems we have in Nigeria is the adoption of English as the country's official language. The relegation of native tongues to second-tier status is one of the evils of colonialism, as one poster had observed. The solution however does not lie in using the local tongue as the official language. I say this because most, if not all native languages in Africa are grossly inadequate to address contemporary issues such as technology or modern business practices.

To bring a native tongue up to a level where it is versatile enough to teach subjects such in mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, and computing, the state will have to establish an agency to invent or derive native equivalents of contemporary English words, particularly those associated with technology and modern life. The French have taken this approach to preserve their language in the face of hegemony of the English language.

However, I cannot advocate the French approach because of its potential to sow further divisions among the ethnic groups in Nigeria (I am, of course, assuming that Nigerians want to dissolve all remnants of divisions within the country). You'll all agree that one of the few things that cut across ethnic lines in Nigeria is the adoption of English as the country's official language). It will also be a very costly endeavor to follow the French example and Nigeria is certainly not a rich country.

How many languages are there in Nigeria and how many are we going to promote as the local language of instruction within their indigenous communities? Once you let that genie out of the bottle, it'll be difficult to be put it back. Just think of the waste and mess we've created by dividing the country into 36 states, most of which will be financially insolvent without handouts from the federal government. Add to that the dumb provision in our constitution that mandates at least one federal minister from each state in the federation and you can see how we create waste and promote mediocrity in the name of national unity.

The mediocre language skill of our students is a situation we can remedy. All it takes is recognition by everyone with a vested interest in our kids' education that we are producing mediocrity at elementary and even up to the varsity level. The next step is to institute practical measures to salvage our educational system and start producing quality graduates again. After all, the same school system that produced a Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Adichie, can produce more of the same, if we resolve to fixing it and bringing it up to contemporary times.

Let's stop making excuses about English not being our mother tongue. No one forced this language on us; we adopted it as our lingua franca. I accept that English is no easy language to master. It can sometimes be illogical in its derivation of words and phrases (how the English language derived the word “gubernatorial” from “governor” while “adversarial” is a logical derivation from “adversary” is beyond my comprehension), but once you adopt it as your language, it is incumbent on you to master it to a reasonable degree.

One last word on our schools
I spent time in Lagos just a few months ago to get a taste of a place I hadn't seen in 20 years. I saw the Jakande schools people mentioned earlier. Man, what mediocrity! How do we expect our children to aspire to anything more than average when all they see around them is mediocrity? Good architecture in our schools (it doesn't have to be expensive), I imagine, could spur a child's imagination and aspiration to say, “Dad, I would like to be an architect and design something like that when I grow up”.

I realize that my post is quite long. So, to those who were able to read it in whole, I say thanks for reading. And if you're in a position to correct any of the statements I've made, I'll be more than glad to read your post.