In the psychological marketplace of ideas, young people often ask themselves a simple but sobering question. Is effort worth the reward? Their answers are shaped not by what government or society proclaims but by what it demonstrably rewards. In today’s Nigeria, this calculus increasingly tilts toward despair, producing a catchphrase that has become both mantra and lament among the youth and Gen Z demographic—“school na scam.” It is tempting to dismiss this phrase as reckless youthful cynicism, but that would be a mistake. Like all enduring slogans, it is rooted in lived reality. It reflects a society that, in its whims-based reward system, celebrates spectacle over substance, athletics over academics, entertainment over enlightenment. In connecting the dots, one begins to see how the logic of this “scam” narrative is quietly validated by the Nigerian state itself.
Take the contrasting cases of two groups of national heroes. In July 2025, the Federal Government rolled out the red carpet for the Super Falcons and D’Tigress after they won the African Women’s Cup of Nations and the Women’s AfroBasket Championship. Each player and coach received the naira equivalent of $100,000 (over ₦150 million), national honours, and a three-bedroom apartment. They were feted in Lagos streets and courted by sport-loving corporations that showered them with additional largesse. Deserved, no doubt.
But weeks later, when 17-year-old Nafisa Abdullah Aminu emerged as the world’s best in English Language Skills at the TeenEagle Global Finals in London, her reward was a cheque of ₦200,000. Not a scholarship. Not a research grant. Not even a sustained recognition package for her teachers or school. Just a one-off cheque that hardly covered the cost of her family’s journey from Damaturu to Abuja for the presentation. By the time the Aminus returned to Yobe, the so-called “national honour” had evaporated into mere ceremony.
What lesson does this send to millions of observant young Nigerians? The dots are not difficult to connect. A society that pours millions into short-lived sporting triumphs but barely invests in its intellectual champions teaches its youth that dribbling a ball is more valuable than breaking intellectual boundaries. The stories from Nigeria’s ivory towers reinforce the same tragic picture. One bright graduand, who won seven prizes at her university’s convocation, left with a combined total of ₦540,000—the reward for years of rigorous, sleepless study. Best Somadina, the best Mass Communication graduate at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, was rewarded with a tuber of yam, a fowl, and a certificate. At Ekiti State University, Bamisaye Tosin received ₦200 for topping Civil Engineering. At the University of Ibadan, Hikmat Ibrahim-Buruji earned ₦2,000 for excelling in Arabic and Islamic Studies. In Lagos, Esther Fatogun, best graduating student of LASUSTECH in 2018, received nothing beyond a cold handshake.
Consider the latest absurdity. Just the other day (22 August 2025), a 37-year-old Lagos-based businessman, reportedly embarked on a trifle vainglorious adventure of ‘trekking 633 kilometres from Lagos to Abakaliki to show solidarity with Governor Francis Nwifuru’s peace initiatives in the Effium/Ezza-Effium community’. His ‘heroic exploit’ was rewarded with a staggering ₦10 million cash gift. Ten million naira, for a publicity stunt that neither addressed the ravenous poverty and hunger currently ravaging Ebonyi citizens like all other ordinary Nigerians nor did anything to redress the poor literacy level of the State! Meanwhile, the same country sends its brightest students home with yams, fowls, and handshakes.
It is easy to chuckle at these absurdities – academic genius measured in poultry and tubers – but the deeper psychological damage is profound. When young Nigerians, already struggling under economic hardship, watch their most brilliant peers humiliated with such tokenism, the seeds of cynicism germinate. Why sacrifice years in lecture halls for a yam prize when one viral skit, one hit song, inane fame-chasing trek, or one penalty save can open the gates to wealth and recognition?
The tragedy is made sharper by history. In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy famously challenged his fellow Americans: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” It was a rousing call to civic responsibility, urging citizens to give their best in service of the nation. Yet in Nigeria, this noble sentiment has been emptied of substance and repurposed as an empty refrain, often recited during convocation ceremonies as if to console graduates who are rewarded with nothing but handshakes and dry certificates. The catch is cruel. After years of sacrifice, the best our brightest are told is to think not of what the state owes them but of what more they can do for a country that owes them everything and repays them with nothing.
A chilling example came from Katsina State when Jamil Mabai, media aide to Governor Dikko Radda, disclosed on News Central TV that a notorious bandit leader currently engaged in peace talks was once a university’s best graduating student. This individual, celebrated in his youth for his brilliance, eventually slid into banditry because of systemic neglect, unemployment, and a lack of opportunities. His story is the parable of our times. A society that refuses to value its brightest ends up paying the price when their frustration mutates into violence.
Mabai’s disclosure is not just a tragedy; it is an indictment. It shows how systemic neglect corrodes even the brightest futures, driving them into crime, extremism, or despair. This is where the twisted invocation of JFK’s maxim becomes dangerous. In Nigeria, it is not a spur to patriotism but a weapon used to silence legitimate demands for fairness. Students are told to “think of what you can do for your country,” even as the country fails to think of what it can do to retain its brightest minds. The result is a toxic feedback loop. The best leave in droves in search of greener pastures, while others surrender to hopelessness, mediocrity, or crime.
Yet history provides a cautionary twist. The youth must be reminded, however, that while fame in sports and entertainment dazzles, it is often painfully fleeting. Instances abound of many sports legends and entertainers who, in their prime, amassed accolades and wealth enough to secure a lasting fortune for life. But too often, these fortunes were frittered away on the altar of profligacy, hedonism, and ostentation. Age creeps in, performance declines, and the once-celebrated star becomes a derelict figure, living on charity, begging for crowd-funding to pay hospital bills, or dying in obscurity. In contrast, intellectual legacies endure. The works of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Philip Emeagwali still command global respect long after their prime. The lesson for both the youth and their benefactors is pungent. The applause of the moment may fade, but the rewards of the mind echo across generations. The irony is strikingly poignant. Those who were once national darlings are reduced to pitiable relics, while the very scholars mocked with tubers and yams quietly go on to shape nations, invent technologies, and leave intellectual legacies that outlast generations.
This is not an argument against rewarding sports or entertainment. Nations need both. The problem arises when academic distinction—the engine of innovation, science, and development—is so grossly undervalued that it appears laughable. No country has ever entertained or played its way to greatness. The Asian Tigers, the Nordics, and even Rwanda in Africa, understood that sustained investment in human capital—not football victories—is what drives enduring prosperity. In philosophical terms, Nigeria’s skewed incentives represent a case of misplaced priorities. As the proverb says, “a society that sends its eagle to fetch firewood should not be surprised when it returns with twigs.” By starving its brightest minds of recognition and support, Nigeria cultivates weeds while leaving its fertile fields untended. Psychologists would add that when effort is routinely decoupled from reward, motivation erodes. This is why the “school na scam” catchphrase, once a joke, now resonates as a lived conviction among the youth.
To be clear, young Nigerians are not anti-education. They are anti-hypocrisy. They see their teachers poorly paid, their campuses underfunded, their innovators ignored, their graduating peers humiliated with chickens and yams, while their leaders proclaim “education is the bedrock of development.” They connect the dots. And the dots lead to one conclusion – that the system is not designed to reward academic excellence.
So, what is to be done? First, the Federal and State Governments must recalibrate their reward culture. If Nigeria is serious about reversing the “school na scam” idiocy, the government must start by dismantling its whims-based reward system. Academic excellence must not be humiliated with poultry and tubers; it must be dignified with scholarships, research grants, structured support systems, and national recognition equal to, if not greater than, that accorded to sports, entertainment, and arranged ‘trekking’. Academic prodigies and young people like Aminu and Enemchukwu should not be abandoned to tokenism but nurtured as national assets. Universities should partner with the private sector to endow meaningful convocation prizes, awards that transform lives, not provoke ridicule. Second, the media must amplify the achievements of academic stars as vigorously as it celebrates sports heroes. Corporate Nigeria, so eager to splash millions on reality TV shows and sporting endorsements, must begin to see value in investing in scholarships, innovation labs, and incubation centres for young intellectuals.
Finally, we must change the narrative. The youth must be reminded that while sports and entertainment have their place, their glories fade quickly, but intellectual labour endures. Societies that dismiss their scholars eventually pay a steep price in underdevelopment, dependency, and cultural erosion. In connecting these dots, the picture becomes sobering but clear. “School na scam” is not just youthful cynicism; it is a tragic commentary on Nigeria’s warped value system. Unless we begin to reward brilliance in the classroom as generously as we reward prowess on the field, we will continue to produce generations of disillusioned youths, convinced that the classroom is a scam while the stage and stadium are the only paths to success. And in that case, the true scam will not be school. It will be Nigeria itself.
To truly connect the dots, the question we must ask is this. What kind of society ridicules its brightest minds while canonising its entertainers? The answer is as uncomfortable as it is urgent. It is a society that has lost its moral compass and unless and until we recover it, the dream of national greatness will remain just that, a pipe dream. Well, the good news is that the evidence is undeniable. A society that mocks its geniuses while over-pampering its entertainers and clout-chasers is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. The harvest is already here, in cynicism, in brain drain, in yahoo plus, in cyber scam, in banditry, in kidnapping, in terrorism, in the overall corrosion of values. If Nigeria continues on this path, “school na scam” will cease to be a catchphrase. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And good enough, we shall all be victims!
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