It is heartbreaking to see the Federal Government watch teachers stay out of classrooms for two months now.
From all indications, the students are paying for the sins of their fathers.
Last week, my social media friends shared a picture of a beautiful sophomore student of one of our universities who died on her way from school when the school authorities announced that every student must vacate the hostels compulsorily.
For sure, if she had not left campus when she was supposed to be in the middle of the semester, she could not have been involved in that ghastly accident that cut short her young and promising life. In any case, thousands of other students face similar hazards in various forms even as they roam the streets unengaged. Drug abuse, rape, armed robbery, and many other criminalities are waiting to pounce on the next available student. But still, the government is not budging; neither are the teachers.
Conservation is not only about making the environment sustainable. It is also a cultural ingredient. It is the cultural superstructure which could make the ambitious transformation agenda of the Jonathan government work. It is that element that will make the government buy fewer luxuries as a panoply of office just to reduce the high recurrent cost of governance. Heck, how can they fund the schools when they want to buy private jets? Conservation is the component that will make the teachers in our higher institutions allocate more funds to research rather than to entitlements.
It is that factor that will make the students face their studies with less frivolous spending on the razzmatazz and gizmos so besotted by today’s youths. In the power sector, education sector, industrial sector, political arena, name it, there is the need for a fundamental underlay of the basic infrastructure of transparency, patriotism, accountability, and vital professionalism in order to catalyse a visible and lasting transformation.
In the environmental sector, there is a yawning gap to be filled for the sake of the nation and citizens. For one, there is an atmosphere of anxiety in the whole nation, ecologically speaking. The downpour all over the nation last year, and the ones now expected in some zones of the country have spelt an ever-present national emergency for Nigeria.
Second, the whole world is currently hurdled together in a corporate project aimed at addressing the issue of climate change, which has undeniably become a global reality. Third, there is a growing industry from alternative energy, which revolves around using the God-given environment to make money. Finally, awareness in tourism and the Federal Government’s efforts at positioning Nigeria towards this new revenue-yielder have also opened our eyes to how everything is linked to our dear environment, which by the way, we take for granted.
In view of the foregoing, what I have to say is that we lack the culture of conservation on which the transformation in the environment sector can be built upon. Conservation is not an arcane concept. It is simply the conscious effort to prevent loss, waste, damage, and destruction of valued resource. Environmentally speaking, it is the act of seeking to preserve the water resources, wildlife, forests and the general surroundings. It is the conservation culture that inspires the animal rights activists. It is the conservation culture that catalyses the business of reusing and recycling, which is common in the developed world. It is the conservation culture that makes the average Westerner a tourist, a bird-watcher, a collector of rare materials, an energy-conserving homeowner, a recycler and so on and so forth. When in the early 80s, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the then Nigerian Head of State, introduced the famous War Against Indiscipline, it was to inculcate the culture of conservation in the ordinary Nigerian.
Now, it is because of the lack of the conservation culture that we litter the whole gutters, waterways and street corners with sachet water containers. It is also why we do not care to know what the Good Lord put in our forests and waters, and will not hesitate to kill them for fun, or use them up without refurbishing. Most importantly, it is basically the reason why our entrepreneurs, businessmen, and even the multinationals in our midst do not have the simple idea of sustainable development even in their corporate social responsibility projects. The few banks that gloatingly announced their sustainable banking policy adoption have yet to prove that the projects are not only meant for the pages of the newspapers and their report sheets. Then, the multinationals, who would have operated more sustainably in other climes, know that we do not care and so they conclude that even if they factor conservation into their profit-making activities, we will not patronise their green innovations.
For Nigeria as a nation to become the giant that she aspires to be, and for us to be 21 century compliant as far as the environment is concerned, there are vital steps we must take. First of all, the issue of environmental cleanliness should not be handled carelessly. The dead monthly national environmental day should be resuscitated because the lackadaisical attitude of Nigerians towards environmental sanitation is basically caused by the fact that the Federal Government does not give the idea a central backbone on which the different segments of the nation should ride to effectively mobilize the citizenry.
Secondly, the Minister of Power should come up with the nation’s renewable energy and energy conservation policy framework in order to add to power. Thirdly, the government and all the citizens for that matter must stop wastage: of power, of water and of fuel. And then introduce waste-to-wealth trade-offs as stimulants to citizens. How many times are we accosted by geyser of potable water flowing away from burst pipes; or public and private buildings with their outside bulbs on during the daytime?
Besides, the different states of the federation must factor in cultural orientation aimed at inspiring the young generation into conservation. The youths of today are headed for a future of waste and corruption, if their mindset is not reset on conservation. We, the parents, are leaving a dangerous legacy by the corruption pervading the land without any care for best practices. I am not saying that wastage and corruption do not happen in the Western nations; the truth is that over there, the percentage of the population involved in it is a minority, and the other divide frowns on them instead of celebrating waste and profligacy.
The current trend whereby many of the children of our elite travel out of the country to obtain tertiary education does nothing to their personal orientation; neither does it westernise their natural proclivities. In fact, they may come back more corrupt and wasteful than their parents.
I have a true life story to illustrate the danger ahead. A relation of mine in one of the universities in the United States called one day to tell me of how some Nigerian students overseas are so wasteful that fellow students are taking note.
He said that most of them are sons and daughters of notable politicians in Nigeria who have sent their children overseas to study. He told me the story of how a friend of his had approached a Nigerian student whose father is a top government functionary in a state in Nigeria to ask him for some change to buy snacks.
The Nigerian student just brought out his wallet, opened it and extracted a $100 bill and gave the student. He said the student just danced around the campus telling anybody that cared to listen: “Check this out, that Nigerian dude is so loaded, he carries hundreds in his wallet. His dad is a Commissioner in Nigeria!”
