Awolowo's Legacy of education

1955 was the year universal primary education started in Yoruba nation and the whole of then Western Region of Nigeria. That was the year, that ‘bully’ Awolowo forcefully enrolled all youths in the then Western Nigeria to full, free primary school. Many parents complained that they would have no help in the farm but he would not listen.

‘Where will he get the means for that gargantuan project?’ some other premiers wondered. But that fellow would not listen. Awolowo schools started in all kinds of ramshackle buildings. The children were called Awolowo children, mainly in derision, because many people just knew that they would amount to nothing. The fellow just pressed on.

​As long as your right arm went over your head to touch your left ear, you are registered. That was all, no questions asked.

The Awolowo experiment produced doctors, engineers, lawyers, educators, scientists, civil servants, etc. and keeps on producing these even till today. 

At present, a Yoruba child does not need to be told what the next step in life is going to be. His life is already ordered for the next twenty years and he knows that. Once he is four, five or six years old, he starts on this journey: primary school to secondary school to possibly a tertiary school.

​Order leads to wealth creation and disorder leads directly to poverty.