Inspired by the powerful essay, “Nigeria’s Ass in the Lion’s Skin,” by Lasisi Olagunju.
There was a time in Nigeria when the teacher was feared, respected, honoured and trusted.
The teacher was not merely a salary earner; he was the moral compass of the community. He stood between civilisation and chaos. He carried the burden of shaping minds, preserving values, and preparing society’s future custodians.
Today, that profession lies wounded on the roadside of Nigeria’s political highway — battered, neglected, mocked, underpaid, endangered and gradually beheaded.
Lasisi Olagunju, in his haunting essay “Nigeria’s Ass in the Lion’s Skin,” warned that a nation lowering the gate into teacher education is preparing disaster for itself. His intervention was not simply about examinations or admission processes. It was about a deeper national tragedy: the collapse of respect for substance and the systematic destruction of the profession responsible for producing every other profession.
But even Olagunju’s painful lament may not fully capture the horror that has now become the fate of the Nigerian teacher.
Somewhere in the forests around Ogbomosho in Oyo State, teachers whose only offence was dedication to duty found themselves staring into the mouth of terror. Men and women entrusted with children were dragged into the nightmare of insecurity while carrying out the sacred responsibility of protecting and educating young minds.
One of them paid the ultimate price.
A teacher.
Killed in the line of duty.
A man whose labour was not in oil wells.
Not in politics.
Not in contract racketeering.
Not in bullion van economics.
But in the cultivation of children.
And Nigeria moved on.
The silence that followed was perhaps more terrifying than the crime itself.
The Presidency issued routine statements.
Politicians resumed calculations.
Partisans returned to television studios.
Supporters defended camps.
Opponents weaponised grief.
The nation continued its endless traffic of politics without pause for reflection.
But somewhere in Nigeria’s broken soul, something dangerous happened:
the teacher died twice.
First in the forest.
Then in public memory.
And that second death may be the more tragic one.
What exactly has happened to us?
How did a nation arrive at a point where the brutalisation of teachers no longer provokes national outrage?
How did we become a country where those who shape civilisation now occupy the lowest rung of public concern?
What greater evidence exists that a profession has been beheaded than when society no longer feels shame at its humiliation?
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu speaks often about Renewed Hope. Yet hope cannot be renewed by speeches while the very profession entrusted with renewing the minds of future generations is abandoned to poverty, ridicule and terror.
And what makes the silence even heavier is that the First Lady herself once belonged to that noble profession. One would expect that somewhere within the emotional chambers of motherhood, grandmotherhood and professional memory, a stronger national voice would rise for teachers brutalised in service and for children terrorised in pursuit of learning.
When a two-year-old toddler seeking education becomes vulnerable to the grip of terror, society itself stands accused.
This is no longer merely an education issue.
It is a civilisation emergency.
But the burden of disappointment does not end with government.
Peter Obi once proudly spoke about his only son being a teacher. It was one of the few moments in Nigerian politics where teaching was spoken of not as failure, but as honour.
That was refreshing.
But if one truly understands the dignity of teaching, then the pain of teachers anywhere in Nigeria must become personal everywhere in Nigeria.
I expected Peter Obi not to treat the Ogbomosho horror as merely a South-West problem or as another opportunity to observe from partisan distance because the affected territory belongs to President Tinubu’s political base.
No.
I expected him to stand in front of the matter morally and emotionally and ask himself:
What if it were my only son?
What if the teacher facing death in that forest carried my family name?
What if the brutalised teacher was the pride I once publicly celebrated?
Because that is the problem with Nigeria today:
everything is first filtered through politics before passing through humanity.
If tragedy happens in an APC state, PDP minds calculate advantage.
If it happens in a Labour Party stronghold, APC minds calculate response.
Human suffering has become political currency.
Meanwhile, the nation burns.
The brutal reign of politics over policy is slowly destroying Nigeria.
We now produce politicians faster than we produce patriots.
We manufacture propaganda faster than we manufacture ideas.
We defend camps faster than we defend values.
And in the middle of this confusion stands the Nigerian teacher — exhausted, underpaid, endangered and dishonoured.
Yet no nation rises above the quality of those who teach its children.
The irony is painful:
Nigeria wants excellent leadership while neglecting excellent teaching.
We want visionary presidents while humiliating classroom instructors.
We want competent governors while starving educators.
We want ethical citizens while rewarding intellectual mediocrity.
We want national transformation while treating teachers as expendable.
It cannot work.
The best among us must teach us so that the best among us can emerge to lead us.
Civilisations do not accidentally produce great leadership. Great leadership grows from disciplined learning, moral formation, intellectual rigour and societal values planted early by competent teachers.
Destroy the teacher, and eventually leadership becomes theatre.
Perhaps this is why mediocrity now walks confidently through corridors of power.
Perhaps this is why noise increasingly defeats wisdom in public discourse.
Perhaps this is why public office now attracts performance more than preparation.
A nation that abandons its teachers inevitably promotes intellectual emptiness into leadership.
There was a time parents proudly said:
“My son is a doctor.”
“My daughter is a lawyer.”
“My child is an engineer.”
But now, even teachers themselves hesitate to encourage their own children into the profession.
Why?
Because society has converted those who should shape destiny into objects of pity.
And yet, every president, governor, banker, professor, activist, judge, engineer and billionaire first sat before a teacher.
The teacher is civilisation’s invisible architect.
Take away dignity from teaching and you quietly remove dignity from the nation’s future.
This is why what happened in Ogbomosho should not disappear into another news cycle.
It should force Nigeria into moral introspection.
It should provoke national repentance.
It should remind us that when teachers are abandoned, society itself becomes orphaned intellectually.
A country that cannot protect its teachers cannot protect its future.
A country that cannot honour its teachers cannot sustain greatness.
And a country that keeps reducing teaching to the profession of the rejected may eventually discover that rejected standards produce rejected outcomes.
The teacher has become the beheaded profession.
But if Nigeria truly desires renewal, restoration must begin there.