Education or Culture?
I must admit that I am very poor in travelling, someone who can pass off as a ‘homeboy’. So, except for whatever we receive through the media, forgive me if the most examplary knowledge that I have to offer are the ones learnt from my fellow Nigerians.

If you were patient enough to read this opinion piece up to this page, out of the many flurry and deluge of information that we are daily inundated with, you are most likely not ‘lazy’. Sadly, there is the general perception, albeit wrongly, that the black man is lazy. Are we truly lazy?

Nigerians are ‘lazy’ but yet hardworking. How is this possible? I can not think of any other people who ‘labour’ hard like Nigerians. We work hard, but without a workable plan. We daily dissipate energy, and return home for the day, with the satifaction that our lives are better off than the ones who did not leave home for work.

When asked why we leave home when we truly do not have any direction or destination in mind, most will say, they can not stay in a spot or stay at home, because ‘man must chop’. No wonder our roads are jammed, while we waste so much man hours in traffic. At the end of the day, we thank God for a safe home return, that is if we ever made it safe.

Why do we do whatever we do, with the objective of food? Every animal does that. Animals leave their abode, with no particular destination in mind, but for the sole ‘vision’ of food for survival. Our survivalist mentality has brought nothing but more poverty. We work harder, but yet grow poorer. This is why the other name for the ‘people’ is called ‘mass’ (i.e. ‘of low quality’, ‘of unknown value’, etc).

Nigerians are lazy in thinking. However, if anyone takes an average Nigerian for a fool, or seem to suggest that an average Nigerian is not brilliant, such a fellow will suffer an irrecoverable peril. How can a people who are always on the road, have or work on the benefit of experiencing the beauty of hindsight and foresight, the wonders of critical thinking, the power of planning and the development and or perfection of a vision?

However, rather than we invest our mental energy on productive and scientific advancement, we pursue transient interests, that hardly outlast our lifetime. It is so bad that the criminal indulgence of obtaining by tricks, (otherwise called ‘419’), is now referred to as ‘Nigerian Fraud’ in the international community. When asked why they engage in deceitful trade, the common response is usually, ‘They are helping the black race recover our wealth stripped from us by the colonialists’.

We think we are succeeding in reciprocating the evils of the colonialists, by duping others of their resources; but in actual fact, we are further playing into the hands of the ‘colonialists’. Do you know that the reprehensible crime called ‘colonialism’ did not receive the support of all ‘whites’? Perhaps, the ‘colonialists’ defend their crime of thievery, on the excuse that we are evil; we debase ourselves to engage in fraud, thereby justifying our ancestral experience under colonialism as ‘deserved’. Why would I want to steal what belongs to me from a ‘thief’, who stole from?

Rather than the crafting or recrafting of more ideas, knowledge and vision, we have been programmed to believe that the more the labour the more the reward. So the man with the more ideas, knowledge and vision continue to ‘enslave’ the majority, while he or she gets richer, as long as he or she continues to provide solutions to the needs of humanity.

The exertion of physical energy is painful, but brings a reward for our immediate needs. We also recognize that the force of mental energy demands more from us, is more painful, and we are further subjected to delayed gratification. We settle for the easier path. Our environment continually teaches us new things everyday, but we pay less attention to them, as we scamper about for our age-long ‘daily bread’.

Our youth have no qualms living on the social media all day and everyday, tweeting and retweeting on banal matters; but find it unbearable to assimilate materials of knowledge. Infact, some will ‘rake’ at quality online articles on the same social media, that offer knowledgeable suggestions, owing to the length of the subject educational materials. We comb and scheme the internet for the next available online money.

What we lack is not education, but true, qualitative, functional and productive education. How do I mean? Have you ever wondered what would make a doctorate degree holder to be enmeshed in drug-smuggling, thuggery and or obtaining through false pretenses?

How come our schools continue to churn out graduates that we do not need, yet everybody continues to squeeze into our ill-equipped schools? Why do our youths pick up educational courses, owing to non-availability of alternative offers, rather than based on our societal needs? Except for the very minute few, most of our graduates are not prepared for entrepreneurship, neither do they have any inherent entrepreneurial skills.

Most of our youths graduate with the hope of passing about their job applications and curriculum vitae, which by the way, are filled with nothing but how many certificates they bear. Please think with me for a second, and answer this question carefully, ‘Who certified the first man that certified the first certified graduate?’.

Those that we refer to as ‘illiterates’ gain knowledge and find a vision, only for our so-called ‘educated’ to work under. Many of today’s renowned inventors, whose creations have become global and are a part of our daily lives, were men and women who gained a knowledge and developed a vision pre-higher education or as a drop-out from school.

And before someone who is lazy intellectually runs off to justify why he or she is not in school, it must be re-emphasized that this opinion piece does not, and do not wish to be identified with any opinion or movement that discourages education (formal and or informal). Such desires or campaign will only end up hurting the very people, by denying them of freedom, strength, capability, and creativity.

Laziness, as with unwillingness, blurs the real importance and benefits of education. What of the group that is not physically and or intellectually lazy? However misplaced, we seek, and we are willing to do more and go further, just to gain education. We pay huge sums as fees, just to gain knowledge. We go far, and spread wide across all continents, just to have education. If some parents do not borrow, some sell their assets, and those who do not have any meaningful assets, such parents sell themselves into slavery, just for their children to have education.

I ask, ‘To what ends?’. If all the sacrifices that our fathers and mothers go through is for us to achieve something meaningful, or live and do better than them; then, we are failing in that regard.

Nothing is more disheartening to any parent than to see his or her child returning home after graduation, to where he or she started off, and then continue living off on the thing resources of the same parent. Rather we have many graduates, who graduate from schools, but are yet to graduate, by the renewing of the mind. They are yet to graduate from dependence to independence.

‘School: … 8. A general style of life, manners, etc. …. 10. Any sphere or means of instruction. …’.

– The New International
Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary
of the English Language (Encyclopedic Edition)

‘Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through storytelling, discussion, teaching, training and or research.’
– Wikipedia

‘Knowledge: 1. A result or product of knowing: information or understanding, acquired through  experience; practical ability or skill. 2. Information: learning, specifically the cumulative culture of the human race. 3. The clear and certain apprehension of truth; assured rational conviction. ….’.

– The New International
Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary
of the English Language (Encyclopedic Edition)

What if the state of our well-being as youths, and by extension, as a nation and as a race, were the faults of our fathers and mothers? Whereas from the above quotes, the three words in context are different but it can decoded that they all point towards the same direction.

The power of force of and within anything, particularly any human is derived from the ‘names’, ‘origin’, ‘ancestry’, and ‘history’ of the subject matter; of which I have abbreviated and coined as ‘N.O.A.H’. The accurate knowledge of these very information, being concerted to appropriate use, is what generates the power to succeed.

Every human has a history. Every human has family, every family belongs to a tribe, every tribe belongs to a region, every region belong to a state, every state belongs to a nation, every nation belongs to a continent, every continent belongs to a planet, and as far as we know, every planet belongs to a galaxy.

In the best case scenario, of what value is one’s name, origin and ancestry; if one does not have a good and accurate historical understanding of one’s heritage. Unfortunately, many that I have met do not even know the true meaning of their first names, talkless of their surnames.

We have more of our children in formal schools than ever before, but yet they can not speak their father’s dialects. Infact, the more ‘sophisticated’ the ‘schools’ (which by the way, means the more foreign languages they speak and teach, and less or none of our Nigerian languages), the more expensive they charge as educational fees. Our pupils are flogged, punished and or forced to pay fines for speaking ‘vernacular’ (which is the English for speaking in the dialect of my father, and or tribe).

As consequences, our children neither speak, nor can hear, our local dialect. For us who make efforts to communicate in our ancestral languages, we lack good understanding of our ancestral languages.

Of course, we are ‘educated’. We have become so ‘educated’, that our ladies are more career-women, but most do not know how to prepare the simplest of table meals. We now make so much fortunes, but expend on our very beautiful and expensive kitchens, only to have them as ‘museums’ which we hardly use, except to show off to our ‘educated’ friends as our achievements.

No doubt, we are now ‘educated’. Save for the fact that we fathers do not have stories to tell our kids any longer. And for those who still recollect their parents ‘moonlight’ tales, they leave and or return home, from their economic and or leisure outing while the kids are in bed. We are in hot soup! And a big trouble at that, is waiting for us.

Where do you think I am driving at? From the above quotes, what is the true definition of ‘Education’? Use your head! I am talking about the very ‘culture’ and ‘traditions’ of our ancestors that we all treat with contempt. To have any impact in life, it is through the impart of our father’s customs and traditions on one’s life.

We are not only blind-sighted, but we are continually barraged with everything and anything, that seems good to our sight, but actually leads to our continued but slow death. The ancient customs and traditions of our fathers continually face unrelenting attacks in many forms, including ‘formal education’, ‘religion’, and most recently ‘technology’. For how long can our customs and traditions hold its own? The future looks grim, which portends greater danger for us all.

The responsibility is on us, this present generation that lie sterile, to wake up from our slumber, and acknowledge our ways of error (be it deliberate or otherwise; be it inherited or not). Once you know who are (the past), it provides the impetus to determine where you are (the present), it is only then you can influence where you want to be, your desired and or eventual destination (the future).

You are a product of a peculiar history, find it! For your own good, you are advised to ignore the thrash that are peddled about in many forms. The truth is that no one ever outgrows their ancestors, and you are no different. I hear some refer to their parents as ‘illiterates’ or ‘uneducated’, because they were not opportuned to enjoy a formal education. No, I say, such fellows are not only the greatest ‘illiterates’ and the ‘uneducateds’, they are the greatest ‘FOOLS’, that deserve to be flogged in the open.

We all have our phones, of different technologies and varieties. However, the name of the supposed inventor of telephone is always ascribed to Graham Bell. Does that mean he was the inventor of ‘Android’ technology?

There are various versions of aircrafts flying our skies, of commercial, private and military; with some serious sophisticated technologies. However, the name of the supposed inventors of aeroplane is always ascribed to the Wright Brothers. Does it mean that they are the inventors of the ‘jet’ technology? Did they explore the space?

The answer to the above illustrations is simply ‘No!’. However, it takes a man to discover a knowledge, convert to an invention, put on record as a vision, but it takes a people to build on such vision becoming a cultural and or traditional practise, and passed down for further perfection by future generations.

Culture and or tradition are key factors in any human development, and should be taken seriously. One who does not know his/her background, does not have any ground to stand on, and neither can such hold their heads high in the society, that is filled with diversities and divergent opinions (however ignorant, misplaced and or treacherous such might be).

One who does not have a good understanding of his/her environment will fail and fall. No wonder our generation continues to repeat the same (if not worst off) experience of failings and falls as our ancestors, because we do not have any yardstick or reference to learn from.

The passionate rediscovery, documentation and teaching of our cultures and traditions in accordance with the acceptable will of God are important, and has reached a critical state. Only God knows how much we may have lost owing to the inability to record such past quality experiences of our ancestors. Many of which they may have taken to the graves.

We wanted to be free, free of customs and traditions. We ran under religion, to ‘education’, cultism and all other distractions; all of which have placed more shackles on us all. We wanted to be free from the law, free from someone running our lives. What do we have? Lawlessness, or in the best case scenario, an orderly disorder.

The very culture and tradition that was freely offered and passed down to us by our ancestors, we discard them for the ever-changing latest vogue that bounces off our view. We prefer to pay for vanity and make-beliefs, than accept our time-tested ancestral knowledge which is free. Well, our ancestral knowledge is now being repackaged and sold back to us in different colours, clothings and wrappings; and yet, we are paying for it.

Of a truth, the longer a truth is covered, the more expensive it becomes. The one who rejects the crude truth that is freely offered, will pay a great price for a beautiful lie that is sold. If the true education (in accordance with the will of God) as offered by our ancestors is expensive, we should not weep over the cost of our ignorance.

To continue surviving in our ignorance, we commit evil of all manners, including harming (or showing no love) to our fellow brothers and sisters. We even sing it as songs: ‘No paddy for jungle’, ‘it is survival of the fittest’, ‘No family for business’, etc. But I wonder, ‘Would there be you, without your family or paddies?’. Something broke somewhere, and proper enlightenment is urgently needed if we must restore it back (Isaiah 5:3).

So, what is the big deal about ‘culture’? Whereas, the word ‘culture’ is commonly defined as ‘a way of life’. If a way of life is passed down to us by our fathers, but we are distracted and or choose to listen to known or unknown conflicting voices, can we truly declare that these contrary voices love us more than our fathers? If we choose to depart from the ‘way of life’, as instituted by our fathers, is the alternative not a ‘way of death’.

According to a Yoruba parable, ‘The stream cut off from its source will run dry sooner or later’. We, as a people, have descended so low, to the point that we have reduced our ancestral culture to mere ‘fashion’ (for those who even care to wear our clothes), and perhaps, ‘food’ (for those who can mix ingredients accordingly and cook native foods, talkless of eating it).

‘Culture: 1. Cultivation of plants or animals, especially with a view to improvement. 2. The training, improvement, and refinement of mind, morals, or taste. 3. Tillage of the soil. 4a. The development of micro-organisms, …. . 5. Enlightenment or civilization …. . 6. The sum total of the attainments and activities of any specific period, race, or people, including their implements, handicrafts, agriculture, economics, music, art, religious beliefs, traditions, language, and story. 7. Those physical features of a terrain which are of human origin or construction, as roads, trails, canals, buildings, boundary lines; also their symbolic representation on a map.’

– The New International
Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary
of the English Language (Encyclopedic Edition)

If the description of ‘culture’ as ‘a way of life’, seems vague or too simple, the above quote is not. If you need help to further explain the above quote, perhaps what you need is a knock on your head.

Thanks to our ignorance, it is reprehensible how we treat and talk to our elders nowadays, on the excuse of ‘education’ (or civilization). Even, our governments are not left out of this show of shame, with the treatment meted out to our pensioners. It has degenerated to the point of fathers and mothers disgracefully ‘dragged in mud’ by their own children, on the lunacy of human right. I agree, we all have the right to choose death, and our choice is not failing us in any way. It is a vogue to be called a ‘butter’ (the uncultured), while it is a shame to be identified to ‘pako’ (the cultured).

We treat old age as a disease; a disease that only few of the present generation of youth will be fortunate to experience. If our senior citizens have any knowledge to pass down at all, would they be encouraged to do same considering our present ‘conduct’? As the Yoruba adage says, ‘Life is an encore. Whatever you do to your parent, your descendant would dish you same’. Could our parents also be suffering from their own misconduct towards their parents?

Our conducts and choices portray our fathers as owing us. The truth is, no one owes us anything. If our ancestors gave us ‘life’, they do not owe us the way to live or loose the same life. Our ancestral culture is an invaluable favor, that we must be eternally grateful for. So, get educated!

In the ‘Yoruba’ culture (which is the only culture that I least struggle to understand), each individual refers to anyone older than him/her by the value of ‘two’. I still wait to be informed of any other language, that practises such wisdom. Were our fathers poor in mathematics, drunk in wine and or hallucinating to ascribe to ‘one’ with the power of ‘two’?

The’Yoruba’ race is reportedly a few tens of millions in population. Why is the name of the tribe, otherwise alternated as ‘Yoruba Omoluabi’ (i.e. ‘Yoruba the embodiment of culture’)?

My great-grand mother passed on at around 126 years of age, and my grand-father at around 96 years, it will be a miracle if my father and I are blessed that long. We are living far shorter, and worst still, insignificant life, owing to our present lifestyles that are parallel in direction to our ancestral culture. We have done away with our ancestors’ natural organic food culture, and gulp more ‘delicious poisons’ as ‘delicacies’. We want our today’s foods done by others, and done ‘fast’.

We have also discarded our ancestral remedies for any form of ailment or diseases (that ever existed or to exist), for any latest ‘funkified’ alternatives generally titled ‘drugs’, that roll by. Have you ever bothered to investigate what exactly is the alternate alphabetic and literary value of ‘herb’. Otherwise referred to as ‘Yerba’ across South America, the quadgraph ‘herb’ is a variation of the name of the tribe that we all know as ‘Yoruba’. Yes! The very same ‘Yoruba’.

Most herbs are bitter, but rather than pay the bitter price, in order to live healthier, longer and more productive lives; we prefer the sweet alternatives that offer us nothing but empty promises and death.

Our medicinal culture is continually trampled as ‘dirty’ and or ‘unhygienic’. Really? Whereas our ancestors tried their best within the limitations of resources available to them, whose responsibility is it to bring ‘hygiene’ into herbal medicine? After all we are not creating anything herbal, we are simply to transform the environment of herbal medicine from unsanitary to hygeinic.

Some are also quick to disparage our cultural medicines as lacking in documentation of details of its compositions, and thus, it is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. In other words, our ancestors were expected to disclose the names, measures, and process of compositions of our cultural medicines. While I understand the need to safeguard public health safety, I also reason with our ancestors who chose to treat and guard their medicinal knowledge from the globe of prying intellectual property thieves.

In any case, what guarantees do we have that those that claim to disclose the names, measures, and process of compositions of their drugs have truly furnished us with the ‘truth’? And I mean all the ‘truth’, and not some? They disclose names that does not only come in long forms, but they come heavy in Latinized and or Greek forms; of which most of us have no clue of what they mean. No wonder, we can hardly build on such ‘knowledge’ as provided on same.

Nevertheless, it is time that we also do same, by documenting and disclosing the names, measures and process of compositions of our cultural heritage, as we deem fit. Infact, name it ‘ogburuduruju okirimati oparishimalatu’, so be it. As far as it works. If there is a humongous global drug industry out there flourishing on lies, half-truths, and very few medicines; it is time that the true medicines that works are put at the front burner. Let us all make the best out of our ancestral herbs. After all, you live healthy, longer and prosperous.

Rather we have sadly spiritualized every known knowledge of our ancestors, as if non of our ancestors was ‘godly’, and everything that they did were ‘anti-God’. Everything herbal prepared for our well-being are referred to as ‘occultic’, ‘demonic’, ‘devilish’, ‘evil’, and so on. Yet, it is recorded in the Bible that Genesis 1:11-12,29-30; 2:5; 3:18; 9:3; Exodus 12:8; Numbers 9:11; 1Kings 21:2; Psalms 104:14; Proverbs 15:17

The ‘Yorubas’  prostrate, simple and short. For those who do not like or appreciate this value, let us just say, you have your human right, and I have mine. I choose to relinquish my quote ‘human right’ to honour my elders. Trust me, you can not understand the feeling of prostrating before your elders, until you are accustomed to it. Everyone desires and deserves respect from one another. In the case of my ancestral culture, this is one of the ways we choose to express respect to one another. This must be respected.

To those who refer to themselves as members of ‘Yorubas’ (and or other related tribes), but have been brainwashed to believing that ‘prostrating’ is a form of ‘slavery’, perhaps they may be right. If you go before a king and find no hesitation to prostrate, is it too much to do same for the one, out of whom you exist? (Matthew 15:4; Mark 10:19; Ephesians 6:2).

For those who hide behind religion to perpetrate acts of contempt against our elders, please bear with me for a second. We attempt to justify our tendecy for lawlessness with every strand. Do you know that the culture of prostrating before elders, particularly one’s parents, is as old as time, as recorded in Bible (Genesis 48:12).

There are many cultural diversities across the world, with varied forms of paying homage to our elders. While some squat, others bow to honour one another. Infact, except for a very few, most cultures of the world have their female members kneeling before their elders.

However, I am yet to be educated of any other tribe in the entire globe, that practises ‘prostrating’ as a form of reverence of the elders. If so, does that not make the personalities (i.e. ‘Jacob’ and ‘Joseph’) in the above biblical account ‘Yorubas’?

Perhaps, it may also interest you to know that the acts of prostrating and kneeling are forms of exercises. We pay to join gym clubs, including to do push-ups, squats and other forms of exercises, in a prostrated, knelt and or squatted positions. For those who do not prostrate or kneel before their elders, and can not afford gym classes, we grow potruding bellies, and we call sign of good living. Our backbones and legs are failing us, during physically demanding situations? Get educated, and get a life.

Those who know me, will acknowledge that I love fashion, but I can also be chaste. I know when to be abase and when to be abound. I love jeans, and anything that makes one comfortable. I also appreciate the fact that, the ‘fashion’ industry is one of the most technical and methodological. We may ignore this fact, but the truth is that there are lesser truly gifted ‘fashionists’ out there than we may think.

‘Fashion design’ is like ‘engineering’. We see and appreciate the beautiful tall or large edifices that are successfully executed, but pay less value to the ‘architects’ behind the scene. Any error to the minutest structural detail, spells catastrophy, with resultant loss of lives. Same as fashion, the ingenious capacity to be able to find, process, manifest on paper, and bring to life a concept is not a ‘chicken feed’.

If the choice of clothings of our fathers were carefully crafted, and are able to survive through centuries; it is my opinion that we can do better than the industry we presently operate. Rather than carry out a critical thinking of why and how our fathers prefer to wear ‘Agbada’ in hot tropics like ours, we prefer to make jest of this ancestral trail as ‘traditional parachutes’.

Sadly, our women and ladies are fast doing away with our traditional ‘headgears and or scarfs’, without closely analyzing the wisdom of how and why our mothers wore such clothings in a hot tropical region like ours. If our women and ladies find the ‘headgears and or scarfs’ rather inconvenient, the choice to ignore our traditional hairdos is far baffling?

We are poor, but yet spend so much on expensive hair attachments, while the numerous cultural hairstyles passed down through generations are gradually lost. I am not an authority in matters concerning our beautiful women, so I leave them to resolve this subject and others accordingly.

Is culture perfect? Make no mistake, far be from it. However, culture provides us with a documentary or encyclopedia of the mistakes and successes of our ancestors for our awareness, in order for us to further learn, perfect, build on it and pass on to the generation next. By the way, you may have heard; ‘there are no mistakes, only experience’.

Why should you deny me of the knowledge of my fathers, even if they were drunks? Perhaps, the knowledge of such will provide a guide for me to learn from their mistakes, and stay off far from alcohol. As the popular saying goes, ‘We never appreciate anything of value, until we loose it’.