By Ganiu Bamgbose(Ph.D.)

Achebe didn’t know that things were still perfectly in place when he wrote ‘Things Fall Apart’. Even when he wrote ‘There was a Country’ shortly before he died, little did we all know that the country was not at the peak of its madness then. Now we have got there. Anytime from now, this country will metaphorically run into the market.

My problem is not with the talented Laycon or the reality show itself which has the aim of depicting life in exactitude. My problem is not even with the many Nigerians who had/have time to watch the show; after all we relax in different ways. My problem is equally not with the youth who would jump fences and probably resign at their workplaces to partake in the reality show.

My problem is with the government of this country, at all levels, whose moves are hardly calculated in terms of societal effects. Ask them who the winner of the Annual Mathematics Competition for Higher Institutions was last year or in the last 10 years; they most likely are not even aware of such competition. But the winner of a reality show deserves five extra million naira from a state government in a state where people are still facing post-COVID-19 starvation.

ALSO READ: BBNaija: Businessman calls out Laycon for failing to appreciate him

This article aims at informing Nigerian government at all levels that the disregard for intellectualism, intellection and the intelligentsia is a path towards doom.

The domains of life are cognitive, psychomotor and affective. The cognitive domain aims to develop the mental skills and the acquisition of knowledge of the individual. The psychomotor domain takes care of the relationship between cognitive functions and physical movement. In psychomotor learning research, attention is given to the learning of coordinated activity involving the arms, hands, fingers, and feet.

The affective domain involves feelings, attitudes, and emotions. It includes the ways in which people deal with external and internal phenomenon emotionally, such as values, enthusiasms, and motivations.

These domains are represented by educationists as the three H’s namely: the head, the hand and the heart. If the government continues to discourage the youth from activities of mental and cognitive significance through its promotion of social engagements, then things have not even fallen apart yet. If professors continue to starve while singers are heavily paid during political campaigns and rallies and the youth completely lose interest in everything academic and cognitive, the government should be told the story of the animal that, when it gets nothing to eat any longer, it eats itself.

If the Nigerian government further entrenches the valueless state of academics, researchers and other custodians of intellection such that they are no longer models to youth, the ruin will be like a dilapidated heaven: the effect will be felt by all.

If students are perpetually kept at home because the requests of their teachers are not granted, if the zest for teaching and research dies in lecturers because of lack of motivation, if trivialities continue to get prioritised, POSTERITY will fish you all out when we begin to dance naked in the market.

If you keep our collective money for your unborn children, our hungry unborn children will not let yours know peace. Live and let live too!

Dr. Bamgbose is a lecturer.

VANGUARD