When Your Class Teacher Teaches You Nonsense

By

Obododimma Oha

When we were pupils at the elementary school, a pupil would be asking for a fail grade in the civics subject if such a pupil failed to familiarize self with the following normal territorial geography and facts of history:

Obong of Calabar

Emir of Kano

Obi of Onitsha

Igwe of Ozubulu

Oba of Lagos

Olubadan of Ibadan

Obi of Agbor

Amanyanabor of Opobo
Oluoha of Ihiala

And so on. A teacher who teaches nonsense would be making things worse if that fellow teaches the following to the young minds:

Igwe of Ibadan

Emir of Lagos

Obi of Calabar

Amanyabor of Kano

Oba of Ihiala.

Was it not the Afrobeat musician, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti who once sang in one of his lovely but corrective songs:

Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense?

If you are a teacher, or have the courage to construct yourself as a teacher and problem-solver, please, listen to Fela again and again. Don’t teach the pupils nonsense, even if your class teacher has confiscated your certificate. Don’t make nonsense look like an innovation. No, sir, nonsense is nonsense. Don’t dispense it in this class. Don’t change “Amanyabo of Opobo” to “Amanyanabo of Calabar” or “Oba of Lagos” to “Emir of Lagos.” You would be teaching arrant nonsense:

I choose to be a conservative when it comes to differentiating sense from nonsense. A ma m nri nnu turu, as they say in Igbo (roughly translated as “I know that dish that is properly salted.”) So, do not over-salt or under-salt the yam porridge. Just adequate salt. That signifies kitchen competence!

Now, when, as a former civics pupil with a pass in the subject, I hear things like “Emir of Lagos,” I break into hot urine and ask what this classroom has become. Are teachers now teaching nonsense in it?

Emir of Onitsha! Sounds like what one hears in an unrealistic and badly fabricated folktale? Does the fabricator not know how to tell believable lies? How can you say “Emir of Lagos?” Unless you are possessed by the devil and cannot be redeemed by numerous prayer warriors! Then, you are irredeemable and obviously finished.

I know my Nigerian civics. I can even remember the old and new national anthems and their hip-hop versions! But as I said earlier, that I wear wires from ear to ear and listen to hip-hop music does not mean that I do not care for Fela, and to remember that he once sang: “Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense!”