Unfortunately, there is no way out than for this country to revamp its educational system and find a way to brush up its unemployable graduates by offering continuing education. Can the government do it alone? No! We all must wake up, parents must parent, teachers must teach and preachers must preach morals. We must start now to save Nigeria from us!
For almost forty years, mediocrity, impunity, corruption and a general loss of values crept into every facet of life in Nigeria. It has bred a generation patently uninterested in optimistic meritocracy. The generation it bred are having children and everything has come full circle. Nigeria has grown an underclass that is chained to its misfortunes! A people who may never be saved from ignorance, poverty and disease.
Who are those referred to as the underclass? American sociologist Charles Murray, did extensive work on the “underclass”, and he defined them as: “I do not mean people who are merely poor, but people at the margins of society, unsocialised and often violent. The chronic criminal is part of the underclass, especially the violent chronic criminal. But so are parents who mean well but cannot provide for themselves, who give nothing back to the neighbourhood and whose children are the despair of the teachers who have to deal with them.” Does that sound familiar?
Years of reliance on rent from oil, abundance of cheap money, values degradation, loss of work ethic, mediocrity, impunity and of course corruption, has bred an economic underclass comprising those of working age unable to get steady work; a moral underclass with ingrained deviant behavioural norms and an educational underclass lacking in useful education, as well as cultural and social skills. The Nigeria of the ’60s and the early ’70s saw all segments moving in an upward path towards social mobility, especially with free education in parts of Nigeria. From the late ’70s the gradual descent into the underclass started.
The emerging underclass is becoming a cultural phenomenon. An outward sign of the acculturation of Nigerians into lower depths never before imagined by our grandfathers. Sagging clothes, piercing and body tattoos are fast on the increase. These alien badges are imitative of the black underclass in America that is often diagnostic of drug addiction and criminality, and is intended as a signal defiance and dangerousness. Young Nigerians are adopting these graceless manners of dubious origin which they don’t even understand.
The loss of our compass is yielding its undesirable fruits and no where is this more visible than the social media. The social media platform, with special reference to Facebook has exposed our loss of values and the hopeless education our children are acquiring. In the age of the Internet, information is ubiquitous, and accessible, yet, we are behind in education and we are breeding ignorants by the minute. Yesterday, a friend on Facebook posted an “essay” written by a Youth Corp member with a bachelors degree in Political Science Education, posted to his office. Below is the question she was asked and her answer to it.
Employer’s Question: Write an essay about yourself, your history and what you hope to become in future.
Here is her “essay”, typed out, unedited! Just the way she wrote it:
“My name is Gloria. Am from Edo state, Akoko Edo Iyarra. I schooL in Edo state Abrose ALLi university where I study politicaL science Education, my aim is to become a graduate who is working but don’t have anyplace for work in mind because I know I can work anywhere I found myself. base on my course of study, I can work as a teacher, work in ministry of education or any government sector.
I believe anywhere I found myself I can do well beyond expectation.
As a political science Education student I learnt that in anywhere I found myself I can do well because the coerse is base on education and educational with all spect of live.”
This lady graduated from Ambrose Alli University. She could not write the name of her school correctly. She lacked elementary comprehension skills often learnt in Primary Four using the basics of “who, what, where, when, how, why and conclusion”. Her case details the rot within our education system – the buying of results, the special centres, sex for grades and the buying of grades. It also shows that higher education is not for everyone. Elsewhere, people whose talents are artisanal, either get a non-skilled job or vocational training but in Nigeria everyone seeks a degree. Her comprehension, communication and writing skills expose Nigeria’s reliance on rote learning rather than critical thinking as the hallmark of higher education. If not, how did this girl get through the university? After her youth service, she is programmed to join the ranks of the educational underclass – the army of unemployable graduates on the streets, unless a godfather imposes her on the government or some employer out there.
As this emerging underclass gets into the old age of youth, they are left to discover the hidden truth that the exercise of liberty requires virtue for it not to turn into a nightmare. By then, the social effects will be staggering and Nigeria will be in more trouble than it is now.
Why is this happening? There are no role models anymore and people are no longer diligent at work. Parents have abandoned their duty posts and where present, they are veritable examples of bad. It is an established fact that children grow up making sense of the world around them and deriving their life experiences from what they know. Boys do not grow up to be responsible fathers and husbands by default, they learn how to. Children do not grow up appreciating work, punctuality and hard work by default, they learn it. Children do not grow up respecting work as a source of livelihood and taking pride in the dignity of labour, unless they see and adopt it. Boys and girls do not grow into young adolescents shying away from sex and unwanted pregnancy, they do because they are guided by parents and adults around them. Little boys and girls grow into responsible parents and neighbours and workers because they grew up seeing similar patterns and mimic those patterns. Children are sponges, they absorb lessons from their immediate environment, they tend to behave like the adults around them. Nigerian youths are our creation. We moulded them in our own image and created the emerging underclass.
The signs of the developing underclass can be found in the inexorable rise in both the absolute and relative numbers of unemployed youths, single parents and the barely educated. Associated with these exploding numbers is increasing crime rates. Drug running, burglary, armed robbery, car jacking, and Internet fraud have become so commonplace, that any mention of their seriousness elicits only a bored shrug of incomprehension. The emerging underclass is becoming a cultural phenomenon. An outward sign of the acculturation of Nigerians into lower depths never before imagined by our grandfathers. Sagging clothes, piercing and body tattoos are fast on the increase. These alien badges are imitative of the black underclass in America that is often diagnostic of drug addiction and criminality, and is intended as a signal defiance and dangerousness. Young Nigerians are adopting these graceless manners of dubious origin which they don’t even understand. In pictures, the girls pout their lips in the manners of pole dancers and strippers, and boys make gestures and postures manufactured in the notorious projects of Chicago and the Bronx. In casual instances and in interviews, they slouch in the chair or swing around without any knowledge of convention.
The underclass is growing by force of parental example, by a society that values money above all else and a culture that has no respect for hard work and diligence. It is not difficult to imagine why the primrose path to perdition is easier.
Such is the depth we have sunk, where we have sacrificed the good manners of the sixties for worse. Illegitimate birth and single parenthood is gaining currency with its attendant fallouts on family structure. How has a Nigerian underclass formed so quickly? And why has a large subset of the Nigerian population embraced the life of the underclass with reckless enthusiasm? The answers can be found in our social philosophy. The underclass has emerged and it is growing rapidly as a response to poverty, despair, and wrong life choices. The underclass is growing by force of parental example, by a society that values money above all else and a culture that has no respect for hard work and diligence. It is not difficult to imagine why the primrose path to perdition is easier. From my interactions with the youth demographic, they have taken the fundamental basis of American popular culture to heart. To them, the seedy side of life is more genuine, more authentic, more free and glamorous than the cultured side. They tattoo their skin, inject themselves with drugs, become alcoholics, father children out of wedlock, and commit crimes – all without a decent means of livelihood.
For most youths, there is nothing in their concept of good life other than constant entertainment, excitement and instant gratification. The culture of sharp-sharp and now-now. The Nigerian youth is unaware that popular culture captured him through the mediation of his own choices. His environment is polluted by social factors in his upbringing that influences the way he thinks and make decisions. He is rendered poor in mind by the negligence and brutal incompetence of his parents, and that explains the expansion of the Nigerian underclass where there is freedom without responsibility. As this emerging underclass gets into the old age of youth, they are left to discover the hidden truth that the exercise of liberty requires virtue for it not to turn into a nightmare. By then, the social effects will be staggering and Nigeria will be in more trouble than it is now. Unfortunately, there is no way out than for this country to revamp its educational system and find a way to brush up its unemployable graduates by offering continuing education. Can the government do it alone? No! We all must wake up, parents must parent, teachers must teach and preachers must preach morals. We must start now to save Nigeria from us!
Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú maintains a weekly column on Politics and Socioeconomic issues every Tuesday. She is a member of Premium Times Editorial Board. Twitter @olufunmilayo.
