Nigeria can work again!
By Wole Olaoye ([email protected])
The younger generation of Nigerians, the under-45s, have not had the privilege of experiencing Nigeria when the country actually worked. It all sounds like an old grandmother’s tale now, but there was actually a time when everything worked — the health system, education, potable water, electricity, security, student loan and bursary system, sports, aviation, even entertainment.
Our youths need to know that their country had not always been a hard place to live in. Perhaps the older generation have not lived up to their responsibility of passing on the good things of the past to the leaders of tomorrow. It is true that there is a shortage of good examples today but we can use our glorious past to inspire the leaders of tomorrow.
The quality of leadership nosedived the moment soldiers staged the first military coup. Might became right. Everyone had to obey the last order. The federal structure was destroyed in favour of a unitary system where the country was run as one big barracks. Emergency millionaires emerged (worse than the ten percenters that the military overthrew). Morality went to the dogs. The new motto: Make money by all means, live fast, die young and have a nice looking corpse.
Over time, as the military transmogrified governance and national resources into playthings, government stopped forward planning. The country regressed. Investments and incentives were withdrawn in virtually every area concerning youth development and employment opportunities. Now our children are doing what was unthinkable in my day — shipping themselves for slavery in other lands.
It wasn’t always like this. That is why people of my generation honestly feel that we must tell the truth about the good days to the youths so as to inspire them to take us out of the hole because that is their generational challenge and duty.
This was the same country in which we gladly went to public schools. The solid foundation we got from those schools helped to shape our successful careers. In my neck of the woods, education was free, functional and compulsory. If you couldn’t proceed to secondary school, there was the Modern School which was a step between, and with which you could still get a decent job.
University students had the benefit of part-time jobs, especially in the library. You synchronised your working hours with your school timetable. There were vacation jobs aplenty. During long holidays, students of tertiary institutions took up good jobs for the three months and earned good money to take back to school.
Although we complained bitterly and protested nationwide when the military started removing one subsidy after the other in the educational sector, looking back now, compared to what obtains today, we were actually in paradise. Breakfast cost 10 kobo; Lunch, 20 kobo and dinner 20 kobo. We had some of the best intellectual minds in our various campuses. Every university faculty had its own set of superstars. Vice-Chancellors were solid intellectuals, like the great Ojetunji Aboyade who insisted on teaching some classes in addition to his administrative duties.
We grew up being confident. There was no doubt about what tomorrow held; it held promises of greatness. Student unionism was founded on shared ideals. We kept the jackboots in power and their successors on their toes. We were so confident that we routinely turned down invitations to attend ‘Youth Congresses’ from some ‘ambitious’ countries (at least that was our perception) like Iraq and Libya. No student leader worthy of his place would jump at every foreign invitation.
Tuition was free. Student loans were available for those students whose parents couldn’t afford their boarding. Then there were bursaries from state governments. That was the icing. Many students used theirs to buy power bikes; others acquired the latest stereophonic equipment in the market. We had cleaners who cleaned the rooms and bathrooms and laundry staff who did our laundry.
Students freely travelled to neighbouring towns and cities on weekends because armed robbery had not yet become an industry and kidnapping for ransom had not yet been invented. Our borders were safe. We were respected. The Naira was at par with the pound sterling; the dollar was 58 kobo. With 100 Naira, some students travelled to London for weekends on student rebate tickets which Nigeria Airways graciously provided and still had enough money to shop for the latest wearing apparel, shoes, bags and gold accoutrements.
Every entertainer worthy of the name came to sell his wares in Nigeria — Louis Armstrong, Millicent Small, Chubby Checker, James Brown, Miriam Makeba, Shalamar et al. Stevie Wonder led the stars that graced Festac 77 in Lagos.
We were the true giants of Africa. We funded the education of many students from southern Africa – Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique. Although 4,500 kilometres away from the centre of conflict, Nigeria was still considered a ‘Frontline State’ because we provided leadership to the rest of the continent. My heart bleeds today whenever I see South African lynch mobs in claustrophobic rage killing fellow Africans. Didn’t their fathers tell them that once upon a time we were their lifeline?
Nigeria has been good to my generation, so it is easy for me to love her. Not so for our children! We have cheated them. The damning part is that many of them don’t know that their country once worked! We have to return Nigeria to the good old days when we were the envy of the world. This is the only country we can call our own. Foreigners won’t build it for us because they have their own countries to build.
We may be down now; we were once up. And, if we all put our hands on the plough, we shall rise again.