“This is a call to every Nigerian once taught by a teacher to support the cause of Nigerian teachers in public schools to save the teaching profession and indeed the future of Nigeria and stem the regressive trend in our manpower development in the face of a dynamic and ever challenging world”.

My teacher has been on strike and for 2 weeks my Government ignored my teacher and the schools. I have not gone to school for 2 weeks now, I and my fellow students now hawk groundnut and pure water on the street, sometimes we go playing table-soccer or ‘O.J.O’ at the nearby playing field.

My teacher, the moulder of my character, the person who laid the foundation of my life, without whom my country could never have dreamt of its manpower. My teacher is the least paid Government worker; my teacher operates in the worst working condition in the country.

My teacher is the most dedicated worker I have ever met in my entire life. My teacher’s staff room does not need air conditioner; the nails in my teacher’s furniture sometimes tears through my teacher’s clothes or even the skin; the ceiling of the staff room may not even need ceiling board; the heat of the sun simmers through the zinc, the rains seep through the leaking zinc.

Although my teacher’s stroke of the pen can not sign out billions of Naira but my teacher is punctual at every morning assembly 7:45am sharp. My teacher teaches all the topics English, arithmetic, civics, natures study e.t.c my teacher prepares lesson notes at the every close of work.

My teacher marks and grades my homework and test along with over 40 other noisy students in my class; my teacher sometime bears the brunt of recalcitrant students, abusive parents and finicky education inspectors with all equanimity.

But my Government does not care about my teacher because God has promised to reward my teacher in heaven. My Government does not pay my teacher, my Government does not patronise my school. The years of neglect has wearied my teacher, my teacher could no longer teach because my teacher could no longer afford the cost of coming to school.

My president (I heard once a teacher too) travelled abroad to see Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister. I hear the members of the British Parliament would never have allowed its prime minister travel abroad if it had been British teachers that had been on strike for 2 weeks.

In my country, Members of Parliament earns uncountable sums of money. Their daily lunch allowance alone I hear, is N114, 000.00. One of them even wanted a body masseur for (uncountable) N90million. Because of my Government’s ill treatment of my teacher I wanted to be a teacher to see if I could help, but my parents (teachers themselves) do not want me to enroll in a College of Education. They told me children studying courses in Education in higher institutions are looked upon as unfortunate and never do wells. Ha! But my parents sent me to school to be taught by my teacher!

When has it become a curse to be a teacher?

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