I saw the post where people compared the prizes in Big Brother Nigeria, Maltina Dance Hall e.t.c to Spelling Bee, Best Student In WAEC and other Educational competition. They made ‘the post’ sound so horrible that one might conclude that the end time is near. Funny. In my understanding, things are not changing, it was so even in the time immemorial: Michael Jackson started entertaining the world at a tender age and America made him extremely rich not because he discovered that atom is the smallest element in a cell. Nat King Cole and Ray dined with American presidents because of their status as entertainers. In the 80s and early 90s, the exercise book ‘Olympic’ used in the whole Nigeria had the picture of Chukwuma Ifeajuna, an Onitsha man, who won the commonwealth gold even before the civil war.
The truth, the world wants to be entertained and until the school system integrates Entertainment into their scheme, the educational system will continue in its pipe dream illusion of being the key to success.

There are things I learnt when I was a boy in Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha, and I realized that we are blind to the most important lesson of Education. We missed the real knowledge the school should champion.

If you were not in DMGS, you would think that ‘Reading’ was all the students did. Its true we had the The Ugwuowos, The Ofoches, The Maludums, Agbasimelos etc… but that was not all we had in the school where every student wore ‘short knickers’.

Sir Victor Obidike was the Principal then, and even as a disciplinarian, he knew that Education was not just reading and writing; Education, to him, was far deeper than that. The school was so organized that we had Aecstatic Prefect, whose work was to make sure the school, most especially the flowers, was always beautiful. We had the best school choir in the whole of the East if not Nigeria as a whole, a big piano, and it never lacked pianists.

Before I came into DMGS, my elder brother, Chigozie, now the Principal of the school, was in the school choir, and by association, I joined him. There, I heard about one Abednego Okafor, the school pianist, who left the school a year before, but I met Alvan Nwamara (Ikoku), and also saw when the music room was handed over to Opanka – Ilokanuno.

Later my brother, even as an S.S 1 student, without being a pianist, became the student head of the music room under Mrs Orji, Mrs Ikpeze, Mrs Obiozor etc. Chigozie was the last Music prefect I met in DMGS before I switched to St Charles Special Science School. But still in the Choir were the phenomenal Emeka Egbonu, the genus Elochukwu Oku, Strong vocalist Enwezor, Kene Orji, Moses okafor and many others.

The choristers were not the best in academics but Sir Victor Obidike never played with that department. We were treated like the celebrities: we did not participate in manual labor; we accompany the old boys and the staff to functions: most especially, the burial of members (the first three times I traveled outside Anambra State in my life was because I was a DMGS chorister). And when I was just 14, the Association of Nigerian Principals had their meeting in Anambra state and invited the DMGS glorious choir. There, I was paid my first ever salary which was paid on daily basis (there was a monetary package given to the choir).

Fast forward 20 years later. I relocated to Abuja.
I discovered that there is NO church I went to in that town without finding a former student of DMGS in its choir: either as a pianist, a choirmaster or respected chorister.

Abednego, the school pianist which I did not meet, was in Abuja as the pianist in Aso Rock Villa Chapel. A choirmaster and an authority in the Abuja choral world.

Alvan Nwamara is now a PhD in music: a celebrity still. You are not a chorister in the East if you don’t know Dr. Alvan.

Before my brother became a priest, he was celebrated in All Saints because of his voice, and my youngest, who was also a product of the system, live, till this day., on music

What are my points? Reading and Writing, which we termed
Education was just a faculty in the University of Real Education. The world has always been more interested in sportsmanship: Entertainment - sports, music, stage acting etc. Even then in DMGS, we celebrated the Agile Zuby Uzoegwu, Muche Muche Amuta (who was a tin god of line and tracks), the Enyi Mouba, Lapote of tug of war, the cultural group dancers of Mazi Ikedinma and one junior boy named Monika.

Don’t get me wrong; the traditional ‘Reading and Writing’ is good but if your knowledge cannot put a food on your table, what a shame? Till this day, all the young boys that were dedicated in DMGS choir that I see now in Abuja still earn a residual income from singing, and DMGS was not a special school for music but there was a man who knew that education does not end in the classroom. A man who understood that ‘Pruned Talent’ also is also Knowledge.

Even Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was more interested in how you feel (the fake importance Facebook brings) than asking you to find the algebraic ‘x’.

Take Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship ProgrammeProject (TEEP) for example, Tony would share a million or two to young entrepreneurs but in the final day of the TEEP, he would pay tens of millions to P-Square for them to jump on the stage for three minutes making them the highest recipient.

How many professors did Aligo Dangote, the richest black man, visit in their houses? but we saw him in Peter Okoye's house in a picture that went viral.

Do you think Mike Adenuga does not know that ‘Kid mathematician’ and the future astronauts? but when he wants people to promote his business, he would look for the Wizkids to be Glo Ambassadors.

Olamide chills with governors, and girls are no longer ashamed to be Flavor’s baby mamas.
Would you have preferred Okocha and Kanu if they were respectively a doctor and a lawyer?

Entertainment (sportsmanship) was/is everything.

Present Educational system, which is completely out of date, needs a management that understands the flow of the tides. If what Sir V.U Obidike did in DMGS can be replicated in Anambra state, where a student that cannot solve the simultaneous equation but can play guitar would feel so important based on his skills, then the whole country will not stand in front of us in ten years’ time. This is the new Education. Justin Biber is no longer interested in the head, chest, and abdomen of a grasshopper. Even the developed Europe have football schools.

There will always be the Professors: some people are born academicians, but the new school should find the best in each student and encourage it. If well managed, it will prove more productive.

‘Reading and Writing’ may be the key to success, but well-harnessed Talent is success

Ozii Baba Anieto
www.oziibaba.com

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