ASUU STRIKE: A Word For Nigerina Students By Nkannebe Raymond My fellow Nigerian students! Great Nigerian students whose uncommon patience could pass as the “sacrifice” that has kept this behemoth of a Nation on its rail! Great Maidites, Lions, Buksites, Abusites and so on and so forth, it is to you that I bring these words which is borne out of a necessity of which I cannot help but ventilate through thus medium. Great potential heroes and the would-be drivers of our nation’s socio-political affairs in no time to come, it is your indulgence I crave while you go through this epistle, hoping it meets you in sedate and imperturbable minds the sad development in the last 73 days notwithstanding. The prevalent exigency in our Ivory towers in the last weeks which has led to our being consigned to a life akin to those of a hermit while our citadels of learning are under lock and key, no doubt, is enough to force a sensible government with the least modicum of sympathy and remorse to curse itself and vacate the seat of power as nothing else could be the litmus test or criteria for showing that it is incapable of ruling or of what use is leadership without a smooth system of conflict resolution? But on the contrary, the people who ascended the seat of power with our mandate, the people whom we entered a social contract, with our allegiance as the consideration for their care and dividends of governance have either consciously or unconsciously shown to be incapable and are rather interested in holding on to the reins of power as a baby would to its mother’s chest. what Chinua Achebe captured 30 years ago in his lean book, “The Trouble with Nigeria” has continued to reverberate even to this day and that is why after close to 100 years of this entity, the attainment of uninterrupted power supply has become a mystery, good and motorable roads scarce as an elephant’s ivory as a result our highways are metaphorically death traps, unemployment has defied all economic policy, security is a no go area, our leaders have instead found justification in the words of the Good Book to the effect, that “if God does not guide the city in vain does the night guard watch”, and as for Education, you and I know why we aren’t seated in some classroom attending a lecture or in an academic group discussion and other pastime campus activities. In fact the sector is the most hit. Great Nigeria students; I will not go further in this roll-call of the many ills of our society,the many miscarriages and botch of governance as it meets one in the eye even when you don’t want to. May we then hurriedly get to the business of the day? I had expected Mr. President to address the totality of Nigerian students vis-a-vis why the 73 days old strike by ASUU has not been met with a solution and the steps taken if any, to nip the crisis in the bud but to my utter dismay, the president seem to be interested in other political businesses. In reaction, I reached for my blackberry device earlier this week and quickly composed a broadcast message. My words: “So Mr. President doesn’t deem the present crisis rocking the educational sector a hoopla worthy of a national address to Nigerian students and Nigerians at large? Am sure he would have done so were our banks and other revenue generators of government have been under lock and key for the past 72 days. It is unfortunate how we profit Naira in this country and push career to the corner.#Height of cluelessness”. It generated lots of comments. While some were logical, others were banal and odious. But it was the one by a female colleague that led me in to scampering for my writing desk to offer this address to us in lieu of those of some man who at a time had no shoes but whose patronage for Italian brogues today, could land him an endorsement immediately after he leaves office. And back to our discussion, the female colleague said and i quote “i wonder when we will become a priority in this country?” My answer was straight and direct-‘we will become when we begin to realize that we are also stakeholders in the business of this country. For now, i think we are carried away by little and unnecessary things’ she couldn’t help but be in consensus ad idem with me. But her question kept begging for more answers and I thought it wise to give the whole of this column to it and here is what we got. Great Nigerian students, there is one very powerful fact that many of us don’t seem to give much cognizance; that fact is that all government in Nigerian history were brought to power by young people of between 15 and 35 which very much captures the demography of students, but we have coyed away from power and have allowed gerontocrates who hardly understand our problem and are every now and again shuttling between here and America/Europe for medical checkups forgetting that they have at different times told us that they have built state of the art hospitals and medical centers. Young Nigerians have played powerfully at the round table of political power over the last 60 years. Youths have acted as coup plotters to seize power, the major actors of the civil war were youths whose blood yearned for the succor of power. The power of the youth votes have either made or marred too many a political ambition, but I am pained at the sad reality, that we do not even know what we want today. Even when we know our right, it has been very difficult for us to assert same. Is it so hard for us to realize that on our hand lies the tool for political success and genuine transformation? We have been carried away by ineptitude and misplacement of priorities, and we must forthwith wake up to reclaim what is rightly ours. I have been inspired by the Igbo adage which says “Onye ji ihe Nwata, Nweli aka elu, mgbe aka ji fu ba ya ufu, owe tuo ya” loosely it says, an old man or anybody who dispossesses a child, of what belongs to him when his limbs begin to ache, he will drop what rightfully belong to that child. But in our case,we dont seem to be perturbed niether have we made any preparation or permutation to reclaim what is ours and hence the reason why we have been written off like toothless dogs and that is also why ASUP went on strike for over 90 days and ASUU immediately followed suit yet our political waters have been calm. Who are we to upturn it? We, like the biblical Esau have unconsciously sold our rights to the Jacobs in our numbers. Great Nigerian students I am appalled that despite our youth constituency boasting over 70 percent of our population with clearly the brightest mind on the continent, our massive resource base has not been able to organize itself effectively for sustainable nation building. What then could be the reason for our failure? Is it unpreparedness, as I earlier canvassed, is it poverty and the struggle to survive? Whatever could be the reason, I don’t agree that any excuse is germane enough. The Nigeria youth have at different times been called a ‘disgrace to the nation’. What pity! It is as a result of the actions and inactions of you and I. Great Nigeria students, it is time for us to start sharing a big part of the responsibility for the sea of wrongs with this country or how can we explain the inability of the youth constituency to rescue Nigeria with all the power at its disposal despite the fact that it is the hardest hit by the rot in our political, economic and social system? There is enough evidence in the world to show that every nation eat from what its youth constituency cooks. If it cooks right the nation eats right and when it cooks unpalatable food, the nation eats unpalatable meal. By inference then, if this nation has not been eating right, is it because we have struggled to cook good food? A food for thought I suppose that should be.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:15:34 +0000
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