I have been engaging in serious thinking recently and I still couldn't stop wondering what can be done. I wish my thinking could bring solution. I feel we are responsible for the malady in the society today. I got so pained that I didn't know that my students could see me speaking to myself. The question I have been asking myself is "who will feed us in the next 20years?"
Why this question?
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Registration of students into senior school has been ongoing since the beginning of the term. In my school we have eight classrooms for Ss1 students. Presently the population of the Art students is approximately three times of both Science and Commercial students. I had to interview these art students and majority of them said they want to study theatre art. I was quiet and sad. Why am I sad? these young ones are a victim of the societal error. We celebrate Actors and Actresses but never celebrated the Farmers. I was once like them I hated teaching because teachers of those days are recognized by their Okirika (second hand) shoes, their big dresses and old weavons. But I said to myself I must be different. Thank God I am.
None of these Ss1 students want to become a farmer. Why? They are not ready for hard labour. They want to work in the offices, hospitals and be celebrities, then who will grow their food? Nigeria is crying for high prices now and then, it wasn't like this with our fathers. They were not educated but they are hardworking. As education contributed to our laziness? No, we are the one encouraging laziness. I could remember how students work on Thursdays on the school farm then, no more school farm in some areas. Even many are running from villages to Cities because they see how farmers are suffering.
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I could remember a time we were agitating for separation in Nigeria, we wanted the three major ethinic group to be on their own. To some extent, I feel the Hausas has nothing to loose, they have been the major supplier of food crops. I wondered how many tomatoes will be sold at the rate of Five hundred Naira in the next three years if we can hardly get fifteen now. Yet our young ones are not encourage to become farmers, to rear animals and become exporters.
Another malady in our society is the fact that everybody wants to build house, we have used the available land for building. I pity some states in Nigeria they have sold land to the extent of selling rivers as land. No land for planting and grazing, no trees, no rivers and most of our natural habitat are destroyed. What happened to the houses our parents built? An Hausa man will acquire land and build a small house the remaining space is for planting and rearing of animals. The houses we will leave one day, the mansion you built today will become unoccupied after you are gone. Hmmm..
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I will conclude by saying let appreciate our farmers, let's have the world Farmers Day celebration like the Christmas celebration. Let celebrate the major celebrities. Government should fund Agriculture, provide incentives to farmers, build quarters for farmers, employ youths as farmers, engage in
large scale food crop production, animal rearing and cash crop production, provide machineries and loans to farmers,. Parents should plant crops even in their environment, encourage these young ones to learn farming. I pray we don't experience famine that will make us to start killing each other as food. Thanks for reading my post.
