By Will you sell your certificate for thirty million naira?: A Critical Inquiry
Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
In an atmosphere of conviviality with some friends and students sometime yesterday, Wednesday June 5 2024, a word war broke out between two jolly fellows and in no time everyone else had to be part of the conflict of the jaw. “What am I doing with my degree certificate when 30 million can transform my life?”, the first quizzed without any desire to welcome any contradictory stance to his. Fuming, the other retorted, “What’s thirty million compared to the years I invested into getting this certificate? An amount I can make in a day if I get a good contract. You are saying trash, man.” The argument continued for a while and each stance was getting seconders and supporters.
Deliberately quiet, I was called out by one of the discourse participants: “Doc, are you not saying anything?”. It dawned on me that a PhD meant being a judge in public discourse sometimes. Anyway, one thing was certain. I was surely not going to pass a judgement in the face of this heated debate. Sadly I equally did not have the power to adjourn the case like a judge would have done in a conventional court of law. One thing was evident however; none of the main debaters was open to rationalising the other stance. They did not even need explanation. They each just wanted validation. Let Doc just say I’m right so this “mumu” boy will know he has been saying nonsense. And it dawned on me immediately that I should not massage one’s ego over the other’s. You do not change people on your own terms; you change them on their own terms. So I began my intervention with the story of two young men who were going to test the wisdom of an old man. They were going to ask him if the butterfly one of them had in his hand was dead or alive. The plan was to show him the butterfly alive if he said it was dead and to press it to death if he said it was alive. The smart young men were certain that the old man would have no way out of their well thought-out plan. On getting to him, they asked their question with the inner pleasure of laughing at the old man’s failed wisdom.
Staying quiet for a while, the old man said to the smart young men: my dear children, dead or alive, the butterfly is in your hand”. There was no way the old man could be wrong with this response. If there were no butterfly in one of the young men’s hand at all, then the old man’s wisdom would not have failed, instead they would have lied.
By the time I was done with this story, I had at least got everyone’s nerve a bit calm. So the real issue could then be addressed outside of that hot conversational temperature.
So I went on. Like the dead butterfly, whether you decide to sell the certificate or not, it is yours. Also, realistically speaking, who buys a certificate anyway? I mean, we can talk about forged certificates, not bought certificates in the sense of ownership being legally or openly transferred. Again, are you going to be transferring this certificate with all the academic knowledge and experience that come with it? Oh it could be that this buyer has got the knowledge but needs just the certificate right? Whichever be it, again, everyone needed to be reminded that the conversation was more surrealistic than realistic so it shouldn’t be prioritised over the fun of the moment. I think more people then realised that too much energy had gone into the discussion than was necessary for something unrealistic. Isn’t this how life is? How many things have we all got so worried about only to realise they’re not even as serious as we ever took them? So nerves got calmer. However, I needed to reach the end. Nothing should trigger this noise again before my final submission. So I had to finally address the issue.
If there are people who are worth over thirty million naira still returning to school to acquire university education, should we consider it right, ideal or reasonable for anyone to sell for thirty million what they had laboured to get for about four years? On the other hand, if after possessing a university degree, it dawns on any individual that s/he can transform their life with even an amount smaller than thirty million naira, would we say they should cherish and keep what can be negotiated for a better life for them? Like the butterfly story, this certificate is yours. If it pleases you to keep it, why not? If it increases you to negotiate its ownership, what’s wrong?
I ended my intervention with a practical dimension to the hypothetical debate. What could be similar to selling your certificate in the real world might be working for an illiterate person even as a graduate, becoming a bus conductor as a graduate, and/or doing any other menial or supposedly ridiculous thing despite your dignity as a degree holder. You may have to remind yourself that survival supercedes the dignity that will not put food on your table. If it is not against God and is not not a crime in your society, nothing is exactly too lowly to do for your survival. Someday, you will find what befits you. But until then, prioritise survival.
A realistic comparison to not selling your certificate is being contended with the little you have without being intimidated to go beyond your limit. Like Timothy Wangusa says in his poem “A Taxi Driver on his Death”: “Risking everything for the little, little more”. Be satisfied with that which you have, the quest for more should not always hurriedly push you to negotiate your worth and trade your identity.
Meanwhile, dead or alive, the butterfly is in your hand.
(c) 2024 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.
