The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, is best remembered for his grim depiction of human life in the absence of order, “nasty, brutish, and short.” From this came the concept of the “Hobbesian choice”: a decision between two unpleasant options, where one must pick the lesser evil for survival. Applied to our reality today, education is exactly that. It may be costly, frustrating, and sometimes unrewarding in the short term. But the alternative, ignorance, is far worse.
This is why the slogan “Education is a scam”, carelessly repeated on social media, campuses, and street corners, is both reckless and destructive. It is not just a lazy excuse for mediocrity; it is an insult to the generations who clawed their way out of poverty through education. Those who chant it are not being clever; they are betraying their own future.
If education is truly a scam as ignorantly been mouthed, then why is it that the very people who already have wealth, fame, and power still find their way back to the classroom? Why would a man like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, twice Nigeria’s leader, return to earn a degree in Christian Theology from NOUN in 2017 at an age when many thought he had nothing left to prove? He could have sat back as a global statesman, but instead he showed that learning has no expiry date.
Why would Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, after leaving Aso Rock, still immerse himself in academic circles with his PhD in Zoology from the University of Port Harcourt? Why would Senator Dino Melaye, loved or loathed, spend years picking up more degrees, including a law degree from Baze University in 2021? Applauding enough, he was recently called to the Bar. In fact, why would Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, with Harvard and MIT on her résumé, keep publishing, lecturing, and applying academic rigor to every role she holds, all the way to becoming DG of the WTO?
The same pattern repeats with Prof. Pat Utomi, who rose through the halls of Indiana University to become one of Nigeria’s most respected economists, and Governor Babagana Zulum, who still proudly identifies as a lecturer even while battling insurgency in Borno State. These are not people with time to waste, yet they make time for education.
Let me be blunt: it is sheer ignorance to wave aside education as a scam. Those who say so are victims of impatience and entitlement. They expect education to hand them riches on a platter, and when that does not happen, they cry foul. But education was never meant to be a shortcut to money; it is a foundation for enlightenment, problem-solving, and resilience.
Across the world, the story is the same. Nelson Mandela, even from his Robben Island prison cell, pursued a law degree from the University of London by correspondence. Barack Obama rose to the U.S. presidency on the back of intellectual discipline honed at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban for insisting on schooling, still went on to graduate from Oxford University in 2020 with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. These people understood that ignorance is slavery, and education is liberation.
Without being immodest, I know this truth not by hearsay but by experience. I once worked as a gateman at a construction company and later as a security guard at a private security firm. Life was tough, and the temptation to resign myself to fate was real. Yet, I maximized every spare hour to pursue education. I studied Mass Communication at both the University of Lagos and Olabisi Onabanjo University, refusing to let my circumstance define my destiny. I then topped these degrees with a professional qualification in Public Relations under the auspices of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).
Today, I write not as a mere survivor but as a journalist who knows firsthand that education may be a hard path, but it is never a wasted one. Those hours of study, those sleepless nights after guard duties, were the real investments that shaped my life. That is why it pains me deeply when I hear young Nigerians dismiss education as a scam.
Most importantly, the quest for education has no age limit. Whether you are 20 or 70, as long as you are alive and willing, you can still pursue knowledge. Obasanjo proved it by going back to university in his later years. Mandela proved it in prison. Malala proved it despite near-death circumstances. Education is not a race against others; it is a lifelong journey against ignorance.
The truth is bitter but must be said: those chanting “education is a scam” are only scamming themselves. They will wake up one day and realize that while they were busy ridiculing education, their peers who persevered in classrooms, no matter how imperfect, will be the ones sitting at tables of influence, shaping policies, running businesses, and commanding respect.
Yes, Nigeria’s education system is flawed with strikes, underfunded universities, unemployed graduates. But abandoning education is not the solution; it is surrender. The real scam is illiteracy, which locks people into poverty and makes them easy prey for manipulation.
Education is, and will always remain, a “Hobbesian choice”: not always easy, rarely perfect, but absolutely necessary.
So let’s stop the foolishness. If Obasanjo, Jonathan, Melaye, Okonjo-Iweala, Utomi, Zulum, Mandela, Obama, Malala, and even someone like me, who once stood as a gateman, still saw education as indispensable, then who are you, without power or resources, to dismiss it as a scam?
The lesson is clear: embrace education, however hard and at whatever age, or embrace ignorance and its chains. The wise already know which choice to make.
