In politics educated or learned is overrated

Education is overrated. The signs are everywhere of educated people behaving badly. Last week, a colleague of mine posted a Facebook SOS. He was ‘arrested’ in the line of duty – journalism by a police inspector. Inspectors are supposed to know who qualifies to be on essential duty but then education is overrated. In Benue, […]

Education is overrated. The signs are everywhere of educated people behaving badly. Last week, a colleague of mine posted a Facebook SOS. He was ‘arrested’ in the line of duty – journalism by a police inspector. Inspectors are supposed to know who qualifies to be on essential duty but then education is overrated.

In Benue, Susan Okpe nee Lawani flew in from the United Kingdom just as the lockdown was being announced. She made it to Benue before she was arrested and sent to an isolation centre where, for over a month she has refused to be tested and has not shown any sign or symptom of Covid-19 as Benue’s so-called index patient. Government has reportedly refused to release her lending to the belief that COVID-19 is another avenue for corruption.

Now, corruption is embedded in the Nigerian Covid-19 strategy. Our government cannot produce the register for the first disbursement of the N20,000 to the first 2.6 million before an extra one million was added. The poor beneficiaries don’t want to be the poster persons of poverty, but they collected our cash.

Now, we are doing school feeding with schools under lockdown. At inception, school feeding was meant to encourage parents doubting the essence of education to send their children to school knowing that they are guaranteed one hot meal – or is it three? Let’s hope there’s a register of those kids and that they are not camera and microphone shy. Those insisting that the poor are camera-shy of their poverty are educated but their education is overrated.

Two Facebook friends, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju and Ajokeade Ilori initiated palliative measures on Facebook. You wouldn’t believe that Facebook users are poor! But people lined up on their timeline and received help. There were similar initiatives on Twitter. If you believe that the poor of Facebook and Twitter are not camera-shy, but the unwashed masses don’t want to be identified as poor, your education is overrated.

Ignore what Prof Farooq Kperogi has to say about the dichotomy between being learned and being educated. In Nigeria, even if you are a professor, you are educated; not learned, that is how we roll. Only lawyers are learned, so forget corona, hug a lawyer, its legal!

You have to be educated to be learned. That is what makes Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State’s case a double tragedy. Wike is supposedly educated and learned. According to Richard Akinnola, a truly educated and learned journalist and lawyer, Wike is not just a lawyer; he is a life bencher.

Lawyers, even the basic charge and bail ones are presumed to understand the principles of legality and civilised conduct. For if the gold of being learned rusts, imagine what happens to the wood of merely being educated. Wike has consistently exhibited traits that show how overrated it is to be a life bencher. From insulting traditional rulers, to maliciously berating senior uniformed officers sent to help him secure the state.Wike is a perfect example of a loose canon and how being learned is overrated.

As the poster boy of the official opposition, a.k.a the other hand of the same body, he doesn’t hide his contempt for the Oga at the Top in Abuja or any order that comes from him. That type of opposition gets loud handclaps in several quarters especially those opposed to the torpor that Abuja represents.

As Fela would say, COVID-19 has brought out the beast in Wike. He announced a land and air lockdown and arranged kangaroo courts to jail offenders. When that failed he resorted to executive orders (a la Donald Trump). Through it, Wike must personally license those he categorises as being on essential services. Dr L.L. Nwidu, a pharmacist won’t forget Wike in a hurry. The director of Port Harcourt based Luckpharm Pharmacy and his staff were harassed by Wike’s orders for opening their pharmacy store.

To be considered on essential services by Wike standards, you must be treating patients in a hospital. Your identity card won’t save you.

Wike ordered those caught violating his lockdown in vehicles to be quarantined and their vehicles impounded. Somehow he forgot to order the amputation of the legs of foot violators. Seized vehicles, he boasted would be auctioned – cheaply likely at the price of the measure of crayfish and periwinkle.

Wike gave hoteliers less than 12 hours to produce a guest manifest that must remain as constant as the North Star. When he showed up at two hotels allegedly flouting his order, he arrived with bulldozers and mauled down the buildings. In law school, the legal maxim nemo judet in causa sua has no meaning to Wike who became the accuser, prosecutor and executioner in his own cause. Not shocking at all, Wike gets loud praises from people who should be locked away from other rational beings. Wike’s claim to being educated and learned is overrated.

He has friends in Yahaya Bello of Kogi who threatened to quarantine those sent to help his state identify and treat Covid-19 patients. Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers, the apostle of masked people need not observe social distancing. Wike would share the same ward with David Umahi of Ebonyi who orders his citizens to be flogged.

Next time you beat yourself silly for not being educated or learned, just remember neither of these would matter if you were infected with the incurable virus of authoritarianism that makes the credentials of Wike and his co-travellers questionable.