Imposition of courses on children appears to be the in-thing among most parents nowadays, particularly the literate class- a practice that surprisingly enough, is not linked to the illiterate class that would have been in the front burner for such academic abnormality due to their illiteracy.

But here it appears the reverse is now the case.

Jane hails from Ndokwa, Delta State (paternally), and Otta in Orhiomwon local government area of Edo State (maternally). Her wealthy and influential parents reside in Lagos. They both put their certificates aside and opted to do business. And the businesses they are engaged in are thriving ones today.

When Jane was in the college she was known to be very good in the arts. And her brilliance in the subjects shone like the uninhibited light, and was further confirmed when she had A’s in all the nine arts subjects she put in for in her external examinations conducted by WAEC and NECO.

Instead of going straight to study her dream course, which was Theatre Arts in the university, she was compelled by her mom to deviate in her choice of course. She was made to put in for science subjects in a Miracle Center as it is popularly called, and ensured that a mercenary was on ground to write the whole nine (9) subjects for her through text messages after solving the answers.

When the result came out she made all her papers and was taken to a private university in the East to study Medicine even when she did not measure up to the required cut-off point.

‘The news of my being admitted to study Medicine in the university was not received with the expected enthusiasm, not even the least because my father and I did not support the idea of reading medicine against my initial dream course of Theatre Arts. Tried as much as my dad could to convince my mother that I be allowed to study the course I had flair for, she refused, saying ‘Over my dead body will my daughter study Theatre Arts.’ When I found myself in the Faculty of Medicine at the University, I was like somebody in a strange land. I couldn’t just understand most things we were being taught. But surprisingly, I was passing all the exams. It continued like that up till the time I did the final qualifying examination. It was after my graduation I leant that my mom was bribing lecturers there to ensure that I did not fail any of the examinations.

The whole thing was so confusing to me that I could not even comprehend all what was going on. Not until I got to a private hospital in Asaba where I was doing my houseman ship the Medical Director started observing the flaws in me, and had to ask me one day, ‘How were you passing your examinations? Are you sure you actually studied Medicine?’ I was highly embarrassed.’

Jane said it was through her short-comings, inability to deliver even the rudimentary aspects of the job that she was dis-engaged from her house-manship by the Medical Director.

Jane’s mother was so upset by the whole thing that she even asked her daughter to start all over again, going back to another Medical School for the second time to start all over again. ‘I was prepared to be seen as a disobedient child this time before my mother. I was not ready to listen to her this time around. I stood my ground; and with my father behind me and stoutly resisting her, we won the war. Now, she had vowed never to have her kobo on my studies as a 200 level Theatre Arts student.

Jane, at the corporate headquarters of The POINTER Newspapers in Asaba, was looking highly depressed not with the seven (7) years she wasted in the private university she was forced to go and study Medicine that wasn’t in her academic plan.

Contacted on phone through the number made available by her daughter, Jane, the fair-complexioned woman in her early 50s, told ODDWORLD that her decision on her daughter should not be a matter for the press because she had the right to tell her daughter what and what not to study in the university.

‘People just leave what they should be pursuing that are of paramount importance to them and start chasing shadow. You press people are good at that. Leave me and my daughter alone. It is no body’s business if I tell my daughter the course she should go for, after all, I did not start it. I was not the first to start it neither will l be the last. If it was a, President, a Senator, a Minister, a Governor or a Professor’s daughter that went to study Medicine through the back door, would the press be bold enough to ask questions over It.? Yet, many of their children have been doing courses they have not the least flair for.

 Why should my own be different? She queried ODDWORLD on phone.

Jane’s father who is a successful businessman like his wife at Balogun Market in Lagos, told ODDWORLD that his wife who is very domineering by nature has succeeded in wasting seven good years for his daughter, “and still appears un-relenting and unrepentant over the gridlock she caused on my daughter’s academic career by making her to waste a whole seven years studying a course she was not cut for. She is starting all over again, coming back to her dream course of Theater Arts which she ought to have long completed if not for her mother’s misadvise. Everybody must not be a doctor, a journalist like you, a lawyer, a pharmacist, or a surveyor. Everyone has got his or her destiny to roll along with. My wife was simply just being imitative.” An uncle of Jane who did not want his name in print, said ‘in a house where a wife dominates you should not expect less of what happened to my niece, Jane. My brother’s wife is too domineering and would not want anybody to suggest to her anything perceived by many as bad and seen as very important to her alone even if it is being condemned by many.’ He pointed out.

So daddies and mummies who want their son or daughter to study courses in the sciences or in the Arts they have not the least flair for, you better watch your actions. You could be ruining the future of your child without your knowing like in the case of Jane, a victim of her mother’s overbearing excesses.

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