Thread by @Chxta

So @nicholasibekwe and @TunjiAndrews, both products of a glorified secondary school, have decided to try to use this video to yab their betters.

Let me tell a story...

https://twitter.com/asemota/status/1254448216558522368

In 1961, Loyola College in Ibadan admitted a boy who had been born, and spent the first 12 years of his life in Ifon in Ondo State.

This boy had problems speaking English, but his mathematics scores were off the charts. However, his teachers lost patience with him, except one.

Rev. Fr. Markle, an Irish Jesuit, as well as being the principal of Loyola College at the time, had learned two Nigerian languages, Yoruba and Igbo. He was also a mathematician.

Fr Markle soon noticed that this young boy, his faulty English aside, was a mathematical genius.

What did the priest do?

He took a special interest in this boy, and for his entire five year stay in the school, explained mathematical and physical concepts to the boy in Yoruba.

He also helped in his English and other courses as well.

By the time the boy sat for his School Cert in 1966, he scaled through in English and other subjects that required turenchi.

But for Mathematics, Additional Mathematics and Physics, he tore those subjects to shreds, and of course the Americans (who appreciate talent) noticed.

A few years later, on a scholarship, this young man earned his Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering, then followed it up with a Masters, and then a Doctorate by 1979. From @UCBerkeley.

#Nigeria? He never came back to this place that likes to waste talent... T

This young man, who for the record never quite mastered the English language, specialised in nanotechnology, and is responsible for a lot of cutting edge research.

He is the recipient of multiple awards from various universities, corporations, and foundations.

In 2016, the Carnegie Foundation honoured him as a Great Immigrant to America.

His name, Ilesanmi Adesida.

Now, imagine for one second if Fr. Markle had been as ignorant as @nicholasibekwe and @TunjiAndrews and had been laughing at young Adesida's inability to speak good English...

The world would have lost a gem...

But I don't hold it against Nick and Tunji. They are victims of the terrible system that we run in #Nigeria, a system that focuses on appearances rather than substance.

For example, too many of us when @MBuhari speaks, we spend time laughing at his accent rather than listening.

Too many of us were guilty of doing the same with @GEJonathan.

Remember the goats and the yam?

If we'd listened to the man, we'd have realised that he was simply saying that to stop corruption, we have to find a way to prevent people from having unbridled access to loot.

I have been guilty of it as well, and it takes a lot of unlearning to stop oneself from defaulting to the "njakiri" that is clearly #Nigeria's style of engagement

It is something we MUST learn to do better on. Focus on the substance rather than the surface.

Now, to the substance of what the good professor of mathematics from @uniben, my alma mater, was saying.

He was talking rubbish, and I was actually embarrassed listening to him.

Good heavens! Is this what is teaching the next generation???