[Opinion] Hello Nigerian Students: Just Before We Return Back to School by Nkannebe Raymond
I don’t know whether I should start this treatise by congratulating
the Army of Nigerian students for what we have collectively waited
for-An end to the protracted ASUU strike, which at a point, seemed like
it won’t go shrivel, or whether to start by apologizing for my
deliberate use of the rather harsh adjective -‘Foolish’ which I must say
was not in a calculated attempt to drag traffic to this post and which I
am staunchly unapologetic to, irrespective of whose ox is gored. Not
even after chanting my ‘wini mini mari mo’, could I get a preference,
therefore, I have debased the essence of whichever comes first, and
would not congratulate us as our actions and reactions throughout the
eon of the strike is not even worthy of any approbation as the
irrationality and idiocy we displayed throughout the period was so
towering that a description of us as ‘FOOLS’ will only amount to a mere
understatement or sarcasm.
If there are two things I have learnt or discovered as the strike
reared its ugly head in the past six months, it is the sad reality that
Nigerian students, lack a voice. It is true that there is an association
called the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and
respective Student Union Government’s across the 52 public universities
but it is not only melancholic but also calamitous that they scarcely
understand what it means and what it takes to occupy the positions they
occupy. They like to parade themselves as comrades, but it is doubtful
they truly understand what it takes to be a comrade. For them, it is
about status as little or nothing in their actions suggests that they
understand what makes a man a comrade.
Secondly, I realized that many of us do not know that we are the
major stakeholder in the Education industry. And because of this
ignorance, the leadership of ASUU and the Federal Government (FG) has
jointly reduced us as ragdolls and pawns in their game of chess. We are
thrown here and there at will, yet we sit bewildered like jjc’s and do
nothing.
I never supported the leadership of ASUU in their strike because
right from the genesis of the strike, I have always been of the opinion
that, with the level of funding our universities have gotten before the
strike, they should have performed considerably better than they were
even before the strike. I dismissed the lecturers as only being after
their pockets and not in the interest of me and you as they like to
posture about. Even when woken up from their slumber and asked why they
have vacated the classrooms, what they will tell anyone who cares to
know is: we have vacated the classrooms in the interest of students and
their future. How Cheap does ‘Talk’ sell these days in the markets
anyway? Well, if they chorus that, like our nursery school rhymes, it is
because we allowed them to use us as a bargaining tool. We allowed them
to use us as securities in the Money Market.
But despite not endorsing the strike action, I saluted them for one
thing-they kept at their guns, they would not put their hands in the
plough and look back, they know what they wanted and they knew how to
get it and at last they have gotten it, using us as leverage or
collateral. But did we ever care?
No, too many of us cared. I noticed that, from our attitude and
temperament throughout the period. For many of us out there, it was even
an opportunity to hustle and make some money. The strike can last as
long as it wants, who cares? We were more interested in making some fast
money and buy the latest gadgets in town or catch up with the latest
fashion trends so that whenever the strike is called off, we go back to
our various campuses and show off. It is immaterial what we have lost;
it is immaterial that we have been at home for 5 or approximately six
months. The money we have made is enough consolation. I even heard some
say that the strike should not be called-off until January so that they
can collect get their December salaries or round up their December
‘runs’ or hustling.
“Who goes out to the streets to protest these days? Who has that
time? Protest for what? Are we in the Arab world? Is this Egypt? Some
asked, and others will come out bold to tell you, “When the Umbrella
body of the students has been compromised?” Fair enough, the umbrella
body of the students has been or was compromised, but are we not the
people whose mandate they have? Are we not the ones who gave them the
authority? What did we do to show that they have been compromised and
make our voices heard in seeing that a Vote of no confidence is passed
on them? We abruptly did nothing but took to the uncensored Social Media
to engage in ‘Skelewu’ dance competition and got trapped in the net of
the crazy Entertainment industry while our future hung in the balance.
The leadership of ASUU has shown each and every one of us what can be
achieved through a committed struggle. They have shown us what unionism
is all about and that if our umbrella body-NANS has compromised, they
have not. If the NANs have forgotten their Mission and Vision
Statements, they still memorize theirs like the Lord’s Prayer or the
‘Ash hadu al lahila ha illahu wa ashadu anna Muhammadur rasul lullah’
and what they have to show for it is the 200 billion Naira the FG has
deposited in a CBN account and the immediate payment of their arrears of
salaries in the last 5Months. But is that all? No. they also forced the
government to put pen to paper that none of the members of the union
will be victimized for taking part in the strike. A lot right? Well, it
is nothing too difficult to come by if we too have shown the same level
of commitment that they have always shown but the only difference is
that we don’t care. The gentility of a lion they say is not stupidity,
but you know what? In our own case, it is more than stupidity; I like to
call it ‘Suffering and smiling’ in the words of the High Life Music
sensation, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
Accepted, the strike has come and gone, and many of us are now
hustling to do our last ‘runs’ to get the latest BlackBerry, or Android
device, or to get the latest wrist-watch or the recent shoe in vogue.
And for those of us who are privileged to drive cars in the campuses; to
get the latest rims for our wheel or even change to a different car
entirely. In all these hustling and bustling, permit to tell us that
before we foolishly pack up our bags and baggage to return back to
school……,
Let us hold our so-called lecturers accountable. I can see many of
them are already reveling and carousing that it is victory at last. Why
not? Are we not told that “All is well that ends well”? Not even the
death of Professor Festus Iyayi, the sacrificial Lamb and the greatest
victim of the strike will dent their ululation. They now wait for their
phones to beep so that their arrears of salaries will come in if at all,
they haven’t been paid as I write. I can only imagine how the fast
approaching yule tide will be for them. No doubt, it will be a special
one with so much money around to spend. I think I even have to pay my
HoD a visit when he least expects so that I can get my own share of the
‘Awuf Money’. Yes, awuf it is, because they did not work for it and our
Landlords in school will not take the five months strike as an excuse
not to pay their rent. As they will always tell us, “My house is not a
Hostel”. But as they celebrate, they should remember that ‘awuf dey run
belle o!’
Back to our discourse- Before we foolishly return back to school, let
us make sure we hold these men and women who like to wallow in
contrived sanctimoniousness as though we do not know that our
universities have become ivory towers of sleaze and a corruption rate
that is second to the cash cow-NNPC, accountable. We must let them know
by our actions and ‘body Language’ (apologies to Waziri Tambuwal) that
the era of parading themselves as ‘tin gods’ is over. That just as they
claim to have fought for our interest and the overall interest of the
Education sector, we want to see them live it by walking their talk and
not just mounting the podium to feed the gullible masses lies and
make-beliefs which are in conflict with what they exhibit in our
campuses.
The era of selling of ‘hand outs’, asking our female students for
relationship and some even taking them in to sleep with, for marks in
return is over, the era of collecting sums of money from students called
“sorting” in exchange for marks or upgrading their c+ to a B, or their
F9’s to a D. The era of not coming for lectures for a great part of a
semester and coming at the nadir stage, to dish out handouts that are
fraught with unpardonable grammatical errors is over, the era of
victimizing students who refuse to be cowed into silence is over. The
dark years of collecting wads of expensive textile materials to
supervise projects of final year students and a whole lot of shenanigans
these so-called lecturers exhibit in our campuses without
confrontation, should be a thing of the past, but then that is if only
we want them to be.
How do we do that? We can start by speaking out at any giving
opportunity when faced with such treatments by these Jobbers who call
themselves our lecturers. Some few weeks ago, the polity was heated up
by the irascible and grumpy act of a sitting-governor for assaulting a
widow somewhere in Benin, Edo state. We all saw what became of that act.
We all saw what became of the said governor- Adams Oshiohmole. How he
was forced to stoop so low into sharing a cup-of tea with Mrs. Joy ifije
and her son and even offering her a Job- not forgetting the 2 million
naira cash given to her, all in a bid to atone for his rather being
consumed by his emotions and trampling on the person of a citizen who
might have voted for him 2 years ago at the polls. Well, while we all
scampered for a space to comment on the act, I was more concerned with
what can be achieved through the Social Media and most especially what
we, as students can achieve if we explore the same window. God bless
whoever recorded that scene and had it posted to the internet but will
we be bold enough to record ours and put them across?
Before we foolishly get back to school, let us know that our being
referred to as ‘half-baked’ graduates the moment we are churned out, is
because by our omissions and inactions, we want to be regarded to as so.
We must make it a point of duty to show that most, if not all our
lecturers are also ‘half baked’ and ethically wanting by speaking out at
the slightest aggravation from the university authorities tailored to
our collective injury. We deserve the right to be shown our scripts
after collation. We reserve the right to apply for a re-marking of our
scripts when we are not satisfied with how they say we have performed
without any victimization from any quarters as they have demanded from
the authorities. We reserve the right to be shown transparency in their
dealings and in the day-to-day running of our campuses. Who says,
Students cannot go on strike? Just in case many of us have forgotten,
our lecturers who have now taken strike as a medium to press home their
demands, went on strike in their own days as students for one reason or
the other. One of my lecturers will always tell us how they once went on
strike because they were not served warm/hot water to take their bath
and so many other trivial issues that led them to vacate their classes
to the extent that they were pleaded with to return back to their
classes. And to know that all these took place while the Military were
in power, overwhelms my mind.
We must not foolishly stand bemused while they parade themselves as
demi-gods of some sort. I have it on good authority that many of these
lecturers don’t mark our scripts or even when they manage to do so,
hardly read through our scripts to see where we have hit the point and
yet still have the temerity to refer to us as ‘half-baked’. If the bread
is consistently half-baked, should not the baker be bundled out in a
bakery firm worth its salt and that is committed to customer
satisfaction and profit maximization? This is a food for thought I guess
for the authorities, but before we foolishly return back to our
campuses, we should learn to keep the ‘Big Brother’ eye in George
Orwell’s 1984 on our lecturers.
They have fooled the Government and masses into believing they are
‘Holier than thou’ and it is our duty to hold them to their words. The
Social Media is a turf we can operate on, to air out the spoils in the
system to prove to the government that it is not just funds that sets a
nation’s university system apart as I have preached in several articles.
It takes a whole lot of commitment from those whom these funds are
bequeathed to. How they manage it to see that they make the best out of a
little. But since our lecturers in their muddled brains thinks it is
all about money, we must watch with eagles’ eye to see that they kowtow
that lane.
Before we go back to school, we should be mindful of the fact that we
have sat at home for 5-6 months and less is what we cannot settle for.
The only way to make these wasted months count, is not by the few
thousands, many of us may have saved and the new gadgets we have secured
for ourselves, but by making sure our lecturers change from their
bad-ways and see that we are baked well as graduates so that the labour
Market will not have to condone with ‘half-baked’ graduates so-called.
There are series of social media Outfits committed to this struggle
to wit: @OccupyNaija, @AsuuProtests, @EiE and a host of others. You can
always blow the whistle through these twitter handles and it will be
taken from there to a logical conclusion and justice served while your
anonymity is guaranteed. All you need to proffer is the name of your
institution, the lecturer involved in any shoddy dealings and the
department in question and you would have just done your part. By these,
we shall get them on their fours and let them know that ‘Big Brother’
is now watching them.
I will like to stop here for now. The ball as the game stands, is now
fully in our court or our half. How we choose to play, is a different
thing entirely. Whether to play to the gallery or put the ball in our
opponent’s net to make them know that we are now wiser than we use to be
and as they have always thought us to be is a question of choice. We do
not necessarily need the Umbrella body of the students-NANS, as they
have eaten the proverbial porridge even in our campuses.
Whether we like it or not, we are stakeholders in the education
sector, and our roles in making it better cannot be overemphasized. A
lot in making it work lies in our hands, we should not only stay and
watch others play ball and even go ahead to use us as a wager; we should
get our shorts, roll our pants, off our shirts and join in playing this
game. If anything, to see that it is determined in our favor for once.
I have long started playing my roles to this cause however little,
whether we choose to play our own roles or not, is beyond me. But just
before we foolishly return back to school.
The writer is a Law student and a Public Affairs Commentator. He is on twitter @RayNkah
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Two guilty of Lee Rigby murder