“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.“—-Proverbs 22:6.
I have read a lot of literatures eulogising the igbo’s igba boi system of transferring wealth. One says that Harvard University has commissioned a professional chair on it! If true, it is a welcome development but why go to Harvard, pay through your nose, for what can be easily acquired at Owerri Main Market on Douglas Road?
But because we love any and everything with the stain of Whiteman, we will willingly go to Harvard as bounce around as a Harvard or Oxford Graduate, even if the course is African Studies.
You see, Apprenticeship strictly speaking, is child labour. The Apprentice, comes into his Oga’s business as a minor, whose parents had chosen a course for; either because he has no brain for Western education or the Oga, is a pillar in his community and his parents, want him to become a timber and calibre like his Oga.
He leaves home to town-Owerri, Aba, Onitsha, Lagos, Kano or Kaduna and moves into his Oga’s house. He will first do house chores before going to shop. And woe unto him, if his Oga’s wife is an angel like Jezebel!
But now that this practice has been recognised by the white, they do not call it child labour, child abuse but Apprenticeship. Do you know why? The West, particularly USA economy, was built by child labour. Emigrants from Europe, escaping feudalism and oppression, landed in USA but were old to adapt to the rigorous of the new environment.
Their children went to work, slaving, delivering newspapers in winter, cleaning chimneys, washing dishes, coal-gold mining etc. After years of this, they gained “freedom” and succeeded their Bosses or rebelled and became entrepreneurs, patenting their ideas and became captains of industry and billionaires.
Africa unfortunately, has caught the mantra of child labour. African leaders, in crave for Western aides are signing all manner of documents against child labour, not knowing that, they are denying their countries, a needed progressive, imaginative work force that will industrialise and transform Africa.
African leaders should think outside the apron strings of IMF/World Bank and Western countries and think out how this labour force can be used to improve Africa, without denying them their childhood. We should not be afraid to put our children to productive use but happy to allow them beg with bowls in the name of religion!
