The more I study Nature, the more I see how overrated what we call education is.
The nest above was woven by a weaver bird that had never seen the inside of a nursery, so forget about fanciful architectural design studios. I found it in my garden. Weaver birds found a home in my garden; I am blessed.
We have uncountable tertiary institutions scattered all over Africa, with scholars who have every type of degree oozing from every orifice in their bodies. However, here we are, sixty-plus years after our ostensible independence, and we still cannot feed, house, or clothe ourselves without foreign assistance.
Let that sink in!
Since I ventured into farming a few years ago, all our inadequacies have been rendered into sharp relief.
Not only do we continue to rely on the primitive tools and crude implements our ancestors invented eons ago, but we also import virtually everything we require to grow the food we eat, from the seeds to the organic and inorganic fertilisers and the chemicals that are necessary to keep our plants and animals safe.
Why it never occurs to our educators to link their theories to practices that could benefit societies continues to flummox me.
I ventured into catfish farming and struggled for two years to keep it afloat. The feed required is imported, and the prices keep rising as the Cedi sinks deeper and deeper into the economic morass that the Ghanaian economy has become over the years.
I tried self-making my own. I acquired the necessary machines and trained my workers and myself to use them. It flopped. No, we were not lazy or incompetent, but with inflation ravaging the local economy, we discovered that it is cheaper to continue buying foreign imports.
How about the workers and their attitudes? Let’s leave that story for another day.
My case is not unique. Most of my fellow farmers also gave up after futile struggles to keep going.
So, like in most African nations, the bills for imported food keep rising as we sit on the vast expanse of fertile land and our armies of unemployed youths roam around our cities, towns, and villages in search of employment.
To think deeply is not our forte. Considering our political, social, and economic aspects holistically appears to be beyond our competence.
Of course, this will not stop us from rolling the big drums out to dance ourselves silly on “Independence” days, when clueless misrulers will speechify themselves into stupor, to wild cheering adulation by an abysmally ignorant populace, who are incapable of rational thinking.
Of course, the big guys, the Presidents, will be ushered into the “Independence Square” with every pomp and pageantry and treated like a god on earth.
In a few days, Tinubu will inflict his presence on the airwaves of Nigerians and beseech them to join him in celebrating Nigeria’s sham independence, even as hunger and deprivations of basic services have rendered many citizens comatose. Tinubu and his gang will never feel shame as they look at China, which, just eleven years older than Nigeria, continues to wow the world with her achievements in every field we care to examine.
The irony that almost everything within his sight is foreign-made, including his clothes and glasses, will be lost on him.
He will feel giddy with excitement as rented crowds loudly and exuberantly applaud him as he chronicles his ‘achievements,’ which are invisible to the zombies paid to sing his praises. (Now the independence celebration has passed but the tremors of harsh socioeconomic remain, draining the lifeblood of enterprising Nigerians).
It will also not stop our “educational” institutions from awarding paper degrees to those they consider sufficiently indoctrinated to perpetuate the rotten system and beat chests on jobs well done.
The Mother of All Question today is: What is the purpose of an education system that does not teach people how to feed, clothe, and house themselves?
When will the reprobate and corrupt elite misgoverning Africa realise that you either feed, cloth, and house yourself, or you will remain an eternal and infernal slave?
Fémi Akómoláfé is a farmer, writer, and social commentator
