These are definitely trying times in Nigeria. Almost everything is being politicised.
Before the Anambra state elections, there were reports of the army offering medical services to primary school pupils. I don’t want to discuss whether or not the soldiers were supposed to be there at that point.
However, the fact is that some parents went to the schools to withdraw their children for that day. It was rumoured that the soldiers were giving the children poisonous injections to decimate the population of the southeast even though the army came out to defend themselves.
It turned out that the army was only reaching out to assist the children medically.
A similar situation is currently unfolding in Ogun State. The Ministry of Health is conducting an inoculation exercise in conjunction with the office of the governor’s wife. Rumours suggest that poison is being pumped into the pupils.
It is so severe that the office of the Commissioner of Health had to act earnestly to end the lingering rumours.
There is no iota of truth in it.
What comes to my mind is the period we were in primary school. We trusted the teachers so much that we held them as authorities on everything. And when I say everything, I mean just that.
Our parents too respected them so much that anytime we were up to some childish mischief, they would just threaten us with our teachers. Once they did that, they could be sure we would be forced to maintain the peace.
At school, the average teachers carried themselves so well that most of them were our heroes, even though nearly every one of them could use the cane very well.
When it was time for nomba, as we used to call inoculation in those days, the teachers did not need to seek our parents’ permission. That was because our parents trusted our teachers. They were capable locus parentis. In any case, our teachers’ wards also attended our school.
But then, there was hardly any political interference in our education in those days. We had a very qualitative education, and it was free.
We should not be seen equipping our children with the embers of the abundance of hatred we possess. Instead, we should try to preach love to our wards as much as possible.
Could we refrain from dragging our young ones into the murky waters of Nigeria’s politics?
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