“For what is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the infinite, a whole in comparison with the nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.” – Blaise Pascal, Pensées What strange defiance is this: that the soul, knowing well its fragility, clings still to life? That we, bound in bodies destined to wither, fight against the pull of the abyss? What force keeps the trembling heart beating, even when sorrow presses against the ribs like an iron band? What makes a man, weary of toil and loss, rise again with the sun, unwilling to surrender? The question – Why keep this transient spirit in this perishable frame? – is not merely a philosophical riddle but a cry from the deepest chambers of the human condition. It is the plea of every suffering soul, the whispered anguish of the broken-hearted, the silent query of the lonely and the lost. It is the question asked in hospital rooms and warzones, in sleepless nights and moments of unbearable grief. It is the unuttered...
Introduction In Nigeria today, it has become painfully evident that education no longer pays. The irony is loud and clear: a person who has laboured through the grueling academic ladder – first degree, Master’s, and PhD – often finds themselves poorer than someone who sweeps office floors in other African countries. Across Africa and beyond, janitors and cleaners are treated with greater financial dignity than Nigerian scholars. This is not to smear the reputation of the janitors, or ridicule the honest cleaners; rather, it is to highlight the shameful undervaluing of academic excellence in Nigeria. When a PhD holder lives in debt, and a cleaner in South Africa, Kenya, or Ghana lives in dignity, something is tragically wrong with our system. It reveals, in the very depth, the misplacement of priorities in the country, and the endemic corruption that continues to perforate the socio-economic fabric of the Nigerian state. Table 1 and 2 below reveal frighteningly the dispar...