A time lost is lost forever

By Saidu Abdurrahman

In life, there is this precious thing called “time” and it wait for no man. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once” To everything in life there is a time. Some years ago, you were given birth to, after sometimes you started crawling, learning how to stand on your foot, learning how to walk. Then childhood to adolescent, adolescent to adulthood, this is telling you that life itself goes with time.

In every man’s life, he passes through a moment of happiness and sadness, tears and laughter. So also in academic pursuit, Nursery to primary to junior secondary to Senior secondary schools respectively.

Then to higher level of tertiary institutions, in all of these levels, there is a time of gaining admission, a time to read and the time for examinations.

The deadline in reading culture and failure in examinations written in schools, especially in Nigerian universities today can be attributed of so many factors such as social vices. Today, most students do not read extensively instead they do what is called “skimming reading” and as a result they fail, forgetting that heaven help those who helped themselves.

One common language students use if they did not perform well is “the lecturer failed me or gave me low grade”. And if they perform well it is “I made it, I worked for it or I deserve more than that”. This is a false statement as most of the students now failed to cultivate the habit of effective reading instead they wait till the dying minute and do what is called “fire-brigade approach to reading”.

When the outcome of the examination is out (result), you hear students lamenting and making all sort of comments and complains on how lecturer(s) failed them or how wicked the lecturer is, forgetting that they are the architect of their failure.

The invention of social media contributed a lot to massive failure of students during examinations in the Nigerian universities as students misuse the social network. A student that is expected to be reading for at least 3 to 4 hours in a day end-up spending most of his time on social network such as Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), twitter, whatsup, 2go chats and many more online-communuties. And at that blamed lecturer(s) for failing him whereas he designed his failure by himself.

Students now have the habit of reading less and playing much forgetting that a day of judgment awaits them in the examination hall where you be left alone with your question paper and answer booklet to recall all that you have spent your precious time on.

The popular saying that “time wait for no man” should always be at the back of our minds. For time, when spent can never be reversed. A wise and careful use of time will lead to better grade(s) for students.

“A word is enough for the wise” make judicious use of the precious time you have now.

Saidu Abdurrahman, Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University Kano