Author Archives: Calabarboy

issues

WHO WILL TELL OUR UNTOLD STORIES?

After I watched one of Ishmael Beah‘s several lectures on his book, I was rightly inspired on the fact that no one will ever tell your story as good as you. With a carefully woven narrative and a well coloured setting to bring into our imaginations the trajectory of the Sierra Leonean war and its implication on children, Beah succeeds in holding any reader spell-bound for all moments spent juicing the book. After I read the book, I asked myself who could have told this story better than Beah himself? I read beyond the language and the imageries it used to communicate the story. I felt the emotions streaming from the lines betwixt the text, and literally walked the frightful paths of labyrinth-like forest of Sierra Leone‘s countryside along with the confused children. It can only be told by Beah and he did justice to his story.

This points me to the fact that Africans over the years have never really told their stories for what it is. We have often received attention because someone else told the story and defined the narrative way too early before we come to grips with the fact that we are not active in the conversation. This could be an extreme characterization of the issue, but perhaps I can only express it this way so we fully get my point. With Africa having experienced so much in the last 50 years, there is a lot to storyboard. We stand the risk of our unborn children having to read the stories we didn’t write just as we read the stories of “how we were discovered”. Oh! that I read from my father’s great grand father on how his people met with the Caucasoid foreigners that first stepped foot on our shores. Maybe my understanding of our history would have been different. Even though the sages have passed down wise words woven into our vernacular conversations, and I have been taught songs and moonlight stories that help my appreciation of where I come from, I am still bereft of a complete capture of the story of my origin. Is there something to do in provoking the dead to talk.

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issues

TAKING BACK OUR EDUCATION FUTURE (Continuation of a Facebook discussion)

A while ago, we worked on a group where we critically discussed how to deliver an effective primary and secondary school education system. Here are a few points I tendered as I can clearly remember:

1. The present system is not delivering much results. Globally there is a shift in the focus of education, but we have maintained the same system for over 20 years now.

2. The curriculum is very crippling. There has to be a national revision of the curriculum to attack the national education goal, if there is one set at all.

3. The method of delivery is very suspect. The quality of teachers in most schools kills the process of delivery and subverts the learning ability of the children.

4. Terrible funding of education in general.

THINGS TO CONSIDER

On the solutions front, I admitted that we may not be able to carry out widespread change at once, as that can only be done at a policy level. Dr. Oby Ezekwesili in her short stint as Education Minister tried to effect some positive structural changes. But like the usual epileptic policy processes, it was short-lived. So on one hand, we must seek a platform through which we have an All Nigerian Education Conference and tag is something like “Education: Nigeria’s Future at Stake”, or something more creative. The focus will be to gather thinkers and passionate education administrators with tenable experience or research to discuss what should change and how, with tangible goals set. Policy makers must be part of this and their noted commitment must be to redraft the course of education policy and source of resources to drive the change.
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issues

50 YEARS OF OIL MESS IN THE NIGER-DELTA

As I watch BP eventually seal the leaking well in the gulf of Mexico, and begin the procedure of its permanent blockage, I feel my stomach ache. My ache comes from the disgusting feeling of knowing that in my Niger-Delta backyard, we have an oily mess that has not received much international attention as the barely 100 days oil spill in the United States. How this got so covered up to the extent that even Nigerians have no idea of the degree of spillage thoroughly baffles me. What has the media houses or the ministry responsible for the environment been doing that it is at the point when another country is forcefully dealing with their own challenges that ours is now serving as a basis for comparison?

After I watched the video below where Fareed Zakaria makes a pitch about Nigeria’s oil mess, I suddenly feel terribly guilty that I never took the case seriously over the years. We all have heard about the oil spills, but somehow, since it is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) we have hissed and continued on as though people’s lives and livelihood have not been severely altered. This kind of nimbyism has created a disaster for over 40 years and how much of this can we really undo at this time. While I blame Shell and other oil companies operating these areas, my frustration lies more with the government who controls a major share of the oil proceeds. This is to tell you that thieves and robbers have blatantly ruled us and everyone of them must be brought back and tried for not just mortgaging our future, but for also corrupting our environment.

I expect this government to make proper plans to clean up this mess without further delay, drawing major support from these companies that have operated there. The companies can’t all be blamed, as militants have also their fingerprints on much of the spills. However, we cannot begin to apportion blames at this time but to become responsible stewards of the properties ion our care. It may be nearly 50 years of mess, but let’s start now to make a clear case for the government to clean this up. It is utterly shameful!!!

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