ROOTS, WHAT ARE YOUR COORDINATES?
ROOTS, WHAT ARE YOUR COORDINATES? – Who We Are, Where We Are At, What We Are
But we shall not go into what we are, yet.
As the penning of this write-up was being signed off, a royal call emanated from the Nzem Berom, annual festival, Jos, high up on the Plateau – the call to Mr. President to restore history to our schools. A timely call.
Firstly, you must know your roots.
Secondly, you must be able to locate yourself accurately on the surface of the 🌎 Earth. If you didn’t know your position on the pitch, how well could you possibly play the game?
History defines our origin, which is plotted by geographical coordinates. The Northings and the Eastings on the globe, like the X and Y axis respectively, on the graph table, will pin-point your precise location on the earth’s surface.
Unfortunately, these two subjects, History and Geography were exponged from our secondary school curriculum.
Leaders, who benefitted from the rudiments of these subjects, denied the younger generation of this wonderful experience.
History told us about the World Wars, the Magna Carta 1215, the Tea Party, Slave Trade, Sundiata and the old Empires, of Ghana, Mali, etc;
Mongo Park, first to explore the Upper River Niger, Lander brothers, to the Atlantic Ocean, Foreing Scramble for Africa, etc.
We were thrilled and excited to learn from geography that Longitude nine degrees (9° ) actually passed through one of our physics laboratories at Science School, Kuru.
Geography informed us, from plotting contours in Map Reading, that Kuru is on the Upper Plateau, the Sahara Region. It is also the highest point above mean sea level, msl, where the old railway crosses from the Sahel Savannah in the north, to the southern Climatic Forest Vegetation.
How thrilling to learn that in the Equatorial Hotel, Kenya, one could cross the Equator, by just walking over to the bar. You hold a glass of beer, stand in the Northern Hemisphere and call out to someone on the Southern Hemisphere within the bar room.
Was this wasteful knowledge?
But our leaders today acquired this knowledge decades ago. Are these two subjects responsible for poor leadership today? Therefore, removing them from the syllabus would produce better leaders tomorrow?
Yet, we have reeled back to a historical National Anthem, without prejudice. Many young men grappled to catch-up with the catch-back.
Knowledge cannot be divided. Neither is it wasteful. We’ve seen trained Lawyers, qualified Doctors, Engineers and Architects becoming successful musicians. Their lyrics reflect their depth of knowledge.
What you probably have now are graduate youths milling about in search of non-existent jobs that their fathers had options to choose from after their graduation;
They barely have knowledge of their roots, no trace of their own history, nor the Civil War of their home country. They hear, Biafra, and don’t even know what it was, or how it came about.
They’ve no idea where they are located on the globe in relation to other nations, except of course their DPs on proliferated social media platforms.
They probably don’t know who or where their neighbouring countries are.
We leaned from Primary School that Nigeria is bounded to the left by the Rep. of Benin, before you got to Ghana on the West African Coastline; Camaroun to the right, that’s eastwards by the way; Niger Republic to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south.
Such rudimentary basics! Is this knowledge redundant?
You can see that political structures are not predicated by Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Snapchat, nor Tumblr.
Who are the leaders of tomorrow?
How prepared are they for succession?
The oldies are not about to hand it to them on the platter.Are the youths even motivated? This requires effort.
What motivated our forefathers the likes of Zik, Awo, Balewa, Sadauna, was that they were grounded in history, geo-political world view. And they said to the Colonialists, hey, we need our independence.
This, eventually leads us to what we really are.
Having a few hundred knowledgeable people to rule a population of over 200 millon malnourished citizens bereft of knowledge, won’t be as easy as having 150 million knowledgeable citizens to govern.
When a majority of the population is enlightened, the society becomes civilised. That’s where advancement takes place. Governance is made easier. You don’t need to explain too hard. The people will understand, because they know.
Also, leaders cannot play dubious games with politics, because a knowledgeable and informed society will see through the gamut, and reject them.
Know your roots. Plot your coordinates. Be knowledgeable. Know your position on the global scale. That’s when when you can play well the global political game of survival.
Keep out of trouble.
Keep safe.
# History #Geography #Nigeria #Africa #Knowledge #Governance #Leadership #Politics #World
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