I believe I was taught by the best lecturers, most of whom were first class graduates, and I studied in a university that focused on excellence. But despite the best efforts of my university, I was not well-equipped for life after school. I was taught to look for a job, not to create jobs. The society then taught me that if I wanted to move ahead in life, I needed degrees and more degrees.
I lived with my friend, Nonso Onuba, in Lagos during my one-year National Youth Service Corps scheme. I started searching for a job during my NYSC. As the one-year programme drew to an end, my fear about getting a job heightened. Graduating and still begging for money from parents and friends is not good for anybody with a sense of worth.
If a job did not come fast, I had no Plan B. The only plan was to get a job and earn a salary to take care of my needs. I desperately searched for vacancies in the newspapers. My university result was good, and at 24-25 years, my age was still within what many companies required for their management trainees. I photocopied my credentials, wrote many applications, both solicited and unsolicited, and went from office to office and from post office to post office posting them.
As the months rolled by, I began to despair. Finally, I received a letter from a company that had tested and interviewed me. When I opened the envelope and saw that it was an employment letter, I danced and sang in jubilation, kneeling down and raising my hands skywards in thanksgiving.
But I was luckier than many of my classmates, for I got the job six months after my NYSC, when many of my colleagues were still writing application letters. I went to work in a suit and a tie. I am sure some neighbours who saw me go out in the morning and return in the evening envied me. To top it up, once in a while, the company’s branded car brought me home to take something, or I just took the driver home on our way from a client’s office just for the neighbours to see that life was rosy for me. But was it? Not really. My salary just kept me away from hunger from month to month. It could not solve any other problem except feeding and clothing me. By the goodwill of my friend, I did not pay rent in Lagos until two years after I began to work.
Meanwhile, there was a young man in the neighbourhood that had searched for a job but could not get any. So, he started teaching young boys and girls who were preparing for the University Matriculation Examination and General Certificate of Education. I am sure many of us laughed at him when he started. But soon after, the joke was on us, for some years later, the young man founded a secondary school in the neighbourhood. Maybe, some became his employees. A few years later, he established a primary school. I saw him some months ago in that same neighbourhood inspecting a plot of land that was being fenced and he told me that he just acquired the property.
I have seen fellow graduates who have degrees in mechanical engineering but have to depend on a mechanic that did not complete his primary school education to repair minor things in their cars. I have seen graduates of electrical and electronics engineering who have to depend on some guy with only a secondary school education to repair their TV or solve some electrical problems in their home.
Ours has been a warped type of education that teaches you the theory of everything but little or no practicals, with the ultimate aim of getting you a job. And when the job does not come, we stay at home for five years lamenting that there are no jobs. Even when we get that job and work at it with pride or dissatisfaction, if we suddenly lose that job, we find ourselves in a hole. If we are lucky to retire rather than being fired, we soon discover that we have no skills to do any other thing except that job we worked at for 35 years, which is no longer available. Soon, we start another round of whining about the nation using us and dumping us.
It was therefore heart-warming when I visited the American University of Nigeria, Yola, recently and saw the development-driven-university model in practice: an educational system developed to make students creators of jobs, rather than job seekers, as well as make the students imbibe the spirit of community service. Every student, irrespective of course of study, must create a business, run it and give a clearly defined plan of succession, in case they travel back to their country or go for further studies. Community service is also compulsory. I was amazed to see young men and women teaching members of the illiterate Yola community how to read and write, as well teaching others computer science, mathematics, chemistry, economics, and so on. Students painted buildings, kept the streets clean, etc.
Interestingly, the students are not given such laws as: Don’t use a mobile phone; don’t wear trousers; don’t braid your hair, etc. On the contrary, they are allowed to live like normal human beings cognisant of acceptable behaviour. And they are kept so busy with activities that they have little or no time to be involved in negative acts. They all know that even within that freedom, anyone who crosses the line of acceptable behaviour faces stiff penalty, including rustication, no matter the status of the student’s parents.
With students and lecturers from over 25 nations of the world, the AUN is like a mini United Nations. Interestingly, the lecturers and students all eat in the university’s refectory. It was humbling to see the President of the University – the equivalent of a vice-chancellor – Dr. Margee Ensign, driving herself, walking around the campus, and mingling with students, lecturers and the locals like colleagues.
When I got to the library, I thought I would see books, but what I saw were e-books. Searching for some books for research, I got access to some books that will be published in 2014 in the hard copy form. So, one is always ahead of others in terms of access to information.
Then, the university’s green policy tripped me. All trash is recycled and re-used. Plastics, especially, is recycled: while PET bottles are used to build houses, the cellophane bags are processed and used to make handbags by Yola women, who sell these bags and use the proceeds to support their families.
Then, there is the peace initiative. Contrary to stories about tensed situation in Yola and Adamawa State in general, I saw a city that was living a normal life, with a bubbling night life. Even though the university has good security led by a former member of the US Marines, it has started a proactive policy to ensure peace in the community by setting up the Adamawa Peace Council, made up of members of the university and different categories of the community: Yola locals, Igbo, Yoruba, Muslims, Christians, etc. In addition to meetings and other plans to ensure peace, a Peace Day is held in the university annually. This year, the ambassadors of Ireland and Columbia – two countries that have experienced conflicts – were invited to speak and share experiences from their countries.
One of the selling points of Mr. Barack Obama between 2007 and 2008, when he campaigned for the US presidency, was the community service he rendered to his Chicago community after graduation. Service to the people is one thing that has made the US what it is. It is that spirit of service that makes an American think first about the US rather than asking: What is in it for me? That spirit needs to be inculcated in our people if indeed we want a great nation.
