Education vs Electricity – The 1-Point Agenda

A friend of mine posted a comment on facebook a couple of days ago. “Y cant the govt reduce the 7 point agenda to just 1? and let it be "ELECTRICITY"...if yar adua achieves that in his period as president..good. (sic). I responded “Y not education?”.

This looked like a simple discussion/ observation between two friends. As usual, someone else had a comment to add. No be Facebook.


“I believe electricity first and then education second...The electricity will give room for access to quality education online n offline...God created the world before creating the people. He didn't create people before the world...If education comes first, it will still suffer when electricity is not in place...do u get?

Don't ask me what has education got to do with electricity..You know that already... “ (sic)

I sent a mail to my friend. I will try and dig it up. Needless to say, I was upset at the response. I thought the write was blatantly rude and did not deserve any other comments. I responded by sending a mail to my friend directly to express my feelings. He shared my views. At least that I was made to believe.

My response in summary was that his friend (who was not my friend though i was disappointed to find him on my friend list) was rude and obviously not that well educated. If he was, he would have learnt how to communicate with people he did not know presonally. Facebook or not.


I see a challenge with how we view education. Something tells me we are all stuck with UNIVERSITY education. And maybe SECONDARY school. We seem to forget education at the very low level has crumbled as well. I am not sure how much electricity we need at those levels. We call the children the leaders of tomorrow but we try to fix electricity at the expense of having no leaders groomed to manage the electricity we would have pumped billions into. What would be the result of that? We have already seen it. That is why Efose (Efose responded to the blog as well) runs out of her house. I just dug up the mail i sent to my friend unedited.

I don't appreciate your friend's comment on facebook.

"i believe electricity first and then education second...The electricity will give room for access to quality education online n offline...God created the world before creating the people. He didn't create people before the world...If education comes first, it will still suffer when electricity is not in place...do u get?

Don't ask me what has education got to do with electrictity..You know that already..."

My initial reaction was to respond as below:

"Ok sir. Sorry, but do I know you? I believe there are nicer ways to talk to people you have not met. Even if you have. Now you see why I say education first. ELectricity won't teach you good manners. An that goes a long way.

But I felt that should stay between me and you. Please try and advice him to learn to talk to people politely."

We all know how good electricity was when we were growing up? So, where did it all go wrong? Until we can answer that question, I really see why Yar Adua has challenges fixing it. I totally agree, electricity is important but can anyone tell me how much electricity you require in primary & secondary (non-boarding house i guess). i think education is easier to attack. And why has it been difficult to fix electricity? They are both emergencies to me. Whatever side of the debate you choose, I believe this discussion can forever be handled maturely and politely. I can't remember my rude friend's friend's name. I might just wan you to avoid him. I think it had "Freak" in it. What a rude freak he turned out to be.