Teachers should start talking to their students
By Abbas Abubakar Umar
On several occasions the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes commission, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu has called on all Nigerian citizens to own the fight against corruption. According to Magu, the fight against corruption is not for the EFCC alone. At some point, the attention of the chairman was on Nigerian youths for the simple fact that Nigerian youths form over sixty percent of the population and they are also the leaders of tomorrow, hence the need for them to own the fight against corruption.
I have every reason to argue that Nigerian youths are lazy, but come to think about it, it is the same youths that perpetrate various corruption related crimes. They are the Yahoo boys, perpetrate bank fraud, they are in the love scam, money laundering, kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry, political thuggery, terrorism, etc. Instead of them to embrace what will benefit them and move their country forward, some of them feel engaging in these crime is the only way out of the current situation.
The Nigerian youth also have shown exceptional skill in innovation and entrepreneurship, and have excelled in the field of technology. All of these knowledge, skills, innovation and entrepreneurship were taught to these students by their teachers and lecturers from their nursery schools to the university. These youths were taught also on how to be good citizens, ambassadors and leaders in the future and all these were taught to them by their teachers. Some of these youths later in their life become doctors, teachers, journalists, business men and women, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scientist, security personnel and what have you.
All of these were once inspired to them by their teachers and lecturers. Day and night teachers motivate their students to be what they want to be in the future. The teachers encourage them to go for what they want and stay away from what will harm them and their country. These teachers too advise students to stay away from all evil acts that can destroy their future and the future of their country. It is these teachers that advice students to hold high the flag of the country and be proud of it anywhere they go in the world and stay away from anything that can damage the image of the country in the eyes of the world.
My point here is that the role of teachers in the life of a student can never be overemphasized and one can hardly come to terms with the role of teachers in the life, development, progress, success, and the overcoming of a student challenge throughout his or her life. Back in school, and in those days we were told that “the reward of teachers is in heaven.” And unless we are all hypocritical to this fact, the reward of teachers is definitely in heaven because we can hardly pay them what they did in our lives. We have seen teachers walking on the streets while we drive expensive cars. I cannot imagine comparing some of our salaries with that of our teachers.
In recent times, students of higher institutions from different parts of the country were arrested by the EFCC on the allegation that they are engaged in various forms of internet fraud; Yahoo Yahoo, love scam, etc. One of the negative effect of this is that they are not only doing it to citizens of this country, they do it to every victim, be it citizen of foreigner. They go extra mile to whisk away all the little money one has in his or her account in the name of love or something else. A confessing yahoo boy recently said he engaged in the crime to fund his school fees.
In recent past, the Economic and financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has arraigned so many students before different judges in different courts of the federation. They were tried, convicted and sentenced to different punishment. Only few were set free because investigation has revealed that they are innocent of the crime.
It is my view that school is the second home to students and teachers are students’ second parent. Whatever a teacher says to his students, they listen and adhere to it, they even ponder and work on what they were told by the teachers. It is my view that no teacher will ever encourage his students to be a criminal, perpetrate crime or aid and abate crime in the society. Again, when it comes to image, teachers and school of higher institution will never want their image, and that of their school and country at large, to be dented. Hence the need for this passionate plea to every institution and teachers to renew the effort in putting sense into their students. To make them see the evil of these crimes they are engaging themselves in, and remember an African proverb that says “a child is what you put into him.”
Umar wrote this piece from Jabi, Abuja