A Lesson In Leadership Failure -By Kene Obiezu

In its  more than sixty years as an independent country, Nigeria has not had the benefit of knowing good leadership. Instead,  the Giant of Africa has continued to lurch  wildly  from one  bad leader to another. This experience of leadership failure has not been limited to  one level of government. It has been wildly spread through   different rungs of government.

 The ASUU conundrum

 The Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) has been on Strike since February 14, 2022, and with more than six months having been shaved off the academic calendar of public universities in  Nigeria, there appears to be no end is sight to the  impasse.

  As the Union squabbles with the Federal Government, a familiar sight is being reprised. While ASUU is  insisting that all its  demands must be met, the Federal Government on the other hand insisting that the demands of the union are unreasonable.

 In its bid to get the Academic Union to soft pedal, the government has done practically everything  within its power  save meeting the demands of the Union and while the strike lingers, it is Nigerian students  that are sat at home, wringing their hands at what life has become for them in the country.

A ministerial  amnesia

 As the lecturers have stuck to their guns and remained at home, the Federal Government has ramped up its offensive against the Union. But the  effectiveness of the offensive has been hampered by the fact  that the Union has Nigerians on its side.

 It was not just the Union that watched how much serving public officers were able to  pour into the primaries of the different political parties that were concluded between May and June this year.

 Nigerians have also watched in stunned horror  as  the Federal Government which continues to insist that Nigeria`s purse is extremely strained always scrapes enough together to cross the border into  neighbouring  Niger Republic,  where the President maintains cousins, to play the role of ‘Father Christmas’ in a flagrant display of cross-border cronyism.

 In a bit to get ASUU to budge, the Federal Government has not spared anything. From propaganda to threats to outright blackmail, Nigerians have distrustfully  and distatesfully watched the government try to resolve the impasse.

 Festus Keyamo, a government minister, has asked Nigerian parents to talk to the union while only recently, Adamu Adamu, the minister for education, has, while insisting that the government will not pay university lecturers for the six months they have been on strike, asked the union to compensate Nigerian students for lost time.

  However, one thing remains as clear as day and it is that the  strike action which cripples  academic activities in Nigerian universities almost on a yearly basis speaks to a leadership failure that  has been as sinister as it has been sustained over the years .

 Whenever another strike action begins, Nigerians are reminded of the failed promises of sucessive Nigerian governments, and not a little indecisiveness on the part of ASUU which always appears too willing to call off  strike actions only to return to them not long after.

 That Nigeria`s  undergraduate students  remain mired at home more than six months after the strike first started speaks to a leadership failure not just on the part of the government but also on the part of  ASUU.

 For Nigerian students, it is a case of so long a lamentation.

 Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com