Education and ignorance - by Belinda Chiazor

I have increasingly realized education and ignorance are not mutually exclusive, and that even with extensive formal education, individuals can still harbor profound ignorance.Some recent happenings in my life, confirmed this very notion. Per usualOne of them involved an artiste whose songs I needed for my visual project. There was an agreement the said artiste was to sign, but certain clauses made them uncomfortable, which wasn’t the issue for me. The problem was, after they pointed out they couldn’t sign the contract because a few things didn’t make sense to them, I endeavored to explain why the contract was drawn up with those details they weren’t happy with, yet the artiste continued to question the contract’s clarity as well as validity.The agreement wasn’t written in Elvish or Dothraki, but the artiste was as baffled as could be. Okay, you’re confused abi? The agreement doesn’t favor you? No problem, shebi it’s to go your merry way and say you’re not doing again? Instead, the Weyrey chose to insult me, outrightly accusing me of trying to take advantage of them. Some folks who know me personally, would laugh at this till they drizzle saliva.In any case, that very incident kuku inspired this writeup, because even though I resolved it and it ended somewhat amicably, it left me reaffirming that education doesn’t mean a lack of knowledge. In my experience however, not very many agbayas like to fess up to “not knowing.” They assume because they went to school, they can’t possibly not “know it all.”Learning is lifelong; but it should be accompanied by humility and open mindedness, as well as a recognition of the limitations of one’s knowledge and even ability. Formal education can only take you so far, as it can often be narrow in scope. Lack of exposure, misinformation and personal biases also tint our life’s lenses. And people’s world views will be tainted with the aforementioned, when they refuse to humble themselves, open their minds, approach learning as a never-ending journey and understand that anybody can be their teacher. Unfortunately, there are way too many of these willfully ignorant bunch, and na dem like to argue pass. Folks who went to universities and colleges but soon as they took off their convocation gowns, abandoned reading and continued learning.Having sadly realized there are more closed-minded individuals in Lagos than I'd care to meet, I can only shrug and say 'it is well' - the Nigerian’s favorite phrase of surrender in the face of resigned acceptance, or in my case, bewildering ignorance. Hopefully more people don’t continue to substitute “Instablog9ja” for actual books. Amen.

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