Education and healthcare systems in Nigeria are stricken with poverty. Are they better than Alaska’s?

To people who live in the west, Africa is a cruel place. I know this because I have had the benefit of formal education and lifelong experience here. Our 3rd World governments are corrupt. The people live in bitter poverty. Our only hope for the future is through education. I have a vision for the future of Africa, as a teacher, and I appreciate DONN LISTON allowing me to tell my story of hope for the future on this digital platform.

I was born in Akure Ondo State, Nigeria to Yoruba parents, James & Florence Adeniyi, both from Ekiti State. My father had limited formal education and as a young boy in Africa, it was difficult for me to gain quality education.

Education is identified as one critical area for improvement across Sub-Sahara Africa. My hope is to be a source of inspiration to many school children in my country, and Africa as a whole. I dream of drastically reduced illiteracy where children have access to quality education and affordable healthcare. During my years of teaching, I have provided learning materials, and utilized teaching tools to aid reading ability of students.

All children are born to learn – but so many never do

Poverty in Africa is largely due to wrong information and misinformation. My hope and dream is to actuate weapons against poverty through quality education to improve quality of life across Africa. Lack of education also contributes greatly to the rise of crime.

Poor education is one tool to assure ignorant people elect corrupt politicians. Alaskans have witnessed this dynamic first-hand in Juneau even as the richest state per capita in the USA.

My Experience as A Young Man In Africa

Acquiring a quality education in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole is one of the most difficult achievements any one can face. In Nigeria 47.3% or 98 million people, live in Multidimensional poverty, most located in Nigeria. This poverty rate does not include Borno State where insurgency has prevented data collection. It is a difficult experience growing up in Africa. Matter of fact, the life expectancy for an African is 63.82 years, compared to Europe which is 77.8 for men and 83.32 years for women.

I like to name our natural disaster in Africa as ‘’poverty.’’

Words cannot comprehend the penury I experienced as a young man growing up in Africa, as my family endured the biting hunger here. I remember walking with my mother one day, when silent tears coursed down her cheeks, seeing her slowly wiping them away, I asked: “What is wrong?” Her reply: ‘’No Food At Home’’ That night, my mother was restless, she could not silence the voice in her head enough to sleep. The following day, I discover the small white and black television in the living room was gone. My father sold it for money to buy food. My heart was broken.

We lack availability of pure water and so many other necessities of life the readers of this webpage likely take for granted in your Firstworld Country.

Nigeria Education Problems: Lacking Basic Infrastructure

Africa’s National Electrical grid falls short of providing reliable electricity due to inadequate generation capacity, limited transmission capacity and outdated distribution infrastructure. Energy poverty is a challenge faced by consumers both at home and at school, greatly reducing teaching resources and classroom materials. In Nigeria, we are greatly limited due to lack of electricity available: Lack of electric lighting, television, computers, all impact quality education. Mostly we use lantern and candle to read at night and to get academic assignments done.

Climate Change alarmists have urged alternative energy sources like windmills and solar here in Alaska, where we produce the cleanest oil and gas available, while in Africa–where the sun pounds the earth–people must go without meaningul energy sources.

Nigeria was dubbed as the Poverty Capital of the World in 2021. Poverty in Africa is the lack of provisions to satisfy basic human needs. We have overall Sub-Standard housing, homelessness, inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, inadequate childcare, lack of access to health care, unsafe neighborhoods and under-resourced schools.  As an African, I know the determinant of poverty can be traced to low or declining level of economic growth, income inequalities, un-employment, corruption, bad governance, diversion of funds into non-developmental projects, fund embezzlement, and inappropriate macroeconomics policies.¹

Countless nights I have gone to bed hungry owing to lack of food.

In 2021, I lost my father to cancer and Diabetes. I lost my job because my mother was the only one looking after my father and I could not accept her doing all of that alone. As I spent more time in the hospital, my job was impacted until he died.

Healthcare Systems in Nigeria

Healthcare delivery in Nigeria and Africa overall remains among the worst in the world. The World Health Organization considers the minimum cost for basic health care to be $34 to $40 per year per person. Nigeria is below this amount. The majority of us who live here are unable to enjoy the basic requirement for an adequate health care system. This is caused by poor government and human resources to address challenges caused by ineffective integration of services in countries with limited natural resources. Instead, Africans must resort to using natural herbs to cure disease and illness.

By contrast Alaska has the most expensive healthcare system in the United States where doctors become millionaires. Who is Politicizing Alaska’s Health Care Crisis?

The Threat of Competence

I personally had a major operation in 2009 wherein the hospital could not even provide a bed to lay on! It was a very traumatizing experience; the lack of attending physicians, poor facilities and obsolete equipment make it difficult to have correct diagnosis of patient health issues. This 3rd World health care system is poorly developed without adequate and functional surveillance system to assure adequate delivery of care.

The Certificate of Need Scam Fuels Alaska’s Healthcare Crisis

Efforts to Survve the Global Pandemic 2020

This had been one of the most significant periods in my life. In October 2019, I took a course in Google Analytics and, in December same year, I got certified as a digital marketer. February of 2020, I interned as assistant sales representative for a company in United Kingdom and learned about video editing and cinematography. During the lock down of 2020, I watched tutorials on YouTube, and read extensive to enrich my knowledge. In 2021 I became a weekly contributor to a media blog in Cincinnati Ohio. For them I cover breaking news and political news from Nigeria and Africa.

Looking Back and My Hope for the Future

During elementary school years, I helped my mother hawk some petty goods every day before and after school hours to get fund for my education, This toughened me up as a young boy and built a ‘’never say never’’ attitude in me. Upon finishing my secondary school Education in 2006, I gained admission to the Ekiti State University Ado Ekiti to study History and International Studies. I wanted to study Mass Communication but unfortunately, there was no such course available then at that university. I earned my first degree in 2015, did compulsory one-year National Youth Service in 2017 in Kebbi State. This is a program for every graduate in Nigeria University system, where I had my first experience as a teacher on the north side region of Nigeria. I received a certificate in 2018. My second experience as a teacher was in 2019 where I taught Government and Civics Education two years. During this period, I enrolled in a Postgraduate studies in Education, where i got certified in studies about education in 2020.

As a dedicated student and teacher, I long to tell the universal story of human survival through increased understanding and adaptation to conditions we must face in our life journey. If you have enjoyed this initial story about my experience, I would appreciate your comments on this website so DONN LISTON can decide if this story is worthy of continued presentation. We in the Third World of Africa are very far away from Alaska, but from what I have learned about your place we share many inadequacies of public institutions. While you are very rich and we are very poor.

1. Nigeria Still Poverty Capital of the World, This Day Live, September 6, 2021 https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/09/06/report-nigeria-still-poverty-capital-of-the-world/ [↩]