I have repeated this tale several times in the past. I shall not tire of recounting it because of its significance. It is a powerful message for governments. It is a true-life story that took place when the current Vice-President of Nigeria was Governor of Borno State.
I visited him in Maiduguri, the State capital, at a time when the city was under the siege of Boko Haram. I went there to sell him the seeds of an idea, and to propose a test-run.
Boko Haram means ‘Western Education is forbidden’. Insurgents were on a rampage, trying to terminate any romance between the people, particularly the youths, and Western education and culture. Both were considered offensive to their culture and religion. Young boys and girls were being hounded and routed from schools, and their parents persecuted.
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The kidnapping of ‘the girls from their dormitory in a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, was the climax of an odyssey that generated a global outcry. It also fueled Nigeria’s record of having the largest number and concentration of out-of-school children in the world. The figure is put conservatively at between 15 and 18 million Nigerian youths, mostly based in the North East of Nigeria, with Borno State as its epicenter!
Children were forced to abandon schooling. They became ready tools for the devil’s workshop, easy recruits into the army of insurgents and miscreants, pawns in the societal vices games, the oxygen of joblessness, hunger, poverty and disease.
I ‘sold’ to Mr. Kashim Shettima my humble idea that was already being tested for efficacy in a small ‘laboratory’ of learning that I had set up to address issues related to the eradication of hunger, poverty and disease through Sport. The goal was to provide young people a smooth and easier pathway into the lucrative global world of Sport, an eco-system that can impact and empower youths like no other human activity, and be deployed cleverly to reduce the physical and mental devastation of the people of Borno State.
My idea was interesting to Governor Shettima. He bought it. If it would help in the reduction of illiteracy, which is the mother of hunger, poverty, disease, juvenile delinquencies, joblessness, and so on, then, we are good to go.
It is a simple deduction. Boko Haram and Illiteracy were bedfellows. Tackling illiteracy means destroying one of the arteries of Boko Haram. That means increasing education in that society. It is a tough call. Sport must find an inroad into the mix.
To promote Sport and Education successfully became my strategy, a major component of my sponsoring-motivation for the establishment of a special institution that would become a litmus test for my theorem.
That was the vision that birthed the Segun Odegbami International College and Sports Academy, a place to test the efficacy of Sport as a tool that can fight illiteracy to a stand-still, amongst many other goals.
But how can this work?
Sport is the carrot!
It is the passion and dream of most youths to be rich and famous through sport.
So, put Sport upfront to parents even in Borno State, put their children in a safe and conducive environment ‘far from the distractions of regular hustle and bustle, ‘feed’ them with rigorous physical and mental training in Sport and watch a ‘miracle’ sprout.
Also Read: Diary Of One Great Week Of Sports! —Odegbami
This can only be achieved and sustained if an institution is established for that purpose. Such an institution already existed, I told the Governor. He could take a cue from SOCA when the experiment I proposed worked and set up a similar institution in Borno State. So, we agreed to test it.
I asked for two students to start the experiment. The State government sent five of them to me in SOCA. The government paid their fees for the 3 years they were to spend in senior secondary school (they had all purportedly completed their JS3 class).
The children came willingly not primarily for the academics but for the Sport. They met other students from different parts of the country that were also like them not for academics, but for Sport.
The school contained mostly young boys and girls more interested to pursue their sports dream and less interested in academics.
Our challenging responsibility was to gently change that mindset – still give them all the Sport they wanted but, side by side, provide the essential and compulsory academics, served a la carte.
The academics were a special program designed for children with learning difficulty by experts from the UK, adopted and administered to fit the domestic national educational curriculum. It is an easier learning process. Subjects were delivered more pictorially than usual, and are more practical in an environment far from distractions.
From ages 10/11 to 16/17 they remain in this ‘camp’ and get ‘indoctrinated’ in values that guarantee success in Sport – team work, friendship, discipline, independent thinking, leadership, service to humanity, and patriotism to country.
Now, what was the result of the experiment with the Borno -5?
Well, when the students arrived, their Sport talent was less than average; they could barely speak the language of instruction, English; and they were zero in numeracy and most other subjects.
Also Read: ‘Sport Has The Power To Change The World – How True?’ –Odegbami
They were some of the least qualified of all the students ever recruited into SOCA. It was good for the experiment that followed.
They started in SS1 and spent three years in the ‘laboratory’ in Wasimi.
Three of them completed their studies and passed their WAEC exams. Two of the 5 needed to spend an additional year to be ready to graduate. Meanwhile, Governor Shettima had left office. There was no one to pursue their fees again, and they opted for careers in the domestic league that never went anywhere.
Abdulfatai Mohammed is now 23. He graduated from the University of Maiduguri with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently serving in Abuja in the NYSC scheme.
Lawal Bukar is a final year HND undergraduate at the Ramat Polytechnic in Borno State studying Computer Science.
Abdullahi Mohammed is also a final year undergraduate studying Agricultural Engineering in the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.
Between these three we have the living evidence of an effective catalyst in the country to kick-start a revolution on tackling the seemingly intractable issues of illiteracy, job creation, youth empowerment, entrepreneurship, leadership and patriotism amongst the youths of the country. We can ride on the back of SPORT and Academics.
