RICH KID POOR KID

This is not like the rich dad poor dad episode, this is the reality of some lives around you, all over the world. This is the evidence of polarity and discrimination that can never be erased or destroyed, at least not in our life time. Not because we (this generation and many generations before ours) have not tried, but simply because it is what it is. This is life.

RICH KID:

Goes to the best schools available from infancy, intelligence is not in question, he excels, some say because of the enabling environment he finds himself in, others, because he is naturally gifted and still others because his parents have paid the price and bought excellence for him. He graduates at a very young age because his schools do not go on strike and comes back to the country to integrate and know his roots and his people. He is extravagantly rewarded on his return, with a certificate in hand, the minimum requirement for any graduate, but he has more. Even when he was “abroad” he won several local and international scholarships, many would say he didn’t deserve it or more importantly, he didn’t need it. He got it nonetheless. His return is coloured with fun-fare and a contract of employment in one of the top companies in the industry of his interest. The top of his worries is the traffic and the harshness of the Nigerian sun on his very delicate skin.

POOR KID:

Attends a public school until the level of corruption in it pushes his parents to withdraw him from the public school to a very expensive private school in the country. After a few years he drops out because his parents can no longer afford the fees. He manages to seat for entrance examinations to the unity schools with affordable fees although it is very far-away from home. He survives the harshness of the local boarding school system and is successful in all his certificate exams. His return home is greeted with a list of expectations as his parents have both retired from the country’s civil service and are expecting their pension and gratuity (if it ever comes). He scores high in the matriculation exam, but he knows no one in the university admin office to push his admission through even after he scored way above the schools cut off mark. He finally gets the admission albeit after 3 attempts to study the course of his dreams. His stay in school is frustrated by lack of infrastructure, strikes and lecturers trying to sell hand-outs to pass their course. He survives this and graduates. The expectations are even higher from home but he knows now that he has to get, not just any job but a good job to take of his ageing and ailing parents and to elevate his status. Maybe he would break in to the elite group and buy a house on the island or ikoyi. The top of his worries? How long will he have to continue like this?

It is not a level playing ground. Never was and never will. Strength, however is required to break in to the upper echelons of the society and more strength to remain there.