Learn from Tunde Onakoya’s generosity and dedication to help Nigeria’s youth.
It is disgracefully late but not too late to change Nigeria’s child damaging, insufficient, poor exam-success percentages, inadequate education ways in most schools and even homes. Just look at the abysmally shameful educational quality seen in Chibok and Kuriga. How dare a country hold its school children in such low esteem as to deliberately deprive them and their teachers of ‘WEAPONS TO WIN THE EDUCATION WAR’ while our politicians choose jeeps and stealing billions in humanitarian funds over classroom content of its 25m eligible children!! ‘CHESS IS A WEAPON TO WIN THE EDUCATION WAR’.
We must go back to ‘good old school days’ in schools and get parents and community business involved again in education through vibrant voluntarily contributing PTAs and committed Community Boards of Governors. Thank goodness for Secondary School Old Students Associations but we urgently need PRIMARY SCHOOL OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS ALSO.
The Guinness Marathon Chess Record of 60 hours credited to 29 yr. old Tunde Onakoya playing Shawn Martinez, an American Chess Champion, in Times Square, New York is a great achievement. Congratulations.
Tunde Onakoya is a child education advocate and founder of Chess in Slums to motivate, empower and uplift the too-often abandoned, materially denied, underutilised, understimulated, underchallenged and underrated young minds of often underprivileged children in deprived living conditions, be they slums on land or huts on waterways. Hurray and congratulations to Onakoya/Martinez. And congratulations to Tunde Onakoya, selflessly working towards raising $1million for his Chess organisation’s Nigerian need children, while most Nigerian politicians are better known for financially ‘miraculously’ owning a private jet or becoming the principle star of yet another of the ‘Not Nollywood’ films titled ‘Multibillion Naira EFCC/ICPC Investigation And A Long Never-To-Be-Convicted Multiyear Multi-Court Marathon Trial’. Different strokes for different folks.
Incidentally Morgan Stanley the multibillion financial mega-institution has donated $5k and $110K has been raised elsewhere. We await more than ‘nothing but good wishes’ to be donated by Nigeria’s ‘rich, famous and infamous’ to fund the difference.
This effort seeks to fill the void of ‘co-curricular activities’ for the youth. When we were younger such games were available, along with track and field sports, and board games like scrabble and were the backbone of ‘free time’ activities. These co-curricular activities have suffered with the massive rise in government corrupt practices stealing the funds.
But the thieves and administrators of such funds ignore the internationally confirmed fact that investment in educating youth in co-curricular activities is an essential part of the Western education curriculum and skill identification. This has been also championed by Educare Trust for 30 years and other NGOs and targeted at making the youth occupy their ‘free time’ with mind expanding, body strengthening, skill acquiring, mind broadening, emotionally calming, healthy-habit inculcating and strong moral fibre activities.
Without education in co-curricular activities, NECO and WEAC academic subjects are inadequate, and we abandon our youth to complain, singing the YOUTH ANTHEM OF ‘I AM BORED’. BOREDOM IN YOUTH IS A PREVENTABLE DISEASE REQUIRING TREATMENT. Fortunately, the youth will show signs and even talk about being bored. Ignoring the disease is a parental, school, community and government failure to provide needed cocurricular activities and community facilities like Youth Centres, sports stadia and frequent and challenging tournaments where the youth can identify their talents, be coached by role models with adequate equipment to develop fully to be able to compete at every level up to international level. The Great Hogan Bassey taught us defensive boxing at Abalti Barracks, Yaba in the early 60s.
We forget that cocurricular activities are essential in equipping youth adequately in the arena of ‘MENTAL & Physical & Social HEALTH’. Team and individual Games teach youth brains how to be noble, humble, magnanimous and generous in victory and encouraged even in defeat to avoid depression, suicide and violence against others with constant malicious but baseless claims of cheating. We must eliminate the bully in all of us.
Let us remember the old time when it was compulsory to belong to two or more of the organised bodies like Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Red Cross, Blue Crescent, Man O’ War, school clubs like Literary and Debating and Maths and Drama Clubs, school bands, athletics and football, basketball, netball, cricket, swimming, gymnastics, weight lifters, wrestling, boxing, judo, taekwondo, dancing and other teams and individual activities in school based and community based operations. Today we add ROBOTICS AND COMPUTER CLUBS. In today’s Nigeria there are too few public and even private schools with enough of these opportunities.
Please recall that since 1994 Educare Trust’s suggestions over 30 years have been for a YOUTH CENTRE per WARD as the 8,813 wards are the political unit of Nigeria. At the very least we should have a LARGE NONPOLITICAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA YOUTH CENTER-Just 774 in number. Imagine if these Youth Centres had been created 30 years ago, there would have been much needed funding focus and locally available support for the youth across our country, regardless of terrain and 1 There are too few Youth centres where the advantaged and disadvantaged youth can meet for equal opportunity, and mutually respectful competitive and cooperative voluntary activities. No parent, community leader or politician can buy such camaraderie with money but money is required to provide any and all the needed facilities identified above and many others like regularly updated school libraries.
