WE WILL PAY FOR THIS FREE EDUCATION

It pays to do the right thing the right way, writes Joshua J. Omojuwa

I spent some of my time in 2010 living in a supposedly highbrow estate in Ikoyi, Lagos. I learned an essential lesson about the psychology of the Nigerian elite. I was taken aback by the fact that, whenever it rained, the entire street got waterlogged. You’d see homes of some of the richest people in the country flooded with water. I just could not understand why that could happen in a place where between their influence to get the government to fix the issue or their resources to do it themselves, it just looked like a problem that should never be. I was even more shocked to learn that what I was witnessing had always been the issue in that estate long before my residency.

This is 2024, 14 years later, when it rains heavily, the exact problem that confounded me then continues this day.

The average Nigerian thinks they are better than their leaders. That illusion of moral superiority is something we all appear to share. It does not matter that there is no fundamental difference in the leadership outcomes we deliver in our little spaces compared to the ones we get from our politicians.

Take a random leadership group from an estate residents’ association, a religious group, a major WhatsApp group, a school alumni association, a professional union, and other such organisations, you will come to realise that there is nothing accidental about the default leadership we get from elected and appointed politicians. They are us; we are them.

Out of government, you are a saint, in government, you are evil until proven to be less so. You could earn your sainthood again after your time in office. So, it is not impossible for instance to have had houses removed without compensation for a road construction when you were governor, you are in a good position to criticize such an action — even if it comes with compensation — when you are out of power. It is not because you suffer some form of amnesia, it is that you know that if you align with people’s agenda, they generally do not care about your history. Two legs good, four legs better.

Because of our guaranteed hypocrisy, it is at times difficult to have a consensus on what is right or wrong, because right and wrong have attained a subjective hue. Like that beauty that is neither there or could be there, judgment must be left in the eye of the beholder. Here, the eyes are often coloured by politics, religion, or ethnicity. Or their different combinations.

In the end, we live together and suffer together, one nation bound in hopeful freedom, a protracted search for peace and aspirational unity.

Thankfully, even when we pretend not to agree, our actions and certain outcomes reflect some form of consensus. For instance, we agree that the public school system is not fit for purpose, even when it is advertised as free. That consensus is reflected in this common truth; virtually everyone who can afford private primary and secondary education for their wards and children have them in private schools. Exceptions can be made for the Unity Schools and Model Colleges because they remain relatively attractive to some parents who otherwise are able to afford private schools.

We may not agree on everything, we do agree — by our choices —that the public school system is only meant for the poor. If you see the wards or children of the rich or middle-class in a public school, outside of the special schools and their likes, they are the exception. Most likely there to make a point for their parents as a collateral for someone’s ambition.

We gave up on education. It became one of those things that everyone decided to find their own solution for. Like that Ikoyi estate where between their SUVs and the option of their houses elsewhere, there was no challenge offered by a flood or waterlogged street that defied a private solution; a resignation to find one’s way.

This was what probably influenced the design of Nigerian houses in the past when gates and fences became the norm. Anyone who’s never been at places where houses are without gates could grow up thinking hiding beautiful houses behind ugly fences is as natural as the rising of the sun.

We want to build a civilization on the back of a largely illiterate and an unskilled population. That is wishful thinking. We know what to do. We know our teachers are poorly paid. We know most of those poorly paid teachers are also not fit for purpose. We aren’t blind to the inadequacy of resources in our public schools. For every problem that required a collective solution, we chose the easy way out. One failing we can’t be proud of is our inability to organize around most of our challenges. We are given to exploring that personal way out.

This is reflected in the predominant design of our houses, it is reflected in our choice of cars, it shows itself in the way we build our wealth and family safe from the unpredictability of our country. The proliferation of private nursery schools and secondary schools in a different time and season, that of the universities that followed; all form the same thread of our way of addressing what bedevils the collective.  This is not to blame anyone; it is just to say it as it is.

Even the pandemic of corruption across private and public service fit into this psychology. Me, myself and I, the collective be doomed!

There are costs though. We cannot wish these problems away. Those children of the poor who are left to bear the brunt of our choices will organize in their own way to take their pound of flesh on society. We will need bigger armies, better Intelligence services and more police officers to meet the insecurity challenges of the future that could make today’s child’s play. One could say, “God forbid,” however, action and reaction are equal and opposite. That’s a foundational principle.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing