I never use photographs or other materials on this blog unless I know the source but this is one I could not skip. It comes to me from a Sister out in California and it has to be shared with the world, at least the part of mine that makes this blog a must.
It’s simply titled: Sambo’s Kaduna State classroom 2014.
For these – or so – pupils, what can they learn in this “classroom” where there are apparently no desks, no visible writing materials and the teacher uses what is left of a blackboard in a country where government officials steal billions without as much as a slap on the wrist, in a country where government officials on monthly salaries own homes around the world, huge bank balances …
You may wish to check out: http://emotanafricana.com/2012/09/04/son-of-a-nigerian-politician-built-a-bed-with-n100m-naira-notes-global-reporters-vienna/
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 2014. 6:50a.m. [6:50 a.m.]
emotanafricana.com 
August 16, 2014 at 1:12 am
This classroom situation is real and pathetic. If we go round some village schools in South West of Nigeria, we will see similar situations. It’s really bad.
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August 16, 2014 at 6:07 pm
Thanks, Fatai. You are v. correct about this being no exception in Nigeria. In fact, after I published that photograph, somebody from a state in the Southwest promised to take me to “more than one ‘school'” in his state where conditions are not much better than the school in the North.
Really really bad in a country that swims in oil money, and top politicians and government officials “live like oil Sheiks” – to quote Professor Tam David-West who is a former Oil Minister.
Thanks, as always,
TOLA.
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August 9, 2014 at 8:40 am
This photograph is heart-rendering.
In which other country do so-called leaders bleed the country to stupor by stealing “humongous petrodollars”, flaunt the stolen money in the face of the citizens whom they have impoverished so criminally and without any pretentions to sensitivity or conscience but feign religiosity, cringe before foreign powers who talk down at them, etc etc, yet they not only get away with such “crimes against humanity”, but are adulated and/or tolerated by the same impoverished and dehumanized citizenry?
For goodness sake, when are the people going to reject their being condemned to wretchedness and shame, and stop being impotent accessories to national wealth pillage!
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August 9, 2014 at 3:27 pm
Dear Prof.,
A very heart-rendering one, indeed!
I’ve also mentioned it here many times that until we take our destiny in our collective hand and reject being condemned to wretchedness and shame, those who hold Nigeria by the jugular will never let things be normal.
Until all is free, the saying goes, none is free. When I wrote –
http://emotanafricana.com/2013/10/10/haiti-and-the-tragedy-that-nigerias-failure-represents-to-people-of-african-descent-tola-adenle-2/
my mind was on what example the country could have been, and what great role model Nigeria would have been to all people of African ancestry everywhere, but has failed to be and continues to be.
Just imagine, Dear Sis., a prosperous Nigeria where – to borrow an idea of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew that has now been enshrined in Singapore’s system: that if a government official’s standard of living does not reflect his level of income, it would call for investigation based on assumed corruption!
The photo of that classroom is a travesty, especially when none of the successive governors of Kaduna State – like most Nigerian governors – has domestic servants who live in that kind of place where about 50 kids are herded worse than animals.
I’ve often referred to the Yoruba word for “independence” which implies that work is needed on the part of the enslaved: nwọn gba ominira, the emphasized word means TO TAKE and not TO BE GIVEN. Nobody will willingly give up fraudulently-obtained advantages.
Sincere regards,
TOLA.
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