KNOWLEDGE VERSUS MUSIC

The decreasing trend at which youth seek for knowledge by reading is alarming. Children now revere music than mathematics. The irony of the matter is that music and fashion holds the dagger that we can use to eliminate poverty and illiteracy. The world is at its abyss of destruction. Our bright future that once heralds like a shinning sun is now overshadowed by dark indestructible clouds of failure.
Music is given deference and knowledge is repudiated. It now seems like everybody, but a few, now shows a repugnance to the presence of knowledge. No wonder the rate of failure in this country is increasing exponentially. The most productive period of man’s life which is the adolescence or youth period is now jeopardized by the media viz music, television, Internet, radio, magazines, newspaper e.t.c. and is posing a serious threat to the beautiful future which we dream of.
The brain is the complex organ which processes the thought of inquisitiveness and curiosity in man. But this brain, where the knowledge of the success of the future lies, is so vulnerable that it can easily accept any data or information input into it. Research studies have even shown that most music have a negative effect on memory retention as it replaces drastically the knowledge of books that have been learnt. The kind of music that is created nowadays is unscrupulous and full of debauchery. The setting is so filled with sensual, half-nude women posing themselves to taint the mind of the youth.
I cannot but agree and averred a state of emergency in the music and television industry. Many parents also contribute to this problem as they are not showing cognizance of the fact that the children are becoming ignoramus every blessed day.
The UNESCO recommended 26% as the budget of the education sector but Nigeria have always managed to allocate 8% of the whole budget to education while she promises the entertainment sector a whooping sum of 200 million USD. Where lies the hope of the future?

The Sick Education

Education they say is not only the best legacy but is the civic right of every child that get to this mother Earth by chance or by choice. But the manner in which this sector of the Nigeria’s economy is directed shows that it is either the canker worm of corruption has eaten deep into the political psyche of our leaders or that people, especially the government, needs to be re-orientated about the necessity of education.

It worsens everyday and it seems as if the solution can only be a mere say or it is virtual. Every now and then, many non-governmental organizations propose and organize different forum to discuss the state of education in the world. Yet, the minister and other stakeholders in the education sector give a deafening ear to the foreseen disaster illiteracy will cause. Instead of finding headway, the government sap the wealth of the nation and reduce the budget of the sector to 8% as compared to the 27% budget dictated by the United Nation. To complicate the case, they begin to give the private school owners the license to bill an outrageous fee on the masses. A situation where a parent is to pay up to #50,000 for a nursery school student is simply an act of hegemony and nefarity.

Lagos, for instance, which has a population of more than 7.9 million, out of which more than 70% are youth, is a living experience of the consequences of illiteracy. The economic hub of the country is so busy, that the youths especially the children even join in the hustle and bustle. They are the marketers of clothes, soft drinks and pure water when they are supposed to be in the four-walls of the school. The government try to enact laws debunking this act of social and child slavery but what do you expect the parent who cannot even afford to pay his house rent bill to do when the government pays a menial salary to them? Even a one-child parent can’t afford the best education for his child. The university is also in this mess. Imagine a case where the government impose a bogus increase in the school fees by 150%! Many students will rather resort to hawking and doing all sort of “dirty jobs” to survive than schooling.

How beautiful will it be if we have a future where illiteracy and poverty is a mirage? It is an act of illiteracy that makes people in the Northern part of the country called ‘Boko-Haram’to continuously hem and mutilate people for no justified reason. If the government can just for once go back to the drawing board and restructure the education system, Nigeria will be a better place. A literate and educated society will bore an egalitarian society and it is this kind of society that can be moistened for peace and development for all.   

SAVE THE YOUTH, END THE ACT OF RAPE

   

Even though it was not happening for the first time, the story stroke my heart this time and I imagine the task ahead of us in creating the future we want, the future devoid of darkness of  illiteracy, crisis, rape, blasphemy and war. She has been a good friend over the time and she foresees and nurtures a bright future, dreaming of igniting the potentials of the youth, both the lost and the confused. But this dream was cut short when she was powerless; a paedophile took advantage of her innocence when she was 4 years old. As if that wasn’t enough, she lost her virginity to a deceptive man who claimed to love her in the early period of her undergraduate years. Yet she confided in me to keep the bad event a secret, as she sadly told me some of them when it happens. Her dream darkens more as the years roll by as she kept on falling in the same temptation every time; she never really cares anymore. It’s an irreparable loss. But I still believe in her dreams until this last one happens.

She just arrived from her home for the weekend and she was living in a hostel with her brother. He had a course mate in the next room that have been helpful whenever cash flees from the brother. He seems to be a good guy and the girl respects him for that. But on this fateful day, his cloth of humility had been torn; he was drunk! Unfortunately, there was no one in the hostel and he raped her. I could not but weep in my heart as she told me this saddening story. It was as if I was struck in the heart because I was sure this is another bad event that will seal her chance of living a normal life ever.

There are a lot of untold stories like this that happens to women all over the world. While some are caused by the victim’s naïvetés, some are a terrible incident that becomes an irremovable stain. In Nigeria, the increasing rate of rape cases is alarming and there is no law to checkmate the perpetrators of this crime. They easily escape the whims of the law as if they are infallible.  History has made us understand that it is not only men that have set a landmark for the progress and success deserved in this world, women have been and are still much in the contending rallies for success. The African culture asserts that “For every successful man, there is always a woman” which implies that without the pure, articulate and focused woman, there is a 90% assurance that the world has no future. What a brink future that will be!!!

The nature of our brain is such that it stores information as data in the biochemical neuron cells and in as much as you are alive, the flashbacks of the daily routines and events in your life comes often and tells how efficient you can be in problem-solving. A troubled mind cannot get things done no matter how much effort you make. It begins to haunt you till you feel debased and confused. Though some bounces back after this trauma, but the chance is so slim. While some says that the event is due to the improper presentation of women in the society; the unethical way of dressing and exposure of some sensitive parts in their body, which arouses the human instinct of a man that cannot control himself; some believe that it is a decadence that must be curtailed and put to an end within the shortest possible time.

I hold on to this two philosophies and thus I really hope a future replete with pure and untroubled mind heralds, a future where the integrity and dignity of a woman is uphold with utmost sincerity and scrutiny. A future where a woman will not say “Virginity is not dignity, but it is a loss of opportunity”. I dream of the brightest future where we all live in peace and harmony.  

DEATH OF THE FUTURE LEADER

A popular clichés says that the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. But then, what would the future be like if the leaders of tomorrow all die off today?The cliché above is not new to many but it had never really occurred to some of us how the non-challant attitude of parents can jeopardize this future until recently. I am in my third year in the university studying Biochemistry and during the course of a lecture, a lecturer said we all had to be very careful so as not to end up as a murderous parents. I couldn’t but wonder what he meant, so I patiently listened to him as he sighted an example of a pregnant woman who decided to spend the night in an environment where there were a lot of mosquitoes and her husband, due to his lack of knowledge, allowed her. Soon, she ends up with malaria and she had to take some medications after consulting a pharmacist. She later gets well but the unborn baby has been infected with jaundice. The baby dies after birth.

This kind of event is a recurrent one in our environment, especially in Africa. It happens not only to pregnant women but also to mothers of young infants. Every day, about 29,000 children die between the ages of 0 and 21 years mainly from preventable diseases like diarrhoea, measles, malaria, malnutrition and pneumonia. It saddens me to find that most of these deaths occur in Africa. WHO says that under-5 mortality rate is a leading indicator of the level of child health and overall development in any country. Though, circumstances like poverty and disease outbreak can lead to the sudden and unwonted death of children, the rate should be alleviated to the minimal so as not to lose the agents of change and success of the future.

My vision for the future is to keep today’s children alive and healthy because they are indeed the future. Diseases are not inevitable and children with these diseases don’t have to die. I know everyone is going to die someday but we don’t have to cause our own deaths. Every child has a right to life and no reckless parent should allow life to be taken away from any child. Children are the joy of life. An amazing thing about them is that no one knows what they would grow up to be till they get a chance to live their lives. The little child that died of jaundice from my lecturer’s story might have been the one who would cure cancer or produce the drugs for the cure of AIDS but we will never know because he is dead and his death could have been prevented.

All the children dying in Africa can be saved if their parents pay a little more attention to their health and their well-being. Parents of young infants should be admonished on the benefits of breastfeeding and of using insecticide treated bed nets. Parents should also be enlightened on the danger of living in filthy environments and the benefits of keeping their homes clean and also keeping a keen and conscious monitoring of what their kids eat and drink.

All of these I believe will help us protect our children and hence our future. We don’t have to be biochemists to keep our children alive, we just have to be.