CRUELTY OF A SKEWED SYSTEM: Why the Illiterate Flourish While the Educated Perish in a Broken Republic

 

No Nigerian Holding Our Flag on a Global Stage Has Ever Collapsed Under Pressure

By Abioye Tosin Lawrence

I was baptized into the struggle the moment I graduated, armed with nothing but my certificate and a bag of hope. My curriculum vitae had traveled across the offices of Abuja like a nomad in search of pasture. Yet the silence was deafening. The fact stared me in the face: the system was designed to grind down anyone who had burnt the midnight candle. The road to employment was not paved with knowledge, skill, or discipline but with letters of recommendation from the powers that be.

It was a rude awakening. During school, I was taught formulas, theories, and principles. In life, I was taught that the shortest route to employment is not merit but “connections.” You may hold a degree, but unless you also hold a godfather, your competence is as useful as water in a basket.

This reality drove me crazy during every contest and engagement - yet it also kept me strategizing. I refused to be deterred by the roadblocks I encountered. In the arena of life, the graduates wrestled not with ignorance but with the cruelty of a skewed system.

Meanwhile, the sons of nobody had also gone to learn, to hustle, to pay their dues. Those without sponsors sold their sweat to survive. Some rode commercial motorcycles to foot their school bills, others juggled menial jobs to keep the dream alive. They fought the system, but the system was designed to reward only loyalty, not effort.

Today, as I reflect, I pity the boy I was, the one who clutched his certificate as if it were a passport to prosperity. I pity those still struggling through the labyrinth of classrooms, believing that certificates are golden tickets. To them I say: the path you walk is not useless; it is training you for storms the world has not yet seen.

Here is my motivation for every graduate still gasping under the weight of unemployment: everything you face is building you. Every rejection letter is a hammer shaping resilience; every unpaid internship is a furnace forging character. That is why, despite the failures of our nation, you never see Nigerians holding our flag on a global stage collapsing under pressure. We do not fail because our struggle has prepared us to thrive where others surrender.

So yes, in this broken republic, the illiterate flourish at home because the system feeds on their obedience, while the educated perish in silence because their questions are too loud. But the story does not end here. The struggle is not wasted. It is preparing you for a future the world itself has not prepared for.

Be happy as you carefully cross the hurdles. Because when the dust of history settles, it will not be those who received sewing machines that the world will remember, but those who endured the fire and emerged unbreakable.