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ASUU Strike – A Sham. Buhari A Champ -By G.U. Chigbu

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ASUU strike

 

There is this popular saying that in Nigeria everything goes. Everything is like everything else. I think I have come to believe it more now than before. When a White man calls us black monkeys and third world country, we shrug, verbally reject it and at most, form fist to correct him that we are not a third world country. What then are we? In fact, one of my university professors had in an aggrieved agitation called the second appellation a misnomer. That is not the point I’m  poised to make ahead anyways. However, I have conclusively realized recently that we are indeed black monkeys, (just high above animals, and below the higher animals Whites), third world country, pre-undeveloping nation without reservation. Perhaps, being blacks makes us pathologically engrafted to intellectually slavery. A university professor would rather keep mum, as not to indict himself, than voice out or decry misconducts, especially on the part of government.

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Just yesterday morning (on 14 August) I confirmed that ASUU has embark on an indefinite strike because of the Federal Government reneging on their 2009 MoU.

As we may all know, ASUU is a pressure group, hence, strike is one of the fastest means to press forth their needs and get them met without a year delay. As we may not all know, and take note, ASUU is the most educated body (I stand to be proved wrong) in the country.

Meanwhile, from every indication, our president Muhammed Buhari is incapacitated health wise to steer the affairs of this country. A sick body is a sick mind. But now, it seems like a sick body is governing dead bodies outside the mortuary.

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Buhari staying away for a month is enough for every Nigerian to embark on a strike. How much more over 90 days? However, this intellectual body never saw that. Neither did their fellow, NBA, saw ruling with a carved figurehead and yet, in proxy, so to say, as constitutional or unconstitutional as to embark on a strike, or better still sue the government. Just a little agitation is required. Everything goes for them.

There is a need for a strike. There is a need for a protest. There is a need for a change. An American would have killed himself rather than see such abnormal become the ideal thing in his country. A military regime would have seen another regime rule. There would have been a *change* if it were in Europe.

Unfortunately, ours is a country that has not grappled with the true meaning of democracy, leadership and politics. We politicise almost everything. We do not have a system. A system that is stronger than the cabals besieging our country . A system is not the constitution. It is not restructuring or election. A system is going on an indefinite strike because the President and his cabals are toying with the country.

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If a body of intellectuals did consider the happenings in the country as devastating enough to conduct a referendum for a strike, then the National Assembly should sleep on.

Achebe was not wrong to say that the problem of Nigeria is leadership. However, he was not detailed enough as he failed to delineate leadership as a reality that has to do with a leader and a system. A leader fits into the system, not the system trying to adjust for the leader. The system controls the leader. And when the leader cannot fit into the system he exits. Ask David Cameron. What is ideally obtainable is that when the system becomes more powerful than the leader we have a true and ideal government. But when the leader becomes more powerful than the system we have buharism and it likes.

ASUU is not on the right move in this very strike. Every four years should not give us strike headlines. We are tired of this ritual. If there should be a strike, it should be about Buhari exit and to exit. Not MoU. A sick mind cannot keep agreement.

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Embarking on a strike when you should condemn the  unconstitutional corruption, cabalism, _coordination_ going on in our country is a sham, unspeakable, irrational, and invariably making Buhari a champ!

Sadly enough, Biodun Ogunyemi could not find anything more aggressive, radical as well as intellectual while concluding his Strike Memo than writing “United we bargain, divided we beg”. Those two words “bargain” and “beg” are to a larger extent semantically related to money than university overhauling, development, and research expansion. Money for their intellectual stomach in every four years!

No wonder Frederick Nwabufo of TheCables  called them “assemblage of charlatans and airheads”.

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ASUU strike is a sham!

ASUU should speak out. Our country is in a mess. Stop defeating our expectation of you as caravan of warheads.

©G. U. Chigbu

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