Earlyface

I believe I was taught by the best lecturers, most of whom were first class graduates, and I studied in a university that focused on excellence. But despite the best efforts of my university, I was not well-equipped for life after school. I was taught to look for a job, not to create jobs. The society then taught me that if I wanted to move ahead in life, I needed degrees and more degrees.
I lived with my friend, Nonso Onuba, in Lagos during my one-year National Youth Service Corps scheme. I started searching for a job during my NYSC. As the one-year programme drew to an end, my fear about getting a job heightened. Graduating and still begging for money from parents and friends is not good for anybody with a sense of worth.
If a job did not come fast, I had no Plan B. The only plan was to get a job and earn a salary to take care of my needs. I desperately searched for vacancies in the newspapers. My university result was good, and at 24-25 years, my age was still within what many companies required for their management trainees. I photocopied my credentials, wrote many applications, both solicited and unsolicited, and went from office to office and from post office to post office posting them.
As the months rolled by, I began to despair. Finally, I received a letter from a company that had tested and interviewed me. When I opened the envelope and saw that it was an employment letter, I danced and sang in jubilation, kneeling down and raising my hands skywards in thanksgiving.
But I was luckier than many of my classmates, for I got the job six months after my NYSC, when many of my colleagues were still writing application letters. I went to work in a suit and a tie. I am sure some neighbours who saw me go out in the morning and return in the evening envied me. To top it up, once in a while, the company’s branded car brought me home to take something, or I just took the driver home on our way from a client’s office just for the neighbours to see that life was rosy for me. But was it? Not really. My salary just kept me away from hunger from month to month. It could not solve any other problem except feeding and clothing me. By the goodwill of my friend, I did not pay rent in Lagos until two years after I began to work.
Meanwhile, there was a young man in the neighbourhood that had searched for a job but could not get any. So, he started teaching young boys and girls who were preparing for the University Matriculation Examination and General Certificate of Education. I am sure many of us laughed at him when he started. But soon after, the joke was on us, for some years later, the young man founded a secondary school in the neighbourhood. Maybe, some became his employees. A few years later, he established a primary school. I saw him some months ago in that same neighbourhood inspecting a plot of land that was being fenced and he told me that he just acquired the property.
I have seen fellow graduates who have degrees in mechanical engineering but have to depend on a mechanic that did not complete his primary school education to repair minor things in their cars. I have seen graduates of electrical and electronics engineering who have to depend on some guy with only a secondary school education to repair their TV or solve some electrical problems in their home.
Ours has been a warped type of education that teaches you the theory of everything but little or no practicals, with the ultimate aim of getting you a job. And when the job does not come, we stay at home for five years lamenting that there are no jobs. Even when we get that job and work at it with pride or dissatisfaction, if we suddenly lose that job, we find ourselves in a hole. If we are lucky to retire rather than being fired, we soon discover that we have no skills to do any other thing except that job we worked at for 35 years, which is no longer available. Soon, we start another round of whining about the nation using us and dumping us.
It was therefore heart-warming when I visited the American University of Nigeria, Yola, recently and saw the development-driven-university model in practice