Open letter to ASUU
As the news broke out about the current ASUU warning strike, parents, friends, guardians, can’t help but be perplexed with the strike festivities. What is wrong with both FG and ASUU? Why has FG not kept their end of the bargain? Is FG just being deliberately unfair? Could it be that FG has more important […]
As the news broke out about the current ASUU warning strike, parents, friends, guardians, can’t help but be perplexed with the strike festivities. What is wrong with both FG and ASUU? Why has FG not kept their end of the bargain? Is FG just being deliberately unfair? Could it be that FG has more important things on her plate right now? And above all, is embarking on strike action the only alternative or is it that ASUU is only built for militancy? As perceived by many. Has ASUU forgotten her core objective of ensuring an enabling learning ambience in the universities which affect staffs and students? Because this seems otherwise. What about the pledge of your commitment to be in the forefront of affairs that will ensure socio-economic justice, home-grown development and so on? Not rhetoric. To say ASUU has not done well is being ungrateful, it also will be robbing her of her hard earned glory. They have done very well at keeping the government on her toes to see the academe in its current state of convenience. Kudos to that. Nonetheless, that is not the best you can achieve, the academia is no place for mediocrity. We can’t be complacent about it. Better can be achieved, using a more students-and-staffs symbiosis approach or at a very least, a commensal approach.
If at all we have been conscious of the couple of decades that has gone by, ASUU was not reported to have bring much input directly in the struggles to circumvent Nigeria from the horrific trials it has faced, still facing, either economically, democratically and or even the socio-economic justice it has so emphasized. We have not heard of ASUU planning to discuss on what steps FG must take to get this nation out of recession. Nor better alternatives that will facilitate the fight against corruption. Then what better use of intellectualism would there be if not invest in building and saving the nation – leaving everything to some “square pegs in round holes” political appointees. We are only left to feel ASUU is incessantly sandwiching its frivolous selfish demands with little of what benefits or even completely detrimental to the students and parents at the receiving end.
What much benefit has ASUU recorded from the incessant strikes right from 1999 to 2015? The strike to many is a display that juxtaposes altruism and lack of empathy – which you seem to lean more on the latter.
You have gone to strike for over 30 months from 1999. And 30 months is university degree duration in some countries. Not a single day of these 30 months because of the “missing 20 billion dollar” or “already funded abandoned projects” nor of “Dasukigate” or “Ekitigate”. The intelligentsia should not be complaisant. I hope you don’t find me paradoxical. Not a single Nigeria Whistle Blower has gotten attention of the intelligentsia. Most of us are ambivalent about the way ASUU chose to deliver. Please ASUU, this is a wrong time, let’s leave such to the days the country brims of funds. Negotiate with FG on what exorbitant cost of hers must be cut and pump in Universities. No derogatory intended.
Mustapha Anka, [email protected]