Aborting The Future – By Dr. Kunle Ojeleye

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, Kunle Ojeleye, NNP Columnists Friday, July 29th, 2011

By Dr. Kunle Ojeleye, London, UK – July 29, 2011 – The other day, driving the 60 mile stretch from my house into London, I decided for a change to relive the youthful days of my life. Hey, I was alone, my wife was not with me, so I could be at my best(?) behaviour.

If you are wondering what I got up to, I can assure you it was nothing sinister. Nothing more than turning down the windows, engaging in some sporty driving, pumping up the volume of the car’s music system, and dancing whilst driving (in my seat of course) to the beats and lyrics of my personal selection of Africa’s greatest reggae artist (in life and in death) Lucky Dube.

In the last two months, I have become quite worried by the magnitude of the inability of school certificate leavers, undergraduates and graduates from Nigeria’s educational system to communicate in basic, well-constructed English.

I am horrified when I remember the response of a group of Nigerian academicians to the issue when I got together with them at a conference in late 2010. Some of them (including Professors) said that during examination periods in their respective universities, they only concern themselves with identifying and marking the student’s grasp of the concepts and not the grammatical delivery of such concepts and/or ideas. I began to wonder when clairvoyance became part of the job description of university lecturers that they are able to discern and “fill-in the gaps” for students who cannot make a good job of putting their views across in “basic” English language.

As I kept enjoying the innovative bass line and the guitar riffs of the Dube tracks, I could not but conclude that Nigeria is doomed if the youths of today are our future. A greater proportion of those youths are not being given the fundamental skills to enable them communicate, compete and survive in an increasingly aggressive globalised world where “dogs are eating dogs” and Darwinism (survival of the fittest) is all over across the spectrum of human endeavour.

I then asked myself if Lucky Dube was indeed an artist and not a philosopher, a musician and not an intellectual, a South African and not a Nigerian.

Even though Dube in one of his tracks was talking about the controversial issue of abortion, is Nigeria and indeed all African nations not aborting the future of their countries (and the continent at large) by failing to provide qualitative education, health and empowerment for the growing youth population and future labour force?

Or what do you think of the following lines from the track “Little Heroes”.

Little heroes, go down
The drain day by day
Future leaders they go down
The drains day by day
They cry so loud yeah
But the whole world
Is not listening
Only you mothers of the world
Can save the children

How can you have a face
Of an angel
And let the devil inside of you
Take control
We tired of hearing these
Little voices crying out
From far away saying

Chorus: {Change Mama to Nigeria or Africa}
Mama why do you
Destroy me
Mama what have I done
To you
I deserve to live like
Anybody else

We all come in this world
Not knowing where we gonna go
We all come in this world
Not knowing where life is
Gonna take us
Give them a chance in life
We’ re all taking our changes here
Life life life the greatest gift of all
I see the government officials
Sitting around a table
There’s a law they gonna pass {To enrich their pockets and that of their cronies}
Only you the mothers of
The world can save the children

Women’ s leagues
All over the world
Fighting for women’ s liberation
But who fights for
The children’ s liberationwp_posts