Nasarawa community where only ‘the lazy’ are sent to school
The only ‘graduate’ in Tako community of Lafia Local Government in Nasarawa State holds an NCE which he obtained in 2014 and that was because he was considered too ‘skinny’ for farming.
Forty-year-old Ezekiel Danjuma Akpe is referred to as the ‘Leader of the Learned’ or ‘King of Education’ in Tako. His completion of the National Certificate of Education (NCE) in 2014 from the Nasarawa State College of Education, Akwanga, makes him the only graduate in the community of about 2000 agrarian dwellers who, despite government and nongovernmental interventions including those from international agencies, did not deemed it necessary to go to school.
The age-long tradition that only the lazy sits down and listens to a foreign language when they are supposed to be spending their precious times on the farm to provide food for their families and show off their farming prowess subsists and is still relished in Tako.
In a chat with Daily Trust during the visit of the Board of Directors of ActionAid Nigeria to Azuba Bashayi and Tako communities in Lafia Local Government of Nasarawa State, Akpe said;
“I naturally loved farming like everyone here. But elders and family members said I was too slim, frail-looking and would not be useful in the farm. That was how I was sent to school. My case was the first in my circumstance, others sent to schools in my community were those perceived to be too lazy and irredeemably unuseful in the farm.
“Even at that, there are some children who wanted to go to school, but are more afraid of being seen to be weak or lazy and thus chose to enjoy the pride of being labeled a strong farmer. Things have only changed a bit as the only school we have here is in full session being run in the mornings and evenings for the young and adults respectively,” Akpe told Though it is unwritten, females in the community until recently were not allowed any access to formal education and are still being promptly married off when they reach age 13.
He recalled that 2004 was the first time any vehicle, a Hilux cabin, visited the community and many residents fled into the bush after sighting it for the first time.
He described the non-availability of access roads to the community as a contributory factor, as the people can only transport their farm produce to neighbouring communities and local markets through footpaths.
As the headmaster of the only primary school in the community, Akpe said he single handedly founded the school in 1999 to help his people overcome the challenges of illiteracy.
He said the school was once destroyed by herdsmen during the farmers-herders clashes