In it, there lies a dangerous legend growing at a speed faster than the growing meadows in the fen, this ‘Boko’! It means different things to different people. The most popular notion implied in the concept of ‘Boko’ has been its association with the utter vulgarity of today’s ‘Boko Haram’ – its decorousness. Whereas the literal meaning in this coinage refers to Western education as Islamically forbidden, its technical meaning refers to ‘Westernization’ as ‘sacrilegious’. However, it’s crystal clear that many of the pretenses imbued in the teachings of BH−whether sacrilegious or forbidden have disagreed with those of Islam.
However, the most dangerous legend associated with this ‘Boko’ as preserved in the old historical notes, and still aching over in our memories today has been the hostile abhorrence, still in the Northern region, of anything ‘Western’ (or simply the ‘Nassara thing’) including western education. Despite the significance in the past of the influence of the Native Authorities, the fear that their children would be lured into accepting Christian gospel through the teaching of Bible and enforced listening of classical British music in colonial schools, many northerners detested this ‘Boko’, and consequently, therefore, placidly rejected western education. In addition to their suspicion, many northerners considered western education as morally evil, because it tended to drag their children into becoming “Yan Iska”, through the readings of classical British novelists, like Charles J.H. Dickens, Rider Haggard−a.k.a ‘KBE’, among others. Plays like ‘Henry IV’, ‘As You Like It’, ‘The Mid-Summer Night Dream’; and, games like Badminton, Squash Hockey, Lawn Tennis, etc re-enforced this sentiment.
Drawn from these old memories, many in today’s Northern Nigeria to perceive ‘Boko’ as mere shady habits – of ‘cisgender romance’: dancing, dressing, hanging out with friends, talking/charting, eating, drinking, and all sorts of the art of the west. In the post-modern world, however, this perception closely matches the relaxed ambiance in today’s world-of-dress-sex-and-money! Fortunately, the educated as well as the experienced elite from the region, notwithstanding, were, contrarily an exception rather than the rule. This is for fact that not all who gained entry into Western education were ‘habitually’ Western. The decades-old syllable, ‘Glocalization’-thinking globally and acting locally’ no doubt deprecates the indulgence that’s today’s all ‘Boko’ -the name with which we’re all bad-mouthed!
The legend associated with ‘Boko’, which I fancy to emphasise, and which possibly keeps pushing us into the morass, is that which underlined western education as valueless and, of course, presents its attendees (‘Yan Boko’) with the guilty of job insecurity, faultiness and down-right stupidity. This unjust lameness does not worth the image of a person attending a university, a college of education, or a polytechnic. Much as its plight becomes noticeable, the travails with this ‘Boko’ have been the result of the utter vulnerability of the Nigerian leadership- one that failed to synchronise the propelling motions of its national economy. One that failed to impactfully acknowledge the significance of education in the pursuit of its market-oriented economy, industrialisation, agricultural productivity−and food processing, health, art and entertainment, and many more that cannot be bettered up without the promotion of skill acquisition and manpower productivity.
The value of education has today become unsalable, and this is merely because of the growing perceptible and indeed unnecessary difference, in its purpose and objectives with those of the national economy. Education in Nigeria has always been abstracted and treated all alone, (as mere acquisition of certificate) away from the national economic need. Advanced economies in the World direct their education (academic) researches towards achieving national economic goals and objectives. They do not, unlike we do, fall short of clear focus, inter-sectoral linkages, and coordinated national economic strategy.
To many, as it sounds in the North today, ‘Boko’ is ‘asara’ (a complete waste of energy, time, and resources)! Reading and studying in the name of ‘Boko’ is, therefore, assumed to have become mere ‘fetishism of a jobless bibliophile−a desperate ‘bookworm’! Those who subscribe to ‘Boko’ are seen in some quarters as the most gullible ones indeed! Trading (Kasuwanci) is now the powerful buzzword set in the opposite – misdirecting the educational purpose to the sheer follies of individualism and primitive accumulation.
We all, therefore, (both the boastful ‘Yan Kasuwa and blush-faced ‘Yan Boko’) must have felt sorry for ourselves as a country, because to even lament that Nigeria is too late in this sense, is of course, another waste of time. This country has been ruled for almost 40 years by now i.e. since shucking off, by this same president, of the Fourth National Development Plan (1981-1985) following the overthrow of the civilian government of Shehu Shagari. What we had since then were mere flaws of wishy-washy programmes like the ‘Rolling Plan’, ‘Vision Plan’ Obasanjo’s NEEDS, Yar’adua’s 7-Point Agenda, Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda, etc., which still failed to take the place of the previous development plans. This indiscreet manner of not having a well-grounded national economic development plan has left the country with uncoordinated sectors of the economy – each standing ‘corruptly’ independent from another without inter-sectoral linkages. This blunder amounted to the failure of government not deliberate on a common framework that could drive the private sector forward to the direction of achieving national economic goals and objectives.
To this end, I suggest we should understand that education is inseparable from the national economy. In the normal sense, the objectives set up for the latter define the direction of the former. It’s heart-rending that today, the growing gap in the generational mismatch of ideas keeps building bridges between education and other sectors. Even more wretchedly, is the dying purpose of education because of the failing national economic-cum-leadership prospects.
From the foregoing comes into realisation the dangerous urban legend ‘Boko’, echoing something as worthless as it increasingly becomes lenient to government, the only job creator in this sense. OMG!!
Misbahu writes via [email protected]
