In the spirit of 4th of July, read this except from Nnamdi Azikiwe (the 1st President of Nigeria) reflecting on his time in America.
Opportunities in Nigeria under British colonial rule were limited. So in 1925, Azikiwe came by ship to the U.S for higher education. He was only 21 years old.
Life wasn’t easy for him in the new country. While there, he worked menial jobs to get by and pay for school. He also experienced discrimination & lived under segregation at the time.
But he gained so much too. He made lifelong friends, found mentors & discovered more of himself through public speaking, writing and taking on leadership roles at school.
When he left the U.S. 9 years later, he was moved to tears, writing, “My life is a testimonial that Americans shared life's pleasures and walked the honest road with me… I am a living witness”
These experiences shaped him & shaped Africa: He founded UNN (the first indigenous Nigerian university), modeled after the American education system. He started West African Pilot, a publication that revolutionized journalism & challenged colonial rule.
No, America wasn’t perfect, but his story reminds us that it has long been a place where people from anywhere can grow into their fullest potential through hard work & “pioneering” spirit.
America took a young man with no fortune or fame & helped shape him to someone who changed history.
As Azikiwe wrote, “It is only in the United States that any human being can live in a free environment which will give that individual full scope to develop his personality to the full, in spite of the vagaries of human life.”
To me, that's one of America's greatest strengths. For 250 years, it has never stopped re-examining itself, improving & growing. Here's to the next 250.
Happy America Day!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Do you know how insane the match had to be for the greatest football terrorist manager of all time, “Diego Simeone”, to bow his head and start praying to God 😭
You're not young, you can't know what works better for us.
We've seen your generation's "I know better" ideas before and how braindead they usually are.
Only an African boomer thinks it's a good idea to lock up young people for six weeks in a decrepit camp, all in the name of teaching them entrepreneurship.
@Rxbremen@olaoluwajedalo Actually, no. Subsidy removal wasn't a theoretical good. It was a clear public finances reform. It didn't go worse in reality, expectations were just poorly managed from the start.
The program isn't what is holding up free education, it is ensuring that it never becomes quality.
We cannot keep complaining about limited space in the room while ignoring the elephant standing in it.
The only reason this programme sounds “relevant” to the stakeholders who designed it is because our universities have failed to deliver the minimum required of it.
If our universities were still true citadels of learning, why would we be discussing general leadership and entrepreneurship training—essentially General Studies 101—for a group of graduates?
A university graduate is expected to be a stakeholder, ready to contribute to national development through expertise in their chosen field, not someone who still needs six weeks of general studies after earning a degree.
Don’t get me wrong (if you like do, that’s your business), I’m not saying graduates are omniscients who shouldn’t upskill and improve themselves, my point is that NYSC cannot solve the systemic decay in our education. We can reform it all we like
We need to be honest with ourselves fr and back into the room and address the elephant.