(15): New generation, new Nigeria: Your feedback

I am deeply humbled by the responses I received on the article I wrote last week entitled, New generation, new society, new Nigeria. I therefore decided to publish some of them this week. Most importantly, I have converted the article from a journalistic piece to a scheme of work for teaching in our primary and secondary schools. Feel free to read it:  http://jameelyushau.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/free-scheme-of-work-for-primary-and.html  and distribute in schools as well as share it with policy makers. Before then, here is a selection of your responses.

Very good piece.  Nevertheless visionary leadership is still needed to initiate or accept/approve these changes.
That notwithstanding, teachers among us should not only teach chemistry, engineering or whatever, they should also find 10 minutes of their lessons to sensitize their students on these issues. Be logical and help them see reason/the individual and collective benefits of changing the society for the better. I have really found students to be very much concerned about our present predicament. May God help us ameen.

Aminu Bayawa

I was going to discard your article as one of such, but somthing urged me to read on.
I think I must admit your write up on the above is one of the best opinion pieces El-Rufai has shared since the wake of the various terrible scandals tearing Nigeria apart.
It was like my thoughts being voiced by someone else. I believe Nigerian schools need to be forced for them to include such in their syllabus. Nobody listens unless it’s a voice of authority with no alternative choice.
I believe people of like minds should team up with you to effect such changes. We can start somewhere. I will send you ideas and suggestions of how we can start in our small way to help Nigeria back to its feet. And we can table and deliberate on this.
Regards,
Mrs Tee

In response to your article New Generation, New society,New Nigeria, It is pertinent to mention that the problems confronting our country today are hydra-headed, hence a holistic approach is urgently required to address our  systemic failure without which the Hutu and Tutsi-Rwandian experience is staring at us which is becoming rooted already by the Jos-Plateau experience. Am not being pessimistic, but stating the facts as it is.

That Nigeria is a failed state is a stale news, that we can revive Nigeria and how we want to revive Nigeria should be the concern of all and sundry if truly we believe in the sovereignty of our country.

Your ideas and suggestions will work to bring about an infinitesimal change that will produce a tree(child) that can be easily bended or destroyed by the producer(parent)or caretaker(guardian) as the case may be. The teachers that will teach this same students are not properly educated, oriented or motivated, they are products of this same fraud system, hence can only offer little or no help instead passing down a dysfunctional message to the brains of our kids.

Great nations are built by great families,but alas! great families are in short supply in Nigeria..."Prof. Wole Soyinka",great leaders are born and also made through proper mentoring. How many of such great leaders do we have in our country today, instead we have an array of politicians, business-men, petroleum subsidy agents(who have concurred and  mortgaged the life of the average man in the country). It is a pity Mallam.

The home is the first step to learning before the societal learning is inculcated. What are we teaching our children at home, no teacher teaches morals in the schools that supersede what the same child sees and engage in the home on a daily basis. Responsible parents bring forth responsible sons and daughters that will ultimately become change agents in the society. A parent that beats the traffic light when the red light is on, while the child is in the car, a parent that refuses to queue in the bank because his or her friend is the manager and whose kids are accompanying to the bank is rooting a sense of indecency in that child. A parent that steals government money and the court frees, is definitely setting a record of fraud in the minds of that child through plea-bargaining mentality.

All this aforementioned will likely hamper your new classroom generation ideology. The kids of today have not learn much good from their parents because their parents are not too proud of their fatherland, because their leaders are milking them dry in-spite of the richness bestowed to their land by Allah.

In summary, We need an urgent social-mindset orientation, we came to this world naked and so shall we all return to our creator nakedly without anything. Our leaders must take the responsibility of making Nigeria work, the followers must show commitment towards ensuring that everything works because what we all sow, we shall all reap.

We need to build strong institutions and not strong individuals. Only strong institutions can truly deliver our generations and not any classroom effect.

Adesina Adebola Ganiyu (ACIB)