This is to specially wish all the readers and visitors of this blog a super happy Easter celebration. I’m truly grateful for your regular visit, mentions, collaboration request, the interaction and learning through the process of curating contents. Thanks.
For about two weeks before Easter, posting contents on this blog was infrequent due to other engagements in and around Lagos, where I live. My company started an initiative called “Show Them the Need”. In this initiative, we visited the core Northern Nigeria states; Gombe, Gigawa, Kaduna, Borno Plateu, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Yobe, and Bauchi and picked twenty(20) young people each for a two-city(Lagos and Port Harcourt) two-day tour.
The purpose of this tour was to ignite this young people’s love for education. The Boko Haram sect menace that have claimed so many lives of poor and innocent citizens is been attributed to the region’s detest for western education. Though the across-the-board claim is that the sect activities has political undertones. True or false? I cannot justify. As an academic in training and informed global citizen. I cannot hold this claim without adequate data resulting from experimentation or a court of law verdict to the above.
I took it as a personal challenge to contribute my quota in controlling the minds of the manpower used in perpetrating this inhumane act on fellow humanity. It is my personally belief that education is that solution that mankind needs in solving his myriad problems.
The concept was simple, but highly impact-full from my calculations after sleepless nights analyzing how I can be part of the solution from the viewpoint of an educator. After about three visit to key villages in the North. I and my team approach the villages head and share our idea with them. After much fine-tuning, we got the model to work with.
We demanded for some young men not enrolled in school for a two-day tour to the cities of Lagos and Port-Harcourt. It was hard for them to believe us and our intentions. We pressed on and convinced them further on our mind reorientation aim. With the highest pooh-pooh and scolding I have ever seen in my life, we were listened to and agreement signed.
We returned to Lagos and Port-Harcourt to discuss with some corporate bodies, NGOs, and high-ranked individuals doing exceptional things. Not to request for money but to grant us access to visit them for inspiration to the Northern children. Another turn down, postponement, revisit schedule, etc. A few saw the dream and were willing to partner us in making it a reality.
April 21st, 5:12am, our team in the north set out for Lagos state, South-west Nigeria. Cock-a-hoop and frightening moment for me. Thought of the agreement signed, the poor road, the limited fund, the intention of these children and their parents, fear of an 11th minute turn down from the individuals and companies to visit and other thoughts made me ambivalence. Fast forward, nineteen hours later, the call came in ‘oga Elvis, how na, we dey Lagos’
This meant about twenty percent success. Happy me! 7:00am, the following day, I started calling the individuals and companies we are to visit. By 9:00am, we started our visits. The individuals and employees of these companies welcomed us warmly and started motivating these kids, showing them and granting them access to their exclusive villas, ‘don’t leave’ toilets, impeccable offices, adorable partners, lovely children, exotic cars, and other good things of life, compared to their despicable residence over there and the piteous exercise that goes on over there in the name of living life. The bottom line was Education is the source and rescue from suffering. And it preaches peace and abhor killing, we educated. The next day was for Port-Harcourt. There have since on Saturday returned back to their respective ahomes in the North.
I want to use this medium to thank those who supported the initiative, the companies, NGOs, individuals, transport companies, the Insurance companies that insured us for free, my student friends from my university and other universities in the country. Thanks a bunch.
Introducing Edugist Star: Student/School of the week
From this week on, I will be featuring exceptional students and schools doing great things on this blog. This is to give my dear readers a sense of belonging and sell their solution, potentials and products to a wider audience.
If interested and feel you have what it takes to be featured, please send the below details to elvis.boniface@yahoo.com.:
- Name
- Bio(brief)
- Institution
- Course of Study
- Your proposed solution to our declining state of education
- Any special project you’re carrying out
- And two pictures of you
Note: The decision to feature you is my sole discretion.
