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.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:46:29 +0000
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