This year’s UTME examinations results released by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board prove that intelligence and scholastic ability abound in equal measure amongst Nigerian peoples and ethnicities, and that no corner of our nation can lay claim to a monopoly of academic excellence.
We had a record number of students scoring above 300 from Northern Nigeria and that in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Not only did Arewa carry its weight, but many of these stellar pupils were female. There is no need to mention that Arewa is not known for exam ‘miracle centres’.
I had previously praised the modest Saleh Fatima Alkali from Yobe State, who scored 68 in English, 93 in Mathematics (most impressive), 87 in Physics and 88 in Chemistry, all for an aggregate of 336.
But there are many others who did even better or just as good as Fati, and mainly in STEM, including one school in Northern Nigeria, with over 20 students scoring above 300. To the best of my knowledge, no other school in Nigeria matches this school, based in Kwara.
Zainab Asake, of Dialogue Academy, Kaduna, a female, scored 81 in English, 95 in Mathematics, 95 in Physics and 91 in Chemistry to reach an overall score of 362. And like I said, there are many others.
I hope the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination will help us as a nation do away with such stereotypes and clichés, such as ‘Aboki no get sense’ and others so derogatory that I would not want to put them in print.
Beyond the results, we also see that when Nigeria puts away primordial sentiments, like race, ethnicity, religion and region, aside, we tend to be more sentient beings, which brings out the best in us.
This is why I have urged our education sector to help create a new consciousness amongst Nigeria’s youth and increase understanding and awareness of each other by compulsorily requiring Christian students to take Islamic Religious Knowledge and mandatorily insisting that Muslim students take Christian Religious Knowledge.
Additionally, Southern students should necessarily take Hausa as a secondary school course. In contrast, Northern students must take either Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw or any other prominent Southern language spoken by at least five million people.
And then, to cap it up, no Southern graduate must be allowed to embark on their National Youth Service Corps in the South, but should obligatory serve in the North, while it would be vice versa for Northern graduates.
If we can implement these ideals, we will have a new Nigeria with better informed and integrated citizens, who will be so sentient and patriotic as to put aside the ills of tribalism and nepotism and build a new Nigeria that would be the envy of the world.
We do not need to agree with each other to be a great nation. We just need to understand each other, to be an excellent nation.