Emmanuel Nathan Oguche: A Vote for the Half-Baked Graduate

Emmanuel Nathan Oguche: A Vote for the Half-Baked Graduate

A Vote for the Half-Baked Graduate

By Emmanuel Nathan Oguche

It pricks the heart when you set your eyes on them. Their stories squeeze pains and agonies out of your nerves when you hear of them. With their battered hope and shattered dreams, the shapeless shoes on their legs would tell you the distance they have covered, and how long they will have to trek from one street to another, procreating frustrations and meeting a dead end as they persistently search for the nonexistent. Some say it’s not the fault of theirs, while others believe that they are not absolutely guiltless. But one thing is sure: they are victims of a vandalized system; they are those who narrowly escaped and sprouted out of a cramped and suffocated system; they are neither bread nor cake but are often referred to as the half-baked, the nomenclature that has replaced the products of our hitherto glorious citadels of learning where scholarship and intellectual barter flourished like mushroom. They are the Nigerian graduates. Annoyingly, even those who lack the moral justification to whisper are screaming on their voices, shouting “crucify him, crucify him”; those who, when they cough, vomit mammoth of grammatical errors in the midst of senseless discourse; those whose actions and inactions have dragged us several decades behind; those who have exchanged the future of this country with fabulous fat foreign accounts are among those who christened the new Nigerian graduate as “half-baked”.

Salisu Suleiman of Good Governance Group dispassionately painted the passion of today’s students, a typical Nigerian student in Daily Trust June 7, 2010: “I interact with students who know everything about soccer, nothing about Socrates; all about Arsenal, nothing about Aristotle; all about Maradona, nothing about Michelangelo; all about Pele, nothing about Plato.” As for me, I see students who can stand united for MAN-U, not against ignorance; people who know when referee is right or wrong, not the wrongs of the leaders; those who are always in unison and loyal to their football clubs, not to their fatherland; they are quite knowledgeable about the scorecard of Premiership League, not about annual ritual of fiscal policy! But is the fault of theirs? Soccer give them joy than those boring philosophies of Socrates; Arsenal make them proud than the knowledge of Aristotle that many of their forerunners have acquired but can show nothing for it; Maradona’s dribbling panache rejuvenates their dying and hopeless souls than Michelangelo’s paintings and drawings that mean nothing to the system; Premier League scorecard represents reality than the annual ritual of fiscal allocations! Fellow Nigerians, is it the fault of Nigerian students that they paint their cars, rooms, and every part of their body with Barcelona FC color, Arsenal bangles and badges, Manchester United photo frames and Chelsea caps? It seems true that the only living heroes we have today are football cults. Where are the leaders? Where are the intellectuals? Where are the bureaucrats? Where is everyone?

Every year, thousands of Nigerian graduates in different batches, are discharged into the already saturated labor market that accommodate escalating number of unsold products. Strangely, in today’s labour market, quality products are seem to be sold cheaply while inferior goods are attached more values in terms of Naira. In the market too, fair play is regarded as naivety while foul play is regarded as a display of tactics. In the labour market also, rottenness sells more than freshness. It is surprising that an irresponsible father that gave birth to an irresponsible son now feels embarrassed about the behavior of his child! Nigerian graduates have become source of embarrassment to their nation and the nation is embarrassed? When the National Examinations Council (NECO) released its 2009 November/December Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results, less than two per cent who sat for the examinations could boast of five credits, including Mathematics and English Language. Every year, corporate organizations pour their aspersion and dissatisfaction about the ‘below-standard’ performance of Nigerian graduates. National Youths (dis)Service Corp (NYSC)? All these represent and capture the present standard of education in Nigeria; the disappointment mirrors the decadence, deterioration in the educational sector; it shows our collective shame, individual failures; it puts in the picture the attitudes and values attached to the future of this country; it’s an indicator of where we are and where we will be and above all, it reflect the state of this nation. If a graduate is half-baked, it therefore means that there is a leakage within the system; if a graduate cannot construct a simple sentence, it means that somebody somewhere within the system has failed to ‘construct’ a simple policy that will mitigate imminent lapses. Also, any discomfiture a graduate gets in the corporate environment should be seen and treated as an embarrassment to the entire nation, not just a personal or individual embarrassment.

Yes, it is true that many Nigerian graduates are half-baked. But many people still believe that those ‘half-baked’ graduates are more baked than many House of Assembly members, Governors or Ministers who are today adjudged as being successful politically but have performed woefully in terms of national development. Have you not heard of a Ministerial nominee who could not recite our National Anthem? Or another who could not differentiate between Obasanjo’s NEEDs and needs in Economics? Are they better baked than the Nigerian graduates of today? They are many “Honourables” in the House or those whom Dr. Wale Okediran fearlessly referred to as the “Tenants in the House” who have never made a striking headline since they are elected into public office except headlines from one form of scam or the other and the extravagant razzmatazz of their victories at the election tribunal. But we all know that as soon as they are declared winners, their voices are lost among the ‘’yes men”, “we concur fellow”, “honourable no question” or those whose character exhume new identity and it may not be wrong to call them “sitting allowance warlords” “Ghana must go lifters” and “mobile ATM” dispensing Dollars and Pound Sterling in place of law-making.

Graduates do not bake themselves. If a cake is half-baked or not baked at all, is it the fault of the cake or one who baked the cake? In March 2007, one of the most vocal Ministers of Education in the country’s history, Oby Ezekweseli fashioned Community Accountability and Transparency Initiative (CATI) which was intended to inform Nigerians about how much money was expended on education and to know whether such money were judiciously utilized. This initiative was to empower Nigeria to ask intelligent questions that bother on accountability, probity, frugality and efficiency. CATI would have accorded Nigerians to ask what government officials are doing, what Schools Management, Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Provosts are doing with tax money. During the launch of this noble initiative, the gory slides about the appalling conditions of Nigerian children receiving lesson on the floor, sitting under tree and overcrowded classroom squeezed tears out of Ezekweseli’s eyes. What do you expect when children receive lessons from half-baked teachers, under a half-baked condition? It will be unfair to expect that child to be fully baked if he is fortunate to be among the few graduates. Victims of a half-baked system, you may say. Posterity will judge, Oby’s tears that flowed the day CATI was launched will summon curse on those who cast off the initiative after her tenure, not because it lacked merit but due to the fact that it is anti-embezzlement, anti-fraud and anti-account-fattening.

The current standard of education is a victim of a rotten system; a system that has no regard for quality, a system that is ruled, dominated, hijacked by group of people who give little or no regard to the prosperity of this country. It is so unfortunate that those who are killing the system today are beneficiaries of free education; they are the ones baking the half-baked graduates. The Nigerian generation today is not better than a half- baked generation. What do you expect from politicians who come to power through flawed electoral system and those who are more obsessive about making policies that will change their fortunes rather than that which will transform the entire Nigerian society? What do you expect from lecturers whose income from bribe is far greater than salaries that are due for them? It is no longer news that the libraries in our tertiary institutions are haven of antiquated materials - they are as thirsty of instructional materials as they are of readers. Even those whose children have never tasted the bitterness experienced by public schools attendants are screaming on their voices that Nigerian graduates are unemployable as if available jobs are adequate for the employable groups. Is it not in Nigerian tertiary institutions where the use of candles has replaced electricity? Is it not in Nigerian schools, students sacrificed their feeding allowance on the altar of avarice, the common trait among our tertiary institutions lecturers? It is in the Nigerian schools where 15 students are stocked and cramped in a room that is meant for two students as if it’s a natural thing to do. It’s in the Nigerian higher institutions that students attend lectures by standing or writing on the back of their colleagues; it is in Nigeria young graduates go back home to join their younger ones in the house chores upon graduation. This is the profile of an average Nigerian graduate.

You will agree with me that today, if you are a child of nobody and wants to become somebody someday, you have to be extraordinarily good in whatever you do – education, career, business. If not, the children of ‘somebody’ will frustrate children of ‘nobody’ out of the system. Why should a child of ‘somebody’ be serious with academic when he is given the impression that with or without knowledge his father’s networks and net worth would fetch him his dream job upon graduation? The only children who seem to work hard nowadays are the children of ‘nobody’.

Before the economic crunch that gulped almost all the banks in Nigeria, the banking sector was a dumping ground for young graduates, including the half-baked. Yes, dumping ground because even those who studied Medicine, Journalism, Engineering or law, wanted to be bankers. Today, some of those half-baked are doing “well” just because they could bring huge deposit. Most times, that is what it takes to be a successful banker! If you a man, you have few and limited options; ladies do have more options including, corporate prostitution. Banks did help the graduates, but were also part of the problem. Thank God I did not abandon my pen for banking hall. May be I would have been among the frustrated ones, either as a result of my inability to meet up with ridiculous “target” or among those who got “clean sack for stainless records” (Apology to Prof. Niyi Osundare)

I’m not celebrating the half-baked graduates; I am not writing in defense of mediocrity; the piece is written to challenge our sense of judgment that has been beclouded by sentiments, ego-centrism and parochial perception. The youths should know that success has many friends but failure is a loner. No one celebrates failure, not even the failed system. They should know that the same system that gave birth to ‘half-baked’ or ‘not-baked-at-all’ graduates also has many ‘fully-baked’ or ‘well-baked’ as its proud infants who have risen to limelight or have climbed to the highest rung on the corporate cubicle, out of sheer hard work, dedication and commitment. Many Nigerian graduates have made name for themselves and their alma mater in the corporate world despite the unwholesomely disheartening situations they experienced in the course of acquiring knowledge from a half-baked system. Nigerian graduates deserve the loudest ovation; they try to make the best out of an unfortunate circumstance. Kudos! That is a mark of greatness!!

If parents would stop sending their children and wards to special centres in order to make special grades; if only the admission to tertiary institutions are given to only those who are qualified; if lecturers would stop trading grades for money and sex; if only those who have standard product will make reasonable sales in the labour market; if only what is due for Ceasar is given to Ceasar; if only we can prefer quality to quantity and if only we can put the right peg in the right hole, then we will sing a new song. The song that will put smiles on CEOs and MDs; the songs that will enhance the image of Nigeria among the comity of nations; the song of hope to all Nigerians; the song of freedom. So join me as we say “no to half-baked” anything and “yes to high standard” in everything.