Nigeria, and the Love For Certificate

Nigeria, and the Love For Certificate

May 10, 2015


Obasi, how do you always get a scenario to follow up your articles, is it that you go about poking your big nose into peoples conversations? This was the question a close friend asked me after reading my previous piece, well if you are bothered by the same thought like my friend, please don't mind me, I guess am just always at the right place at the right time, and I carefully take note of things happening around me.

However, this will lead me to share with you the conversation between a passenger and a front desk lady in a motor park. Few weeks ago, I traveled to Owerri, while at the park in Lagos, I listened to a conversation between a Man and a young lady, according to my calculation, I believe the passenger in question had been traveling with the transportation company for a while, but have not had time to speak with the lady at the front desk, fortunately for me the man decided to ask the lady some personal questions which was what inspired this piece.

Man: I never knew you could speak igbo perfectly.
Lady: Oh! thanks to my parents, moreover I schooled in the east.
Man: Which of the institutions. 
Man: Really! that was were I schooled too, though I didn't attend classes.
Lady: How did you graduate without attending classes, are you an alien? 
Man: (smiled) No, am not an alien.
Lady: How did you do it then?. 

At this point, I got so interested in their conversation, wondering how a man will graduate from a university without attending classes, so as usual, I opened my big ears and listened.  The man replied 

Man : I didn't need to attend classes, because I had a business I was into all I wanted was the so called certificate, of course you and I know that all a firm in Nigeria needs from you is just a certificate and you will get employed. 

I was so shocked at first when I heard these words, but on a second thought I said to my self ''this sound like the truth''. 

Days after I had this conversation at the park, I asked for the opinion of few of my friends on this matter, and funny enough they were all on the same page with the man at the motor park, one even said to me ''It's only in Nigeria you will see a man who read zoology working in the bank'' and I asked him, have they started banking wild life in the bank?, as funny as it could sound, the fact is, that is the truth.

In our country today, you see young people struggling to get into the higher institutions, even when such a fellow is given a course that is not his choice he accepts it. How will someone fill in Medicine and the school ends up giving him Intro-Tech and yet the fellow accepts and rejoices. Most time you will hear this vibrant youth say to you''

So far as I am going to the higher institution it doesn't matter what I study, it is no longer necessary in our society.

Nowadays, you see people pay their way through the higher institution You can even get the ready made certificate if you can make the payment attached to it, no wonder our degree is not respected outside the shores of Nigeria because the educational system has been turned upside down. I could remember the response of one of my friends while we were having this discussion. I said to him, ''can't the government do something to the decline in the educational sector? He laughed at me so hard that I had to touch my head wondering if a bird had PO on it, but that didn't happen. 

So I allowed him to finish the laughter, then I said to him "is my question funny? He then said Obasi, Yes the question is funny, which of the government are you talking about, you mean the government where a former head of state and presidential candidate was asked to tender his Certificate or he will be disqualified, and after he managed to tender something that looks like a certificate they came up again and said It is fake. 

Now, tell me, are these the same set of people you are saying they should correct the ills in the educational system? I am yet to give an answer to that question because we had this discussion during the election period, and one never knew who was standing next to him, but if you can, please answer that question for me.

Finally, I have watched the rate at which parents send their children to places like Ghana and Togo for studies, yet we claim we have qualified lecturers here and that we are the giant of Africa. I hope that our giant status is not just a fluke and also hope that this madness about Certificate will end soon. Thank you for taking out time to read this piece, don't forget to share it with your friends so that together we can bring a stop to this abnormally. 

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