My heart is heavy for Plateau state. I weep for our future as Plateau youths. Do we know where we are heading? Or are we lost? What world are we leaving for those to come after us?

Why is it so easy for us to forget where we are coming from? Why do we take what we have for granted? The peace, the freedom, the education, the diversity and the talents of the Plateau people were bought with sacrifice. A price paid by our forefathers and the white missionaries. Now gluttony, recklessness, deceit, disunity and self-centeredness are rife in the Land.

My heart is heavy for Plateau state. I weep for our future as Plateau youths. Do we know where we are heading? Or are we lost? What world are we leaving for those to come after us?

Why is it so easy for us to forget where we are coming from? Why do we take what we have for granted? The peace, the freedom, the education, the diversity and the talents of the Plateau people were bought with sacrifice. A price paid by our forefathers and the white missionaries. Now gluttony, recklessness, deceit, disunity and self-centeredness are rife in the Land.

We are surrounded by enemies everywhere. Yet our disunity cannot allow us explore the strength and potency of our unity. The ‘common interest’ of Plateau seems like a fairy tale. Poverty, Clannishness, tribalism, arrogance and pettiness are barriers that have kept us apart for long and sapped us of the will to fulfill our potential. There is a dearth of selfless Leadership and genuine statesmen in Plateau State, people who are above the narrow concerns of pettiness and selfishness. We seem to be stucked with leaders whose kleptomania defies conscience. We blame others for our insecurities, yet we are our own worst enemies.
There is great danger when majority of the members of a society are uneducated. Crime, poverty and underdevelopment are bound to reside within such a society. The youths of plateau have more to lose since in some few years to come they will be the ones faced with the consequences of the neglect of the education of our youths.

The white missionaries left distant shores to come to Plateau and brought education to our parents and grandparents. This education liberated them from the shackles of ignorance and dominion of the Hausa- Fulani. It gave them confidence and a voice to speak loudly and be heard. Left to northern Oligarchs, we may never have been educated and wither in our ignorant and primordial ways or surrender to their domination. But God is not human and has smiled kindly to our forefathers and we are beneficiaries of education today. It is because of education that our generation has a voice, consciousness and the potential to achieve great things.
Yet, what we have in Plateau state today is abandonment or rather a half-hearted commitment to education. Our public primary and secondary schools are deteriorating in alarming progression. Performance of Plateau students in SSCE or WASCE has been steadily declining over the years. Still, we continue with business as usual. Our government puts human capital development as one of its three-pillar policies. However, we know this has stopped at just words devoid of serious efforts to translate such laudable ideas into reality. Comparatively, states in the north such as Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Yobe etc have granted scholarships to many of their youths home and abroad. I don’t believe the above state governments acted as such because they have enough resources but because they have appreciated the importance of education as the only way to liberate their people from poverty and secure their future. In no distant future, Plateau youths won’t be able to compete favorably and confidently with their counter part from other states. No wonder, even now we are bye passed when it comes to federal appointments and our slots in the Federal civil service are filled by indigenes of other states.

There has never been a society where by the resources are enough to satisfy their needs. The economists came up with the concept of opportunity cost to help utilize the limited resources of a society in order of priority. Plateau state may not be among the richest states in Nigeria, but what have we achieved in the education sector with the little resources we have? I believe where you put your resources is where your priority lies. Yes, other sectors are important. But Plateau state’s greatest resources are not in agriculture, tourism or in its physical infrastructures but in its human resources. Plateau state government must realize the inexcusable need to spend money to develop talents and human resources.

Building new class rooms is not enough. Government must spend resources in training teachers in Plateau state and give incentives to teachers so as to attract the intelligent and dynamic minds. This would change the present situation where people who are frustrated become teachers because they lack what to do and pick up teaching as a last resort. We must change our education to take care of our peculiar needs.

In an article by Richard Chilee in the Citizens Platform, “The Education that will bring the change we desire”, he posited that “this Education should not be restricted to the formal classroom education which has done little in shaping us, which also lacks the basic components of the refining powers of learning and character building. Rather, it the holistic type of education that edifies the mind and soul of an individual, the type that leads to the path of enlightenment. This form of education is invaluable because it has ripples effect, the benefits will last from our generation to the next. It is also important because it is the only way out of our present misery, the way out of our present poverty that our plenty ignorance and callousness has placed us. It is the only way that we can push our beloved country out of her present darkness into the glorious and shining light of prosperity. We must cleanse our minds from prejudice and hate so that whatever we sow therein will yield productive and substantial results for the betterment of our country. The curriculum of this education must be enshrined on transformation and reformation. This curriculum must be the basis upon which we can transform and reform our mindsets from self and money conscious to value and people conscious.”

This education should make us change the way we have been doing things and fortify our faiths to overcome all encumbrances. Richard Chilee buttressed this fact by saying “This education teaches us that we must learn to be aware of our strengths and weaknesses because it is this knowledge that will enable us to transform these weaknesses to strengths. We must eschew the entitlement mentality and learn the importance of work and must find dignity in labor because these have been identified as the greatest means of survival and immense satisfaction. We must learn the benefits of loyalty and obedience to the rule of law because those are the qualities of being a good citizen. We must learn to slow down with the inordinate sense of attachment and blind pursuit of material wealth, because they are fleeting and temporal, today’s gold will gradually become tomorrow’s copper. We must understand that we deserve the right to demand from the society but only that which we have given to it. We must learn to make costly sacrifices for the betterment of the society and if we fail to make sacrifices, then, we must demand nothing from the society.

We must learn to respect and appreciate the sanctity of human life, the sacredness of marriage and the gift of companionship. We must learn the benefits of the possibility mentality, because through it, we can always expand our horizons and achieve all that we think is possible. We must learn the importance of self-love and empathy, for it is a precondition to loving others. We must also learn the importance of unflinching patriotism. We must train our minds to shun greed; selfishness and intolerance, for these are the extremes of wretchedness and wickedness. We must educate ourselves to embrace every ethnic and religious group we may find for these are the pinnacle of our unity in diversity… We must teach ourselves to concentrate more on our similarities rather than our differences, as only this will bring the order out of our present state of chaos. We must understand that obstacles are challenges we must face, hence, we must possess the strength of character, the mental toughness and physical alertness to identify and defeat those obstacles and transform them to positive realities. We must do what we need to do so that we can do what we want to do. We must learn to separate our needs from our wants. Finally, we must learn the importance of being grateful to God and embrace concern for our fellowmen; this will give us the powers to have unwavering and unflinching trust in God… We also have to make an ego free admission that the ways we do things are bad and we need new and more effective ways in doing things.”

In conclusion, education and human resource development go hand in hand and should be given due attention because of their potential to harness other resources to help in the attainment of the Plateau of our dream with abundant resources and immense riches. The time has come to act differently. The price for neglect of education is too great to be silent. Plateau youths must realize what is at stake and raise their voices in unison to call into action all the authorities concern.

Dr Daniel Meshak
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Mesh007

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HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING & THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN PLATEAU STATE: A CALL TO ACTION BY DR. DANIEL MESHAK