Pegasus Reporters Issues on the Wing
“For me as a Nigerian though, with all due respect to our 30.8 million Ghanaian brothers, it’s sad that Ghanaian educational certificate has become a reference point to wealthy, semi-wealthy, middle income, and average Nigerian families”.
PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | FEBRUARY 4, 2022
Shedrach Chidi Onye
This write-up is not in any way intended to disrespect nor disparage Ghana and Ghanaians, but rather to buttress Nigeria’s free fall in basically all global growth indices and its attendant advantages to other nations.
Growing up as a little boy and into my teen years in the seventies and eighties. Ghanaians we’re seeing nearly all over Nigeria in their thousands if not millions.
They were practically found in every sector of Nigeria’s economic life, from teaching to white-collar jobs, house helps, gatemen, roadside tailors, shoe shiners, and into a host of other quality and demeaning jobs.
It would seem highly demeaning to a Nigerian to be referenced or draw a comparison of him/her to a Ghanaian.
Ghana got her independence from Great Britain a few years before Nigeria, sadly, due to poor human and economic management, the life of an average Ghanaian dropped drastically causing them to seek greener pasture elsewhere, and Nigeria inclusive.
After the J. T Rawlings revolution and the operation Ghana must go policy of Nigeria’s government in the early eighties Ghanaians had little or no choice but to move back to their country.
While it would be wrong to draw a total economic comparison between Ghana and Nigeria today, Nigerians must own up to the fact that this neighboring West African nation has overtaken Nigeria in some key determinant areas which could become a turning point and reference in year’s to come.
EDUCATION
Like it or not, education is a major determining factor of any nation’s all-around growth indicator. While it is frustrating and sad, that Nigerians spend a whopping over a trillion naira on foreign education yearly, especially in Europe and America, this could still be slightly excused given our perception of everything from the white man.
For me as a Nigerian though, with all due respect to our 30.8 million Ghanaian brothers, it’s sad that Ghanaian educational certificate has become a reference point to wealthy, semi-wealthy, middle income, and average Nigerian families. It is a shame that important Nigerians now beat their chest that their children graduated from Ghanaian, Beninois middle or tertiary institutions.
DANGERS AHEAD FOR NIGERIA
One of the major setbacks of colonialism and a major reason why the black man has and may continue to feel inferior to the white man and why the white man will continue to see themselves as superior to the black man is that they educated us. An uneducated mind is assumed to be in the dark hence, anyone that offers you education will have a superior complex over you.
At the moment, Ghana has overtaken Nigeria in processed packaged foods and other agro products exported to Europe and America. It is all a function of education and planning. Education is not all about the certificate we carry, but the proper implementation of values of education.
I see a tomorrow where Ghana and Ghanaians and other African nations begin to display superiority over Nigeria in the name of education, and given what’s is on the ground we might just become a lower nation in comparison to Ghana in the global scheme of things.
CONCLUSION
Nigerians, we must do everything possible to grow our country. We are the giant of Africa, we also can become a global giant. All this we can achieve if we believe in God’s support and ourselves. Africa, the black race, and the world await Nigeria to become a living giant rather than a sleeping one.
Shadrach Chidi Onye, a Public affairs analyst and Founder, Interdependent Community writes from Lagos, Nigeria. (shadrachonye@gmail.com)
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