Lost in the Dark!

It is no news that the entire university system has been shut down in the last two months. All the unions in the university system, ASUU, NASU and SSANU have been on strike asking for one and the same thing: better conditions in the university system. It began like a drama when soon after the […]

It is no news that the entire university system has been shut down in the last two months. All the unions in the university system, ASUU, NASU and SSANU have been on strike asking for one and the same thing: better conditions in the university system.

It began like a drama when soon after the commencement of the industrial action, the Minister of Education, a onetime university lecturer himself, was celebrating the 25th anniversary of matrimonial cacophony with his wife and virtually all the federal government establishment was represented at that infamous party, where the former governor danced like one of these young artists on an entertainment bazaar.

The AIT called that dance, the dance of shame. Nigerians were very critical of it, accusations as to the quantum resources deployed to host that party were leveled while the moment lasted. Whether that dance was indeed of shame or something else, what is visible is that there is certainly no policy on education yet and those who are saddled with the responsibility of handling the sector seem to be overwhelmed by the ecstasies of office to the extent that the magnitude of the crisis and desired changes have since been lost.

This piece is borne out of the continued silence from the highest office in the land regarding this very dangerous sit at home strike that has paralyzed completely the nation’s university system at a time when the president and his men are busy making mockery of themselves and statecraft in that hallucination called amnesty for the Niger-Delta youths and the surrendering of weapons which we see like a comedy on a routine basis.

When the present crop of leaders emerged, despite the manner they rode to power, what some of us thought was that for the first time, the nation is making do with university graduates and not just that but also graduates who pride themselves as teachers. As for the president, I have no doubt that he was a teacher, because he taught while I was in high school. Not just that, we saw him then as a role model for his pro people tendencies.

Things are however never constant; today, he is a president, before this he was a governor and even before then a business man. A  great deal of de-link in the process might have taken away the teacher in him  to the extent that he can be desperately pursuing an irrelevant agenda of making peace with criminality while the nation’s educational system at the highest level is under severe paralysis.

The response the government is giving this university agitation in my view is a complete negation of the claim that education and human capital development constitutes the major kernel of the government’s 7-point agenda. An agenda that several citizens including the organized labor have so far adjudged as either a failure or to be kind, non-starter.

It is astonishing to see a country that desires to accomplish a dream by 2020 treat very critical areas of education with kid gloves. What in the opinion of our political leaders is responsible for the development recorded in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore among many others? Education more than anything g else is responsible.

The amount of money that European countries and the United States spend on education on annual basis is breath taking. They are already there. They don’t have to wait until 2010 or even 2020 and yet, they don’t play with investment in education. Our government appears to be only paying lip service to its seriousness on education.

The total amount which ASUU for instance is asking government to immediately deploy to the universities to address part of the current rot is not up to the amount that a few Nigerians took away from five banks which is now causing serious ripples in the polity. Why does anybody think that the demand of the university teachers is outrageous? Why do these people who hold our trust think that the essence of government is only in the award of contracts or the possession of other grandeurs of office?

The nation is in deep crisis and the solution lies in the ability of statecraft to effectively manage the situation. I do not think that we will get out of the wood if the present management goes the way it is going. Government must note that the future of this country lies squarely on how much they make sacrifices.