You can’t knock at your neighbour’s door except there is a need for it. Everybody keeps to himself. That is one of the rules of the White society.
Most impressive experience of UK
The way UK government welcome people. You can’t get it anywhere else in the world. They are very hospitable, as long as you don’t contravene their law. Once you go by the rules, you will enjoy UK. They are not disorganised. They don’t value riches, but they value how you get the riches. They don’t like people who steal. And those who try to cheat the system don’t get anywhere. Those who are not credible, who lack integrity, will have a challenge living in that environment.
Study, work, live in UK
The UK educational system is different from ours. They go through the college system. They don’t waste time. They identify their area of potential and their children are encouraged to go to the area of best comparative advantage. They don’t force their children to study some courses. They don’t force them to go to school. If you are not too good in the academics, you go for vocational training.
Those who dream of studying in the UK should do the IJMB and the Cambridge courses. Without that, they’d find it difficult to fit into the system.
To study abroad is extremely expensive, except you are a citizen. If you are sending your child abroad, and he is a teenager, you need somebody to oversee him, somebody who can put him through the system so that he doesn’t fall into wrong hands, bad gangs and start to do drugs.
The system always catch up with those who do drugs and the person will be redundant and may never be employed in any corporate organization. Even after rehabilitations.
Let me add this: there are more opportunities at home. The government just need to address our educational system.
The shock of new culture
You will not know the beauty of your culture until you go abroad. There are some places you go to in the UK where you won’t see any African, or any black-skinned man you can identify with.
Back at home, we are quick to discriminate––“oh, this is an Ijebu man? I don’t like him.” But out there, if you hear someone speaking on phone says, “Kedu” your ears prick to attention and you will be surprise to find yourself filled with nostalgia. It is only in popular places like London that you have people of mixed races. In some remote places in the UK, you might not even get to see a single black man. In some places, the black people in the population might not be more than two.
Fitting into the system
As they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” When you find yourself abroad, you have to blend in with their culture.
For example, Africans value greetings. That is the manner in which we were brought up. But hey, you cannot just greet a white man. He would ask you: “Are you alright?”–– because he doesn’t know you! You can’t greet your neighbour except there is a relationship. You can’t knock at your neighbour’s door except there is a need for it. Everybody keeps to himself. That is one of the rules of the White society.
Once you are 18 years old, you need to fend for yourself. You have to leave your parents’ house. Back in Africa, you could be 30s and still be living in your father’s house. If it’s in the UK, you are going to pay separate council tax. When you are in the university, you need to go and work to supplement your school needs.
In Nigeria, as a working parent you can leave your child at school and pick him or her later at your convenience. If you try that abroad, you will lose that child to social workers.
However, they have also imbibed some aspects of our culture. Take, for instance, an elderly person in a bus or train with no vacant seat. A white boy is not concerned about giving up his seat for the elderly. Now, Whites also stand up for elderly people. That is a borrowed culture from Africa. They are having a lot of challenges in different aspects of their lives and they increasingly turning to other cultures.
Biggest lesson about culture
Culture differs from one country to another, and from one continent to another. People of the same continent may have similar cultures, but not exactly of the same patterns.
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Dr Ayodeji, a seasoned journalist, economist, advertising professional and an entrepreneur, is a member of the Conservative Party in the UK.
