This confession will make me sound like a terrible mother, but I need to get it off my chest. My son, 20 years old, just failed JAMB for the third consecutive year. He wants to study Medicine. His father, my ex-husband, is furious. He blames me for "coddling" him. The family is already registering him for a fourth attempt. But deep down, I am relieved. Not because I want him to fail. But because I have watched this boy suffer. He is not academically inclined. He is brilliant with his hands — he can fix any electronics, he draws beautifully, he has a natural gift for music production. But in Nigeria, if you are not a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, you are "wasting your life." So we have forced him into a box that breaks him. I see the depression in his eyes. I see how he flinches when results come out. I see how he has started believing he is stupid. He is not stupid. The system is stupid. A single standardized exam should not determine the worth of a human being. A society that only values one type of intelligence is a society that will produce broken children and mediocre professionals who were forced into fields they h@te. I want to tell him, "Forget JAMB. Go to a technical school. Learn sound engineering. Build things. Create." But I am afraid. Afraid of my family. Afraid of the neighbors. Afraid that without a "degree," he will be undervalued in a country that worships certificates over competence. When did we stop celebrating different types of genius? Parents, would you support your child abandoning university for a technical path? Or is a degree still the only insurance policy in Nigeria? I am torn between my mother's heart and society's noise.
