"Coming In From The Cold"    In California, USA    May 22, 2012

There is a Yoruba proverb that says, literally, that "a house built with saliva will be destroyed by the morning dew." Nigeria is such house.

The Nigerian government is a corruptionist one. Corrupt, corrupted, or corruptible behaviors are the norm. The destruction of our education, especially of southerners, was orchestrated by the north when they had the mantle of power. The pace of education in the south was incomparable to that of the north. They knew education was the edge we had over them and they were ready to slow us down or destroy that edge. They succeeded. Remember Ali must go?

Our youths of today don’t speak well and they don’t write well; a lot cannot even spell correctly. If you cannot express yourself well, how can you communicate well; and if you can’t communicate well, how can you be understood well? A few of those who write well in this medium are mostly of the old school; I know.

When you don’t know the difference between “there” and “their”, or “here” and “hear”, or “brake” and “break”, or when to use “should”, “could” or “would”, or when some people use a sentence such as “you could have wrote”, instead of “you could have written”, then you start to wonder if these youths (not all) can even do debate without "blowing up” the hall with “jagba-jantus” grammar.

I knew Nigeria has gone down for the worst when motorcycles (namely, okada) became a mode of public transportation – in a country with so much richness in human and natural resources. There was no such thing when I first left Nigeria in the late ‘70s and when I came home for my NYSC program in the early ‘80s when Colonel Obasa was the NYSC director or head (or whatever he was).

Today, I remember a Yoruba song that we used to sing in primary school, and it goes thus - “ko’le-ko’le, ko’le s’ori apata; ile iyanrin, a ba ‘yanrin lo; ko’le-ko’le, ko’le s’ori apata”. Which means, “build your house on the rock, because if you build it on sand, it will flow away with the sand (i.e., collapse) eventually.”

Our foundation is that of sand; a corrupt foundation. Unless we rebuild quickly, sooner than later, Nigeria is bound to collapse. There is nothing iffy about it.

Let me finish with a quote etched in limestone on the engineering building at the University of Wyoming – it states that “the control of nature is won not given”. Our country has been totally stolen from the rest of us. It is our responsibility to win it back because it will not be given back freely. Nigeria "jaga-jaga".

In Yoruba, we say proverbially that “Kii s’oju boro ni won fi ngba omo l’owo ekuro” – meaning, there is no gentle way to get the palm kernel seed out of the hard kernel shell; it must be cracked (i.e., using force). A word is enough for the wise.

Before they relinquish our country into the hands of their children and cohorts, let the cataclysm begin now. Do not say I did not warn you. Only cowards die many times before their death. These thieves are human beings like me and you, with blood running in their veins too. Whatever can befall me can befall them too.

So, whoever doesn't believe that our educational standards have fallen in Nigeria must either be from the north or stupid. So, Babangida, "what can you fit to do" - Ngwo-ngwo grammar.