In this piece, we present excerpt from Professor Ayobami
Ojebode’s lecture titled The
dream, challenges, and reality of contemporary Nigeria for fresh graduates and delivered during The Polytechnic Ibadan's 34th Convocation ceremony held recently. Professor Ojebode is
the current Head of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University
of Ibadan.
In 2007, I conducted
research on media consumption and students’ migration intention on this campus.
We held several focus group discussions and analysed the media contents that
students patronised. It was amazing to find a very high level of migration desperation
among students on this campus; nearly everyone that we involved in the focus
group discussions wanted to migrate. Nearly everyone thought that life in
Nigeria was the worst that anybody could imagine. They held a completely naïve,
unrealistic and romantic idea of life in Europe and America. Not only this, they
believed very much that one should do everything to get out of Nigeria no
matter how dangerous that might be (Togunde, Ojebode & Vocke, 2010).
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| Professor Ayobami Ojebode |
In 2017, I conducted
another study using a method called life-world ethnography. I had photographs
of people who had died on the sea or in the desert trying to migrate to Europe.
Then I asked my research discussants to join me in exploring, explaining and
discussing these photographs. I was surprised to see that the photographs did
not change anything about the intention of my respondents to migrate to Europe
and America. Their reasoning was that Nigeria was hell: if you stayed you were
sure of dying; if you tried to migrate at least there was a chance you might
live.
Also Watch: Professor Ayobami Ojebode's inaugural lecture
This trend has not changed; Nigerians continue to migrate using
dangerous methods and paths to try to get to Europe and America. Yet life in those
places is far from being what the media make it to look like. In 2017, an
article by The Guardian shows the level of poverty among professors in the
United States of America. So poor were some professors that they were sleeping
in their cars because they could not afford any housing – decent or indecent. These
were not the regular uneducated people or poor street people; they were
university professors. Imagine this: if a white university professor was so
poor that he could only live in his car, what would happen to you with a higher
national diploma or a university degree from Nigeria who want to compete for a
living with that professor in his or her country?
A few days ago,
a friend of mine shared with me a 46-minute documentary by Sebastian Gilles.
This is a 2019 video titled “How Poor People Survive in the USA”. The video
shows an extremely incredible level of poverty in America; homelessness is
widespread cutting across all categories: male and female, white and black.
Among them is Maria, a 54-year old caregiver and cleaner. Maria works nine
hours a day and seven days a week. Yet she could not afford a house and lives
in her car in a free car park. There are about 30 others living in that car
park. They include “security guards, secretaries and even computer
technicians”. They were employed, but then they were homeless.
In the same documentary
we also meet Eric, a 53-year old computer engineer who also lives in his car
and survives on leftover pizza, somewhere in Southern California. He is male;
he is white, and he is educated. He is a “son of the soil”, a citizen but he has
been homeless for over a year.
In the 19th
minute of the documentary, we meet a family with two kids who live on food
stamps. The dad says they eat only once a day – “I eat only dinner”. They are
white Americans. Now that President Donald Trump wants to cut down on food
stamps, one wonders what would happen to that couple and their children.
Further on, we
are shown Los Angeles which actually means the “City of Angels”. Here a good
part of the city is being dotted by slum-like ramshackle tents. There we find
couples, some of them with children who live in tents under bridges. The City
of Angels is, in reality, plagued by the demons of poverty and inequality. That
you do not see beggars in American films does not mean there are no poor people
in the US; it is because in some cities of the US, begging is prohibited. I
plead with you, before attempting to migrate illegally to the United States,
watch that documentary, “How Poor People Survive in the USA”.
If you would
not believe the documentary, at least, consider my testimony. In 2018, during the wicked cold in February
which was called the Beast from the East, I briefly visited the United Kingdom
for a research meeting. Right beside the plush hotel where I was lodged was a
man sleeping outside on the cold floor almost all covered in snow. I looked
down the street from the Brighton Central Station, and there were more “human
heaps” like that one. These had no homes; they were white and British, and it
was savagely cold.
This is the
reality of Europe and America that the media hardly tell us about. They show us
the shopping malls, the beautiful streets, Christmas lights, train stations and
cars but they do not show us the truth. And, on our part, because we are angry
with our country (and we have good reasons to be angry!), we do not process the
media images of these countries in any critical way. Nigerians who live abroad
also hardly tell us the whole truth: when they come home they “spray” money and
display wealth but behind every drop of a dollar there are ten drops of blood
and sweat. This too they hide from all of us.
Rather than
seeking to migrate by all means, the graduate in the contemporary reality of
Nigeria should work hard and work smart. He or she must keep on developing the
human capital. What is that latest software on your discipline? Acquire it;
learn it. Who is that expert nearby in your field? Talk to her or him to
apprentice with him without pay. Rather than mope; learn to grow.
Where is that
NGO trying to serve the disadvantaged? Commit to volunteering with them for a
month. Even if you are not paid, you do not degenerate. This is only how skills
are acquired. Or is it that training on public speaking or small and
medium-scale business management? Jump on it. Is it a writing competition? Who
should be there if not you? What books are you reading right now? Do you know
of Whattpad or all you know is WhatsApp? Are you aware of the thousands of free
online courses that you can take and be at par with your contemporaries
anywhere in the world? When Alabi Pasuma says “mi o sùn ni mo fi sún [I
progressed because I did not sleep], he is talking of deliberately improving
the human capital.
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