"Wahala Dey' By Adesina Ogunlana

A signature tune on the tube of one of the better known stress depressors in the land is an excitable ululation of “Wahala dey!”



To this particular comedian “wahala dey” is a far cry from the true character of “wahala” better known in Nigerian English as “big, big trouble.”


In this piece, as you will very soon find out when I say “Wahala dey” I mean exactly nothing less.


Some days ago, (Friday 15 October 2010) I was a guest at a dinner organized by a group of law undergraduates. It was a memorable day alright, but not for all the right reasons.


It was a big privilege, indeed honour to be put on the high table, where also sat one of those at whose feet twenty years ago, I was fed the milk of law as a fresher.


Also on the high table was a “worshipful majesty,” a great friend of the 1st Gecko who continues to tease me as a “small boy” even though discreet scientific investigation has shown that I landed on this terra firma before her.


Of course we the “older-generation" had issues to pick with the “generation of the day” our hosts. We disagreed with their dressing (disco party wears mostly), with their “lingo” (especially the penchant for introducing lawyers as “Barrister This and Barrister That" as well as their reference to themselves as “lawyers-in-equity."


From the lecturer in our midst, we heard depressing information about the state of university education in Nigerian. For example we learnt that class population of students can be as high as 450. Twenty years ago, we were only 46 in number in my set.


We also learnt that the command of the English language of the average law student is so poor it would be easier marking a law examination script written in pidgin Greek than wading through the scripts of the modern law undergraduates written in specially concocted English.


As if that was not enough, we learnt that it was a common thing for “stubborn” lecturers to be threatened to 'pass' even the most “yammy” of his class or face severe, nay, fatal sanctions.


The most chilling of the news from “my oga” was that due to the high rate of failure amongst students, 40% was no longer the pass mark, but 25%!
Even at that about 35% of these students still fail.

In effect what the universities are churning out these days are nothing but “certificated ignoramuses," be they labeled “engineers,” “doctors,” “accountants,” “lawyers” etc.


It has been said that half education is dangerous, so what do we say of quarter education: ‘dangerful?'
Listen to my lecturer:


"I was teaching on the topic of legal capacity and how it relates to infants. You know the stuff about how an infant can only have capacity to contract for necessaries. So I gave an example of infant entering a contract to buy a bicycle, only for one wonderful student to say such an infant is only putting himself in unnecessary danger: “what if the BRT buses should run him over?”


My people-Ah, wahala dey!