Presently, not every Nigerian is free to develop to their best ability and prosper, given the present condition of education. Due to a lack of educational and vocational guidance, we have institutionalized a complex array of wrong ideas in Nigeria. We have equally mistakenly applied education to some foreign cultural pattern, disregarding Ijaw, Fula, Yoruba, Hausa, Tiv, Igbo, etc., cultural fundamentals, which have proved more damaging to social living than complementary.
We say that just like China's education and technology development align with Chinese characteristics and philosophy of life, we ask for Nigerian education to develop in line with the Nigerian people's philosophy of life. We campaign for African education and Nigerian people's cultural patterns and traditions to spell our hope for the future. It is by a careful study of the ‘’Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, Efiks, Ijaws, Urhobos, Fulanis, Itsekiris, Edos’’ deeply embedded cultural tradition and cultural patterns that the people's most fundamental educational principles can be developed. African education is one of the most important undertakings in Nigeria because it will be through organized action under honest and intelligent leadership that real progress will be made. We campaign for the African philosophy that gives whole emphasis to a completely free education environment for public service as a requirement for Hausas, Igbos, Yorubas, Efiks, etc., to actualize their freedom, and could be inspired by the clear path of opportunity (free education from primary to the highest level) that has become available to make everyone more worthy and more capable than they are. We say that African education must run on a carefully planned and organized social action, where it makes sense that the central government and the Ministry of Education set Nigerians in a united movement toward a society consciously organized for planned and programmed progress.
As we can determine, delinquencies, vices, disorderliness, crimes, kidnapping, organ trafficking, terrorism, etc., run apace with the level of corruption in a corrupt society, and the more corruption, the more evil persists. The new orientation must be that African education can only flourish in a friendly, well-organized, and cooperative society, since it will primarily be concerned with improving every Nigerian person's mind and actions. Because Africa is distinct from Europe, the Arab, and Asia, it cannot afford educational programs unrelated to the immediate occasion of psychosocial problems, economic stagnation, corruption, insecurity, and surging crimes. Nigerians no longer need an education that lacks a humanizing influence. It is, therefore, our wish to campaign for a radical reconstruction of education that would have African philosophy and educational programs that recognize the need for a solid core of spiritual life, for the power to do good and eliminate corruption and evil practices, and for Nigeria's basic social philosophy, general direction, and fundamental goals to be predetermined, since the program to be developed will be designed to translate the philosophy into action in achieving Nigeria's set goals. The newfound philosophy would deliberately infuse Nigeria's economic, political, and social life with the spiritual and moral force of brotherhood to help break the chains of bondage, corruption, and rising crimes.
We campaign for the system to stop employing some people who are unfit to be teachers. Education is a high profession and demands the best in the country as teachers because nothing is more important for the nation's future than the character of the teachers who will determine the shape of things to come. Our campaign is to make the system determine the best materials in addition to the best method of instruction. Through the YFIBIGO campaign, we call for the honorable minister to set in motion the teacher-training instructors for re-educating teachers to begin in a well-organized and directed seminar program. Educators for new teachers in the new orientation must understand and achieve expert mastery of what African education is all about before the new teachers' training begins. African education would demand that the Minister close the widening gap in teacher shortages by making the teaching profession attractive for teachers and changing the status of professionals in education. Our campaign is for the teachers who remain in primary education to receive equal salaries, recognition, and promotions compared with colleagues of the same rank with no greater experience and training at the secondary or advanced level.
It is essential to spend money on the teachers and the students. Training and retraining teachers, a good salary scale for teachers, and free scholarships all the way up deserve enormous spending, as money is wisely utilized. Money spent on teachers and students does not amount to reckless expenditures. Because Nigeria's education system verges on collapse, we campaign for African education to have a 20-year scholarship spree so that the talented and industrious persons who are doing nothing could take advantage of the opportunity to work their way through education and the fast-tracking teaching profession, where desired. We campaign for free education to usher in better living and service in a free society that believes in equal opportunity for everyone. We stress making education FREE because selfishness is to be replaced with a sense of community. To make it free is because the primary aim will no longer be competition that one would step over his fellow, but efficient service for one's fellow. It is to become free because education is not a commodity one must buy and sell for a profit, and for which one should pay. Free education all the way, YFIBIGO believes, will eliminate the excuse of poverty-stricken youths fond of complaining that the Nigerian system of social inequality keeps them at the bottom and makes it impossible for them to access educational training all the way. Equality of opportunity, in the new system, must mean equality of opportunity for the millions of poor ones to get free access to education and climb to the top, everyone to the best of their ability.
Nigeria must be totalitarian in education if it is determined to tackle its most pressing problems – corruption, economics, politics, and socio-religious issues head-on. To do so, she would have to adopt an African education that is more than the formal school education, for its free training is fundamentally the beginning of all that is to come. Capital expenditures for the acquisition of Technology AI, improvement in building, painting, facilities, and a decent school environment, while desirable, might still be lacking in producing better Nigerians if only a few privileged Nigerians have access to schools. The government money, YFIBIGO believes, would always be enough for everyone to receive free education if judiciously used.
Capital formation is a must for every male and female. Capital formation is to be free for a better Nigerian society to produce better people for a society deliberately planned with specific programs for this purpose. Where African education must make every man and woman the best they can be, we campaign to revive adult education for evening classes and have adult instructors specially trained for the task, making education the birthright of every citizen aged 4-63 years. For education development, we campaign that the honorable minister, in his esteemed position, gives positive education leadership by ensuring that money poured into education goes into 'mandatory and unconditional" training for all. African education warrants a new approach to the whole field of education – primary, secondary, University schools of liberal education, institutes, colleges, and national university, including a program of systematic mass education for adults.
We campaign for African education to be as high in standards as Harvard and Oxford, but with an African philosophy of life (instead of the Western educational philosophy and fundamentals). Whereas England, the USA, and Canada stick to Western philosophy to maintain their success, China keeps adapting to Chinese characteristics and philosophy to be the best. Saudi Arabia on the other hand, is adopting critical thinking and philosophy in Saudi schools on subjects previously removed from the curriculum since they must improve their youths on solid critical thinking and to reduce overly intense attachment to the Islamic faith school learning to keep out of harm's way of evil political entities disguised with a fake Islamist façade. Therefore, we sense that Nigeria, distinct from Italy, America, Saudi Arabia, or France, has a cultural base requiring a different non-Western, non-Arabic tradition and outlook. We campaign to emancipate Nigeria's education from the Harvard and Oxford attachment and to develop "Nigeria's higher education standards and prestige" that is more fundamental in Africa. Under the reconstructed Nigerian system, education will have a new perception and meaning; the primary purpose would have changed to developing the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood in the service of the common welfare instead of education for a few people to secure jobs and make money only.
In addition to pursuing careers in public administration, banking, medicine, business, etc., we campaign for African education to re-educate and reconstruct women's roles in the communities. To empower girls with skills for social services, sciences, technology, medicine, etc., but more importantly, train girls to be able to carry on the phase of home and child training that can be done best only in the home, to help reintegrate the rapidly disintegrating family life, reorganize and restore dignity to the community.
We campaign against Nigerian students being molded, unfortunately, into Westernized puppets using a Eurocentric model curriculum with all its undue external influences. We campaign for Nigeria to radically transform its education to give new meaning to primary, secondary, and tertiary institutes and colleges, as well as to admission procedures and the teaching profession. Above all, we campaign to institutionalize the National University. This one-of-a-kind institution is different in concept from Western universities, which, along with a new curriculum and a master plan, will meet specific Nigerian needs. When organized, structured, and realistic national goals are developed, the National University will be the vehicle through which the nation’s advances can be made. In all, we campaign for Nigerians to be educated in such a way that they can solve problems that devolve upon them as a people – in political democracy, health, economics, agriculture, religion - including the problem of widespread corruption, food shortages, rampant killings, armed banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, etc. We campaign for everything that the right kind of education could solve.
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