After the the election that was held in Nigeria last year, and all that came with it, I think that it will be easy to conclude that no matter how much anyone wants to argue, all elections will leave a bad taste in someone's mouth. There will be those that will be happy about the results, and there will be those that will be livid and bitter until the next election cycle comes around. Having moved to America in the time of Trump, and taking a front row seat to palpable anger and the division that came with Trump's regime, I relapsed that there never will come a time when the outcome of any election will keep everybody satisfied. There will always be winners and losers, new friendships will be made and existing friendships will be broken.
Living in America, it takes a while to realize that you represent the country that you come from. If you speak, and your voice does not have the traditional sounding American voice (if that is a thing) then the chances are high that someone will ask you where you are from, and as for me, most people in my social circle know that I am Nigerian; so when the Nigerian election ended the way that it did, social contacts who read global news would ask me what happened. It is no news that the discrepancies of the last election raised a lot of questions as to the authenticity of the process, which in turn made the outcome of the election questionable.
When Bola Tinubu was sworn into office, there had already been questions about his educational qualifications that were not cleared up; this was the same issue with Donald Trump, who had refused to show his tax returns, until we all eventually knew how much he was paying for taxes. This is the same situation with Tinubu right now, considering that the internet is blowing up with information alleging forgery of certificate and even impersonation of someone that may be diseased; these are terrible allegations and as it goes with all politically related conversations, the debate will continue for years.
That Nigeria has its problems with conducting free and fair elections is not new, inasmuch as this particular election came with a lot of hope that things would be done with some measure of transparency, the outcome should not be surprising for many. As for me, the real issue is this certificate thing that has blown up on the internet alleging that a Nigerian president forged his certificate; as crazy as the Trump era was, at least there is evidence to show that he went to school, whether the school went through him may be disputable.
How does this Tinubu's certificate story affect Nigerians living in the diasporas? Apart from the fact that your own education may come into question amongst your peers who will not ask you, there is verifiable information out there that insinuates that there are employers that are beginning to check qualifications of some of their African staff, especially Nigerians. We, Nigerians have already been described as the most educated immigrant group in the United States, but when the president of the whole nation is involved in this kind of scandal, don't you think that it will begin to raise questions? do you honestly blame an employer who will resort to commencing due diligence with their already existing Nigerian workers?
There was a long list of Nigerians involved in the nursing education scandal, most will know this as the Florida nursing education scam; where about 7000 nurses were implicated. According to this story, they never went to nursing school, but they wrote the State board exam and worked as nurses; some of them for over 10 years as the story goes. When this story broke and the lists of names were made public, you will find a lot of Nigerian names on that list. This is something that honest and hardworking Nigerians living in the diasporas have to deal with, other Nigerians that want to give us a bad name. It is not enough that the phrase "Nigerian scammers" has been used, even in numerous Hollywood movies, now we have our president having questions about his own education?
It's just that religion and politics has what it does to the human species, it beclouds their thinking faculty, and sound judgement is consistently thrown out of the window, this is not a Nigerian problem, this is a global problem. But with all the problems that all the countries in the world have, they find a way of dealing with it, as well as finding a way to manage their own embarrassments. This will be a nonissue for Nigerians at home, it is those of us living outside that have to explain ourselves when the need comes. As per education, it cannot be overemphasized that and should always do things the right way, follow the process and do the time and get the required qualifications so that we do not continue to embarrass ourselves. It is one thing for this to be going on, then it is another thing for us to be known as the people who engage in this kind of thing after having the recognition of the most educated group of immigrants living in the US.
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