THE LIVES OF ELITES IN NIGERIA
Growing up in the village with my grandmother, there are certain lessons of life which were instilled in me as a little child. These lessons learnt are still guiding me to this present day. One of them is the character and culture of the rich. I was also meant to know the ways and manners of the rich as clearly different from the deviants and wayward. This was not a strange thing when I later came across it in my course of studying sociology.
Riches, I believe should make men wiser. The richer a man becomes the wiser he should be. This is not far fetched from the fact that a rich man had experienced difficulties, problems, and hardship of any kind, having stood against all odds to acquire what he has now. All these amount to why a rich man is considered to be wiser than his counterparts considered paupers.
However in Nigeria, reverse is the case. This may be due to the fact that many so called rich men in our country get their wealth through fraudulent means, illegal acts, dubious practices and unethical ways. Judging by the standard of living of the elites, they are seen in the society as being reserved, cultured, tamed, easy going, e.t.c, ruling out the few exceptions. Every poor person on the street refers to them as pacesetters, and often cautions their children to grow up and emulate them.
But, how do we explain the unruling behavior of our so-called rich men in this country. To be specific, it is the rich we see behind the wheels following one-way, disobeying the traffic rules. A rich man in Nigeria is seen boxing and wrestling the poor man for hitting his car on the road.
In education, the influence of these elites of ours has led to deteriorations of academic standard, quality of education and hence, nature of graduates from our higher institutions. For instance, it is the rich we find driving their wards to ‘Special Center’ for external examinations like JAMB, NECO, and WASSCE. They influence the supervisors and even the security men at the entrance.
In schools, the rich always fight against their children being demoted for low performances thereby withdraw such students and immediately register them for GCE or while in the process of completing SS2 class, the child is writing WASSCE elsewhere. How do we explain a situation in which a student who is yet to make 55% average pass mark in SS1 is immediately registered for WASSCE because he wants to leave the country as soon as possible?
Indiscipline in our private schools is growing at alarming rate as result of ‘the rich factor’. Students are always right for whatever offence they commit. There is always contention in several private schools among the teachers and the rich parents as regard discipline. Often times, these rich men are so confident to disregard any form of respect for the teachers. They walk into school premises arrogantly to slap, yell and sometimes beat up teachers who for one reason or the other impose disciplinary actions on their wards. Even the principals of these private schools are not spared. They persistently advocate for the abolition of cane in schools in schools and this they have achieved reasonable results. In such schools, teachers are seen as underdogs and must not in any case discipline their wards or else their appointment terminated.
As a teacher, it is my desire to teach in standard and well-paid private schools. However, the higher the school fees of such schools, the higher the level of indiscipline. Therefore, for a disciplined person who at the sight of indiscipline gets irritated, I have to endure the pay where there is a considerate level of discipline.
It is therefore, high time we began to talk sense into our rich men. The deviant and unruling behavior of these rich men are what we see day-to-day in the lives of their children whom we consider future generation. The future of this country is in the hands of these upcoming generations, both the poor and the rich alike. There is urgent need for us to wake up to our responsibility of African tradition, which had preserved the past generation from decay and to perpetuate the name of our dear country Nigeria among community of nations
