Mary Ekah
21 September 2009
book review
Lagos — Worried by the high indices of joblessness in the country, coupled with the fact that institutions of higher learning over the years have kept producing a number of graduates who have no hope of getting paid employment, an author attempts proffering a solution. In a book titled Life After School, he answers questions of unemployment in the country.
Nigeria, he said, is facing an "unprecedented unemployment rate today" with institutions of higher learning producing hundreds of thousands of graduates who have no hope of gaining paid employment. Chidi Okpaluba, a veterinary doctor, said Nigeria habours, "millions of able bodied, mentally sound and intellectually alert young men and women who cannot create a tie between the knowledge they received in school and the realities of the labour market."
Okpaluba fears that these young intelligent but unoccupied minds may be willing tools in the hands of selfish politicians and thereby resulting in the escalation of crime and violence in the country. It was for this reason that he came up with the book, Life After School, a life transforming book that would make the youths rich and happy without necessarily depending on paid employment.
At a recent launch of the inspirational book in Lagos last week, Okpaluba said he wrote the book to help inspire the youths to greatness and to help galvanise their creative energy towards meaningful enterprise. The book also aims to engrave in the minds of young Nigerian graduates who are yet to find their footings that even though there are so many challenges in the country today, they should realise that these problems represent opportunities for each of them to make a difference. "Each one of us can actually make a mark on earth if we decide to do so," he added.
Life after School, the author said, is born out of his concern for his country, Nigeria and to a larger extent the continent of Africa. "I was so much concerned about the problems in the country - the unemployment rate, the crime rate, poverty and the rest of it. I asked myself, 'what business has Nigeria got with poverty, unemployment and all the numerous ills we have in the society? I came to the conclusion that we do not have business with all these things. Why should someone go to school and when he/she comes out, he can't find a job? Should anybody who goes through the university really be jobless?" His answer to these rhetorical questions was no because the basic thing the university does, is to help one develop one's mind as well as the being in one's self.
Okpaluba, a industrialist, is of the view that once your mind is developed¸ it can be appled to anything. Instead of complaining and saying there is no job, you can take responsibility for yourself and begin to create your own job.
"If you understand who you are and your mission on earth -most times, your mission does not necessarily represent your profession, but if you understand why you are here and what you are here to do, then get the principles that are enshrined in creating a great life, you are unstoppable," said the inspirational speaker.
He said there is so much business one can do in Nigeria even as there were so many problems in the country. "To me, these problems actually represent opportunities. They are more problems in Nigeria than most parts of the world, meaning to me that there are more opportunities in Nigeria than most parts of the world". He wondered why a young man would spend his life savings to go to a foreign land only to live there doing nothing, adding, "We have more than a hundred thousand Nigerians today in Ghana doing nothing when they could come back home and create a great life. I am not excluding the leadership of the country because the leadership has messed up everything in the system."
The book is basically targeted at the youths, but not exclusively to them as the author quickly noted that anybody can read the book. The book is a kind of encyclopedia of life nuggets, which anybody that wants to make a difference in life should read. "Whether you are already at the top and want to get higher, you need to read the book but particularly, when you are still young and still have hope to make an ark on earth, then, you can start now", he said.
He also said he has developed a training programme, Centre for African Renaissance Reformation and Development (CEFARRD), fashioned from the content of Life After School. Okpaluba is taking the campaign around the universities and NYSC orientation camps with the aim to change the mind set of the youths as well as their orientation, belief system and attitude. "We believe that if we can get these things done, we would start our journey towards a new Nigeria", he noted.
Is he saying the youths are the core problem of the nation? His response was a bold 'Yes'! "According to the National Population figure, the youth constitutes over 60 per cent of the population, so if over 60 percent say, "No, we don't want it! It stands. Whatever is not supported by the majority cannot be done. As a matter of fact, it is the youths that are used in rigging elections, protests, tuggery and all the negative things in the nation. The youths are the energy of the nation, so if we begin to get them think, they would begin to think for the better of the nation".
The doctor-cum-writer got the inspiration for the book in 1996 when he was in Hong Kong. "I was watching CNN and I saw the story of Africa - problem in Liberia, the war in Rwanda. In that process, I got the inspiration that I could do something different to change the continent and Nigeria." But then, he had two options to either join the band of critiques or start something different to make a difference. So he chose the later.
"It requires one man to change the nation and so one man can start inspiring a change process, it may not be automatic, it could be a gradual process, but as an individual is changed, then you are changing his environment and the environment becomes lager and larger and may be one day we would have a new nation call Nigeria", he said.
Life After School is Okpaluba's first book and it took him a lot of time to write because according to him, he did not want to write theory, he wanted to first of all demonstrate what he writes. "I started business with less than a thousand naira when I left school. By that time, I did not have a job and I felt that if I wrote books then, it would not make any meaning. You can only write from what you learned and also from your own personal life", he said. So a lot of stories in the book revolve around Okpaluba's personal experience. He also felt that if he can do it, others can also do it. To him, nobody is a genius because, "a genius is someone that finds one thing and keeps at it forever and eventually becomes so good at it. So what I am saying today is that all of us can do it, no matter how small our contribution maybe".
Life After School, his first book, he said took over five years to write because he had to do a lot of research. "Each time I was writing, I was trying to get connected to a particular practical experience I have had. To the youth, he said, "a whole lot of things are ahead of you, you can make it. The country is not as bad as people think and there are still a lot of opportunities there. Don't loose hope, stay focused and find out who you are and what you can do and get connected to that and pursue that relentlessly and you would make a difference," the inspirational speaker said.
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