Posted by Henry Kester Ewruje
While I believe, the successes of Nigerians abroad who came back home should be emphasised, I must say that I am deeply disappointed by the government of the country because it is insensitive to the yearnings of the people.
All over the world, there is an increased thirst for education. Knowledge is the prime need of the hour. More and more people are taking full advantage of opportunities for learning and education level of the people is at a high point.
Nigerians abroad are making greater use of the priveleges inherent in living in advanced countries in the world. This is the only way to rear increasing numbers of strong, purposeful men and women, equipped with vision, mental clarity, health and education.
The strength of some nations is education where there is near zero illiteracy. Every citizen must go to school on government scholarship. Infact, in some countries, you get paid for going to school.
Many Nigerians came backhome after years abroad with good education and with the courage to struggle and achieve success back home. They came back home to be successful Lawyers, Doctors and other professionals while some kept their certificates and degrees to be Pastors, Entrepreneurs, Farmers, Entertainers, Hoteliers and Politicians.
Those of them who were accomplished came back home after many years abroad with high hopes for a better life. Some of them found disillusionment and it did not take long for those hopes to fade but they were armed with faith and the will to succeed in their fatherland. They had self belief.
Faith is the first factor in life devoted to service. Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible. Faith in God is the greatest power, but great too, is faith in oneself. Faith, courage, dignity, ambition and responsibility were needed by the returnees, cultivated and used for their success.
These Nigerian men and women, saw the possibilities of a brighter future in the country, generated by vigorous commitment of new dimensions of self help. And that really cost. It required an investment of time, energy and money. To move up, they needed a plan and a formula. Their success was determined by how well they understood their past and where they were coming from and how well they planned their future in their own country.
While they excelled, succeeding against the odds, because they exerted control, some of them are still outside the mainstream of living out their vision of coming back home. Some of these men and women were uneducated and deported back to Nigeria after serving years of imprisonment abroad for various offences. They had gone abroad to husstle.
Faced with disillusionment, most of them developrd a mobid sense of guilt as well as an extremely sesitive attitude towards their past mistakes. The attitude can be tragic. Their problem is one that must find its solution in the domains of psychology and religion. They must somehow turn their vision toward the future rather than the past and concentrate on the heights which they are determined to reach, not look back into the depths which they once fell.
In other words, they can so outlive their past mistakes by giving their lives to certain high and noble pursuits. In doing so, they will be able to concentrate on such challenging and enobling ideas that they will not have time for self pity.
The accomplished and the deported Nigerians both came back home to a country that lacks everything critical to development like industrialisation, electricity, infrastructure, health care and education.
It is unfortunate that Nigerias dream of vision 2020 toward the achievement of the best economy is like building a house without foundation. We cannot develop a nation without human resources. It is only investment in human resources that will ensure and guarantee the progress and development of a nation. Government has not given education the desired attention.
We are talking of the falling standard of education because people graduate from school without having an increased knowledge. The decay did not happen at once. It started a long time ago and gradually eroded the values in the system to the point of despair.
Government needs to declare a state of emergency in the educational sector or the nation risks a bleak future. No nation rises above the level or content of its educational system.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Sam Egwu disclosed that no fewer than 50 million adult Nigerians are illiterates which effectively places the country among the least educationally developed countries in the comity of nations. Over 7 million Nigerian children of school age have not had the privilege of aquiring formal education which has left a yawning gap in the education of the populace.
According to him, Nigeria and Pakistan were the two countries that have remained the least educationally developed countries. The Minister warned that the country’s vision 2020 might be unrealistic in the face of the prevailing situation except an urgent step was taken to revamp the educational sector.
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