DID HON MINISTERMAKU REALLY SAID THAT? A recent report indicated that in its usual backstroke swimming technique, the federal government, according to Minister of Information, Labaran Maku did not understand the cost implication of the 2009 agreement it entered with ASUU before signing it therefore, making it null and void (emphasis mine). Much as I like to appreciate desperation of the government to wriggle out of morally binding financial agreements without losing face, I consider this the most clueless and most unforgivable insult to the sensibility of Nigerians. I n normal societies such defective and morally infective verbal obscenities are what determine who remains what and how long a regime survives. Nigeria may not be normal by global (or even local standards), still, decency permits we should be treated with at least minimum level of respectability. I dont think our stupidity level is down to such low level that just about anything could be said by those in position of authority to justify their wild ride on our defenseless and hopelessly weak collective worth. It is not exactly a NASA affair to understand that Nigeria is being operated with the same zeal, passion and preparedness that could spell disaster to the well being of a narrow household situation. Not even the abacus compliant market woman would be caught taking life impacting business decisions without understanding the necessary arithmetic. Only two things could justify this absurdity - stupidity or insincerity. Yes! It is such a devil and the deep blue sea situation. Both ways we lose. That, however is not the scariest part of the precarious situation. The big question is, how many such binding agreements did the government agreed and willingly signed into without proper understanding of the cost implication? It is agreeable that billions of dollars that should otherwise be put to proper use based on meticulous planning is probably ending up into the deep bottomless pockets of government officials simply because somebody was so intellectually off to do the necessary arithmetic. Maku will still be out tomorrow spitting fire should Nigerians call this regime clueless. Perhaps, we may need to go back to the basics and drum the meaning of clueless into the heads of people like Maku to understand that Nigeria is not really as dumb as the strong body of a donkey daily being led into exhaustion by a small silly head that only think of what get into its mouth. Docile may be. But certainly we are not stupid! Convincingly, it is confessions like this that gives meaning to many decisions taken that the government is holding tenaciously to with religious conviction. Probably the government was not meticulous in its Niger Delta amnesty arithmetic that is why ex-militants that I refused to see as anything but dormant criminals are continuously being inducted into the privileged class of Gucci suit wearing, champagne drinking and private jet globe trotters while the Nigerian economy is suffering the worse kind of asphyxiation. I will be unfair to myself to expect a government with this mind set to understand the cost implication of the $1bn monthly oil theft in the Niger Delta region. I will be twice dumber to expect it to understand the obvious conflict between the new trend of establishing private universities by close cronies of the regime (as was the case with Chief Edwin Clark and Dokubo Asari) while solution to the ASUU/FG logjam is nowhere in sight. Expectedly, the body language of the president was that of compliance to this absurdity by his at the fund raising event of the Chief Edwin Clark university. Talk about playing fire brigade to a neighbour while your house is on fire! Maku, perhaps desperate to spread blame between ASUU and the FG team that entered into the 2009 agreement was quoted to have said that ASUU too was unaware of the cost implication before both representatives signed the agreement. I found this laughable. So what! Assuming ASUU, involving all the quality brain the Nigerian academia could parade was stupid enough to sign something it did not or could not verify, is it complaining? Who is the minister to say what or what not ASUU understood at the time the signed what they believed (and rightly so) was what needed to be done to improve the education sector that we all can easily agree suffered needlessly for many decades - claims that are easily verifiable by the glaring infrastructural, moral and economic decay of our institutions. May be Minister Maku should counter this by telling the world if he could have had the time to be the activist he was in his days as a student if universities back then were what they are now. Better still, he should let the world into his mind and tell us what his position would have been back then when he was Labaran Maku. Such revelations could help indicate if Maku was verbally assaulting the sensibility of Nigerians to protect his personal interest or if his position was a sincere position taken by a concerned Nigeria. What I found even more annoying is the continuous plead by the president to ASUU to be patriotic by resuming to class for the sake of the students. How he failed to see that ASUU is only fighting to protect the quality of education they offer these student by muscling the required funding from a seemingly non caring government freaks me out. In any case, why is the president not so keen to plead with few individuals within his Niger Delta region to stop the monthly theft of estimated $1bn oil which, by far exceeds the amount required by ASUU to upset its obligations on the students the president is so worried about. It is ironic that everybody seemed determined to bring out the monster in ASUU while conveniently dressing the real devil with the garb of an angel. While at it, is it not clear that many people are determined to make as much as they could using the self inflicted dearth in the education sector. Today, the best universities in Nigeria (where strike is alien)that children of poor Nigerians could only see from the occasional adverts on local and international media belong to former VP Atiku Abubakar, Former President IBB, former President Obasanjo and the latest which N25bn fund raising event was held recently belonging to the political godfather of the president, Chief Edwin Clark. No! I dont buy that crap by the Chief that he chose to establish it because it is the best legacy he can leave behind. You chose to establish it because the timing was rightly in your favour. For all the period the elder was in political and financial wilderness, this laudable desire never featured on his agenda. Perhaps, taking a cue from former President Obasanjo to muscle funding from from the government through the back door, Chief Clark wasted no time to take this once in a life time opportunity. Give or take, the university, the funding and the lifetime ambition of leaving a good legacy will evaporate same time with the regime the high Chief watches over with an unforgiving ethnic sentimentality. This vicious circle of mischief is bound to keep repeating itself with the same rate of docility Nigerian watches their common patrimony being raped by incidental and accidental leaders from both sides of the river. The longer we keep defining and determining our progress level by regional rather than national evaluation of events, the deeper we keep sinking into a deeper abyss of anger, selective poverty, life of deprivation and intellectual assault by a handful few who sees value in creating ethno-religious boundaries to keep us from decoding the complex principles of their common religion - money! Perhaps, our saving grace will only come when the poor fisherman in Otuake, Bayelsa state who suffers same ills caused by the greed of our leaders understands he have to accept the same odds stacked against him as those stacked against the poor short changed farmer in Ningere, Yobe state as nothing but a common problem between them. This realisation may be the needed kick our leaders required to start behaving reasonably and in tandem with universal idea of nation building. Any other thing, we may as well buckle up for a long wild matrimony with characters like Maku which, by the way lives in each and everyone of us waiting for the right opportunity to manifest. Who would have thought Chief Edwin Clark 81 will start behaving like Tompolo?
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:00:17 +0000
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