Use Of English 2012 Jamb Examination

Religion in its various forms is very strong in Nigeria. In other words, Nigerian people are very religious; most of them believe that there is an unseen supernatural world, apart from the natural world we see around us. This other world is inhabited by beings who are the source of our knowledge of good and evil. They watch and judge us, and if we offend them, they may have to be appeased with prayers and sacrifices. Certain individuals in the natural world—priests, prophets, and diviners—are believed to be endowed with special powers to make contact with the other world. These individuals lay down ceremonies or rituals which must be observed if due honour is to be paid to the unseen beings. The religious beliefs and practices of Nigerians can be classified under three main headings: Traditional religion, Islam, and Christianity. In this passage, our focus is on traditional religion.

Traditional or indigenous religion continues to exert a strong influence on many people's minds, partly because of its association with their birthplaces and families. Each ethnic group has its own religious traditions, and these are often linked to some sacred spots in the ethnic homeland. Yet the various traditional religions have much in common: a remote but benevolent high god; under him, a number of lesser gods who interact with mankind; and below them, various spirits who inhabit natural objects (trees, streams, rocks, etc.); below them again, and closest to living men and women, are the spirits of the ancestors.

In the Yoruba tradition, for example, there are more than 400 lesser deities presided over by the high god, Olorun. Because he is remote from mankind, shrines are not built to him and worship is not offered to him directly. The lesser gods, on the other hand, are the subject of special cults, each with its own priests and devotees: Eshu, the messenger of the gods; Ifa, the god of divination; Shango, the god of thunder, and so on. Traditional religion was also strong in other parts of Nigeria. In Igbo traditional religion, there were fewer gods. Although there was a remote high god, the most important figure was Ala or Ani, the goddess of the earth. In Hausaland, traditional religion has largely gone underground owing to the influence of Islam, but belief in the existence of 'Bori' spirits and their power to possess people, especially women, is strong in some areas. Each spirit is associated with a certain type of behaviour, which is manifested by the possessed individual.

Divination—the discovery of what is unknown or is yet to happen by supernatural or magical means—is an important element of traditional religion. It is often one of the functions of medicine men or herbalists. In Igboland, there also used to be several oracles which people consulted in order to seek solutions to their problems. With the coming of Christianity, their influence has, however, waned, but in areas like Arochukwu and Okija, the influence of such oracles is still strongly felt.

Recent literary researches reveal that Nigerians hardly have time to read. In essence, the reading culture in Nigeria is now at a low ebb. It is disturbing, however, that few Nigerians who read concentrate more on foreign books than indigenous productions. Most Nigerian authors of novels, storybooks, fictions, and non-fiction series have decried, on different occasions, their woes. They were bitter about the way most owners of bookshops and publishers treat them. It was gathered that many bookshops preferred to stock foreign books. When contacted by DAILY INDEPENDENT, the general manager of a popular bookstore on Lagos Island declared that most bookshops preferred to stock foreign books because of higher demand for them. The question that bothers most Nigerian authors is, while their overseas counterparts are being rewarded with great international honours, why are Nigerians not according them such recognition in their own country?

Recently, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the 2007 Orange Prize Award, the literary world's top award for fiction in English written by women. The award carries a prize tag of $30,000. It was reported in Publishers Weekly that Half of a Yellow Sun, the book that earned her the award, was profoundly gripping. According to the reviewer, the book is a transcendent novel of many descriptive triumphs, most notably its depiction of the impact of war brutalities on peasants and intellectuals alike. It is searing history in fictional form—intensely evocative and immensely absorbing. Chinua Achebe, the ‘Father of Modern African Literature,’ also won the second-ever Man Booker International Prize of £60,000 with his first novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. When Professor Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, the fame confirmed the relevance of Nigerians in the world of classical excellence. Ben Okri won the 1991 Booker Prize with his work, The Famished Road, and the world celebrated Nigeria as the giant of Africa.

It was also gathered that most of the publishers hurriedly produce books and, in the process, mar their good contents. Most of the books are not properly edited and eventually become substandard when compared with foreign products. The extent to which book publishing standards have fallen in Nigeria is alarming. Often, Nigerian publishers have been blamed for this. It is instructive that none of the books mentioned had been published in Nigeria. It was discovered that most students in tertiary institutions depend on dictations from their lecturers and/or handouts. A science lecturer in one of the Nigerian universities, who had been a victim of the handout sales scandal, told DAILY INDEPENDENT the reality of campus challenges in relation to books: “I was forced to dictate notes slowly to students who hung on my every word in the absence of textbooks in a library that had, to all intents and purposes, stopped buying new books when the local currency was devalued. But what other alternative does one have?”

Adapted from DAILY INDEPENDENT, Monday, 20 August, 2007

It is said that experience is the best teacher, but to learn consciously through wisdom may even be a better and more convenient way. To learn by experience is to learn from mistakes. It means you have burnt your fingers and now your eyes are open. This is a tough, costly, and inconvenient way to learn. Rather than leaving our learning to experience, why do we not learn consciously, going out of our way to acquire knowledge and wisdom rather than leaving our learning to chance? Surely, we can learn from mistakes, but why wait until we make them before we learn? We should give more premium to learning by wisdom than by experience.

This will involve one making up one’s mind to be decisive in learning. We must decide to learn consciously and not necessarily from negative experiences. The first step is to realize that life is simply the outcome and outplay of decisions. Our life now is the sum total of our decisions, and our future will be determined by the decisions we make today. If we decide to learn today, we are not likely to make mistakes, and when we do not make mistakes, experience need not be our best teacher.

To avoid making experience our best teacher will take more than a decision. We must couple our decision with complete and wholehearted devotion. We must be resolved, resolute, and resilient in our bid to learn by wisdom and not necessarily by experience. This is crucial because situations and circumstances will tempt us to make a detour and leave our learning and life to chance. We must therefore be disciplined to remain steadfast in our resolve to make a clean break with experience as our best teacher. Discipline, in this regard, means learning something new every day by wisdom rather than by experience. It means consciously getting better each day in our chosen field. Discipline will demand taking advantage of every learning opportunity that comes our way. It will also mean paying the price for learning by wisdom—investing in books, magazines, seminars, and other means by which we may become wiser.

It is much easier and cheaper to learn consciously by wisdom than to learn by experience. When we learn by experience, the deed is done, and we are just picking up the pieces—learning in regret how to avoid such predicaments next time. Consider the child who grasps a burning coal—he has learned the hard way through painful experience, but his fingers will remain burnt. Thus, the saying that experience is the best teacher may not be justifiable after all.

Adapted from Sunday Tribune, July 2007