A parable

Growing up, I saw a cartoon once. I forget the title now, and some of the elements may be misremembered, so bear with me—the overall point stands.

In it, a girl in a village is in her uncle’s care, as her father is away for work. She is precocious and zealous for learning, wishing to go to secondary school. Her grades are no concern: her results arrive, and it turns out she has not only passed her primary school exams, but done so with utter distinction. Her uncle, who harbours political ambitions (he wishes to be councillor) gives her academic gifts short shrift, however, and dampens her enthusiasm by claiming he lacks the means to finance secondary education.

In time, relying only on her own ingenuity, she invents a clay stove that is revolutionary for the community and becomes the talk of the village. As people gather in admiration and heap praises on the girl, she declares, remarkably, that her invention is dedicated to her uncle.

At this point, her uncle, preening, takes the plaudits and loudly declares that, in line with a promise he had previously made, on account of passing her exams, she would get to attend secondary school, as he is “a man who keeps his promises”. The villagers are enthralled by this, and the girl is overjoyed; he made no such promise beforehand, but she is getting what she wanted to begin with, so all’s well that ends well.

In that very moment, however, something happens. The girl’s father arrives unannounced. She bounds to him and, while in his embrace, satisfies his curiosity as to the throng in the compound by informing him that, among everything else, her uncle has pledged to send her to secondary school.

The man immediately turns to the uncle and queries, “But what about the money I’ve been sending?” There and then, the subterfuge is laid bare: apparently, her father had, in fact, sent the funds for her to go to secondary school, but her uncle had said nothing of it, only to then, in an opportune moment, present sending her to school as an act of benevolence on his part.

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That girl is the Super Falcons. Her uncle is the Federal Government of Nigeria.