My social media involvement really doesn’t pass WhatsApp. Looks like it is enough. I get a laugh when I want and some serious stuff when I want. All in small doses. All with a pinch of salt. Try as I want, the journalist in me will not allow me believe unverified stories or conspiracy theories. I admire the content creators though and their ability to churn stuff from almost every situation in the country. But I believe too many of our youths are engaged in this and I am probably too ‘old school’ to accept this vocation as a full time job or a replacement for career development and other professional pursuits. I see it instead, as another dimension of the malaise for instant wealth and an aversion for the grind of regular employment that has afflicted the young – and even the old- in the country. This route unfortunately, has led many to become internet fraudsters. I also believe too many of us, adults inclusive, spend too much time staring at our phones. We probably spend more time on tick-tock than those who originated it. It might be seen as an escape route from the harsh realities in the country. But it has become an addiction eating up productive hours for many and easy money away from science and even production for our youths. This, will be left as a discussion for another day.

For today, it is about a tick-tock material which caught my attention the other day. It was so apt. So thought provoking. They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words. This was one of them. It was a picture of a dilapidated school. The roof had blown off. What can be called a compound had become overgrown with grass in places and bald in places. The windows had left the hinges. The walls were soggy from too much exposure to the elements. School furniture was sparse and in a state. You knew, without being told, that serious learning couldn’t take place in that environment. There could be no motivation for teachers to impart knowledge; or for students to absorb learning beyond the rudimentary. Juxtaposed with this picture was that of a church. It was expansive. It was majestic. It was gleaming in chrome and glass. The only thing left to complete the imagery was that of gaily dressed men and women praise worshiping inside the hallowed hall. What made this graphic portrayal of two sides of a coin so riveting was that it is our reality. We are very comfortable with having a gleaming house of worship with all the modern gadgets and a run-down house of learning fit only for pigs – a musician recently gave a hundred million Naira to his boyish church. We were not told if he gave anything at all to his boyish school. That is the way of an average Nigerian. We all know where education stands in the scale of things in Nigeria. We know the budget for education for the whole country and we know the budget for the National Assembly. What’s more, we know the place of a Professor and the place of a Local Government Chairman in the society. The Professors themselves are not helping matters. Many of them are tired physically and mentally. Many are afflicted with the same malaise of looking after number one to the detriment of the system. This is something that is incongruent with the status of an ivory tower. It is what it is unfortunately. The ivory tower in other countries spur economic development. Ours breed activism and sex for grades teachers. There has to be a lot of introspection by all stakeholders in the educational sector for there to be a turnaround. The situation goes beyond money.

The Church of God that I grew up in was vastly different from the Church of God of today. There was less of ostentation. In fact, there was hardly any ostentation. The clergy was respected because its principals carried themselves with dignity and humility. They made honesty a goal and dignity of labour a virtue. They looked after the welfare of the very poor in the church as they followed up on the biblical injunction of ‘when I was hungry, you gave me food….’ More than anything else, they put emphasis on education often assisting brilliant but indigent students to finish school. The best schools in my time were missionary schools. Placing merit over religion in their admission policies, we had Muslims attending missionary schools and vice versa. It is a sign of the times that today’s clergy places its emphasis on prosperity and miracles. Not education; not hard work. It sees nothing wrong in mid-week vigils and services when diligent people should be at work. Wealth is seen as a sign of righteousness and poverty as a sin. It is not surprising that some G.Os are among the richest people in the country. It is not surprising that private jets in the midst of grinding poverty are seen as a sign of God’s blessings. The Pope shepherds the largest Christian denomination in the world, yet the Catholic Church does not have one single jet. We have some G.Os here with four. St Theresa spent her life administering to the poorest of the poor on the streets of Calcutta. A St Peter Clavet called himself the slave of the slaves as he spent his adult life caring for African slaves as they docked in Columbia. It is hard to believe that our churches with their propensity for wealth are from the same stock as the Church of old. Moreover, the accusers of Jesus needed a disciple, to point him out to them probably because Jesus was indistinguishable from His disciples. Who would not recognize or distinguish the leaders of our churches from the flock today with their designer suits and shoes?

Lastly, the President and his team went to China recently in search of investments. China is the second largest economy in the world. A Third World country that became First World. So it was aspirational and not exactly out of place when a member of the team and a high ranking Government official said Nigeria was determined to learn from China in its attempt to turn its economy around. I just hope that this official noticed the emphasis China places on education. Or the place of religion in its scheme of things. And that China would never squander billions of Naira on a pilgrimage. I hope he noticed how China looked inwards and avoided Greek Gifts as it sought to turn its economy round. Or how its leaders led by example during this gestation period. And the premium it placed – and still places – on production over consumption. We have a lot of adjustments to make if we want to follow the Chinese blueprint. 

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com