Introduction In the early 1980s, Nigeria’s children encountered a small but powerful book in their secondary school curriculum: Eze Goes to School , written by Onuora Nzekwu and Michael Crowder. It was more than a story; it was a mirror of a nation’s aspirations. Education was a treasure: rare, dignified, and transformative. To be a student was to be a prince or princess in your own right. Teachers commanded respect. Boarding schools felt like foreign missions. Every child yearned to move from primary to secondary school, and then to the university. Education was the ladder out of poverty, the passport to dignity, and the promise of a better tomorrow. Today, that ladder is broken. The promise has been betrayed. And the shame is not hidden; it is exported. Eze’s World: Hope, Hunger, and Honour To say the least, the authors of Eze goes to School presented Eze’s worldview. Eze Adi is a brilliant, curious boy from a poor rural family. His parents, though struggling farmers, believe...
Introduction Every society carries a mirror, sometimes polished, sometimes cracked, reflecting what it is, what it fears, and what it hopes to become. For Nigeria, that mirror increasingly resembles 18th‑century France: a nation swollen with inequality, governed by elites insulated from the suffering of the masses, and drifting toward a breaking point that history has already documented in painful detail. Yet, in a twist of irony, Nigeria’s leaders frequently travel to France, a country whose stability, rule of law, and social discipline were purchased through revolution, while presiding over a homeland where those very foundations are eroding. The contrast is not just symbolic; it is diagnostic. Lessons From the French Revolution: When Inequality Becomes a Political Time Bomb The French Revolution did not erupt suddenly. It simmered for decades under conditions that feel eerily familiar to Nigerians today: Crushing inequality France’s ancien régime was built on a rigid hi...