That education and health care should be free in Nigeria need not be over emphasized. Nations set their priorities based on their political and social economic challenges. Considering Nigeria’s historical antecedents, especially black Africa’s well known third world or under-developed circumstances, one would expect that an over-sized chunk of the budget at every level of government in Nigeria would be devoted to elevating the suffering masses out of poverty. There is a great gulf between Nigeria’s place on the global literacy scale and where the country should actually be.
Before the white man came to Africa, traditional Nigerian societies had already attained the highest levels of learning and health care delivery abilities that were available in the ancient African world. Our ancestors organized themselves perfectly and invented social systems that kept our people healthy, happy and physically and mentally sound. Our ancestors introduced and entrenched systems that stabilized and ensured that the knowledge of how to treat every ailment that troubled our people was transferred from generation to generation unhindered, to the betterment of all our people.
Nigeria like other African countries is only just finding her way out of the pre-colonial era situation. Yes, indigenous Nigerian ethnic nations had their various ways of learning and health care delivery systems. A keen look at pre-colonial Nigerian societies would reveal advance systems of health care delivery and learning that however need to be stepped up to modern universal standards. Among the Edos, we have ancient dental surgeons known as the Esa-Akon (Etsakor), ancient Orthopedic Surgeons known as (Osu-Ugue) among many others. Traditional African health care practitioners like the traditional dental surgeons and traditional orthopedic surgeons had to subject themselves to life time learning. They were apprenticed from early childhood to master practitioners until their mid life; after which they were released to practice and yet continued learning.
The realities of the 21century demand that Nigeria must give education and health care delivery a fresh holistic approach
Unfortunately, while traditional Chinese medicine like Acupuncture and traditional Indian health care practices like Yoga have been dragged into the modern era and are actually thriving, even in the most advanced western societies; traditional Nigeria medicine have been subjected to ridicule and inferior status.
Spiritual teachers and students like Ifa oracle maestros in South western and mid western Nigeria are trained to memorize very complex and extremely difficult tongue twisting names, ancient spiritual poetry and arcane and esoteric spiritual rituals. The above scenario was the case all over Nigeria’s ethnic nations before the arrival of the Europeans and the Arabs. Thus learning and health care delivery have never really been alien to Nigerian traditional societies. While I have nothing against Ifa worshippers, my point here is to acknowledge the fact that it requires a great mind, memory and first class brain to master the details that the system entails.-Thus, Africans are not new to serious academic challenges.
The realities of the 21century demand that Nigeria must give education and health care delivery a fresh holistic approach. Nigerians are capable of learning. Nigeria however must move into the 21 century. Advancements in traditional Nigerian medicine and other genres of traditional learning must be dragged along as Nigeria moves holistically into the 21 century.
