But in reality, they do not know who they are, having become vessels for the new indolence that has deprived them of self-awareness and natural knowledge. Their goals converge on nothing more than the hurry to ‘outrich’ Dangote, Isiyaku Rabiu and Otedola combined. The patience to nurture a life following natural curvature is not a part of their makeup.
You see, just like we are open-eyed, being led into the entrapment of Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs) in the name of modernisation or civilisation—growing artificial foods full of implications for our health, wealth, and sovereignty—we are raising a future that will bankrupt us intellectually.
It is time we began to give our future the time needed for its overhaul, so that the stitch we may affect today would save nine. Our education system needs a total overhaul. We must discard the culture of accepting any template handed over to us by overbearing, woodpecker-nosed, white-skinned overlords whose culture ours predated.
Sweden’s experience should be enough of a lesson for us on the current fad of using AI. In 2019, the country embraced this new computer-based technology, but fifteen years later, it is significantly reducing technology use in its schools and focusing on traditional tools like books and paper. We must also discard the use of artificiality in education from the nursery.
As a nation, we must identify what we need, what we want for our country, and the type of drivers we desire, and then develop strategies to achieve that. However, any educational method that cannot make our graduates stand on their own from primary school should be reconsidered. From kindergarten, our kids must be moulded to be creative and productive. They must start being imaginative, inventive and industrious from those tender years.
That Netanyahu call
I watched a video skit—which cannot be anything better than content creation—produced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he poured water into a glass, gulped it, and promised the people of Iran such “luxury” if only they could overthrow their regime.
Iran is currently facing drought and a lack of both rain and underground water, so the government rations the distribution of water.
But to the average Iranian—or any Muslim, for that matter—what Netanyahu, popularly called Bibi, did was foretold. It is said that a time of great need, which is a test from the Creator, would come in which drought, famine, and many other calamities—some natural, some man-made—would be visited on the believers. Some people, called “Dajjal” elsewhere, will offer the believers a luxurious lifestyle at the expense of their souls if only they would abandon their paths and follow his dictates. This Dajjal also has power over life and death. Good news was promised to those who shunned him. And I am sure this is how Bibi and his call would be considered, mainly because he continues to deprive Palestinians in Gaza of water, food and basic dignity.
Salah’s tweet
Mo Salah, the iconic Egyptian footballer who plies his trade with Liverpool FC, recently made headlines globally when he tweeted a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the casual UEFA reference to the killing of Suleiman al-Obeid (or the Palestinian Pele) by Israeli bombs at a food collection centre in Gaza.
While UEFA merely tweeted, “A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times,” Salah’s tweet pointedly asked, “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” His tweet was retweeted and engaged by millions across the globe.
Good-intentioned as it was, it is not too late for him to tweet, asking his president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, why Egypt does not allow food into Gaza, so that those dying daily due to hunger—and those being shot at while queuing for food—would have succour?
Our Kwam mentality
We recently had some mild dramas at our airports involving a musician, Kwam 1, and a socialite, Comfort Emmanson. While the former was rewarded with an ambassadorial role for the air travel industry, the latter was inundated with offers, endorsements, and ambassadorial deals, ranging from employment (never mind that there was no job description) on a monthly salary amounting to ₦500,000, to an all-expenses-paid trip to Dubai and many other exotic countries—barely 48 hours after her release from Kirikiri Prison. Comfort Emmanson—known for her online rants, nudity, and disregard for decency—has been in hot demand.
A special assistant to the Delta State Governor, a real estate mogul from Ebonyi State, and even the Minister of Aviation (albeit under the guise of “official capacity”) have all rushed to her ‘help’. Crownlek, a top fashion house headed by Balogun Olamilekan, has offered her a six-month ambassadorial deal to model their high-end designs and represent the company at major fashion and entertainment events.
At about the same time, a female medical worker was flogged by a 40-year-old man inside the Specialist Hospital in Damaturu, Yobe State. Still, no one among those men—or their ilk—gushing over Comfort did as much as bat an eyelid!
Is this not a glaring display of what we have become, or are becoming? Are we not sliding into a moral abyss—into another kind of Sodom and Gomorrah—falling over ourselves to show that immodesty is not only tolerated, but rewarded with wealth, fame, and political favours?
Morality-wise, her public record is clear, yet the message our so-called political and business elite are sending to Nigerian youths—now in the shackles of robotics and get-rich-quick orientation—is that they can exhibit nudity and public rascality, be vulgar on social media, and the distance of an Ibom Air aeroplane in the clouds from the ground is their starting point.
Let’s be clear, I do not support the molestation and exposure of her privacies during the unwarranted scuffle with airline and airport staff, but should that incident become her selling point? Were Comfort a man, do you think these ‘good Samaritans’ would have offered him anything?
Kwam 1’s behaviour is just the attitude of most rich and influential Nigerians: the best way to show your true worth is to act above the law: break protocol, disregard traffic lights and shout: ‘Do you know who I am?’. And God forgive you if he has the president’s hotline. Yeah, the law is meant for the weak.
And what does the treatment of the Fuji musician say of us—that the oft-criticised slap on the wrist for politically connected public offenders has now become a state policy in contemporary Nigeria? I do not know whether the present managers of the Nigerian state are thinking of the ethical underpinnings of the country they want to hand over to the next generation. Or they simply do not care?
LEST I FORGET
What is this about the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, advising Nigerians to learn the art of self-defence? General TY Danjuma said something similar some years back. It is a topic worth looking at.
Hassan Gimba, anipr, is the publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.
