Educational Imbroglio: A Miasma Fiasco Catastrophe -By Okanlawon Uthman

Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X.

To stave off covetousness, greed, and spite, citizens the world over must be educated. -Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. –Nelson Mandela.

There is no distrust that Nigeria needs refurbishment added to the perilous situations in which the education scene have been in a huge rumpus since we have been subjected to years of unending decolonization under the alleged democracy in which all the ruling circle has been regrouping themselves which the decadence of Nigeria’s educational sector sailed in. Education is a substratum for any nation’s development and any nation that will subsist in this century must not pay lip service to the issue of quality in education. The statistic must be accredited that education is the only secured pivot on which the brisk and sustainable economy of any nation can be anchored but the reverse is the case of Nigeria’s educational sector.

Nigeria’s education sector has over the years been wrestling with many challenges; hence the call on governments at all levels to assert a state of substitute in the sector has continued to gain impetus. I will firmly affirm here that quality education delivery will ultimately provide qualified personnel, huge capacity building, reduction in incidents of armed robbery, militancy, and all forms of youth restiveness. Nigeria is in total darkness, far away from civilization, because the country runs a primitive, pre-logical body politic devoid of responsibility and restitution. No responsibility, No restitution, No responsiveness, Nothing. Nigeria marches on in Stone Age darkness calling on God to bring forth light whilst everybody forgets the maxim; God will work with you, not for you. Nigeria has become too impossible, too extreme to handle which her diseased to the extent that it can’t remember what good seasons mean, it is too wet during rains; too dry in the dry season.

It is being said every promise is an oath; an oath is a solemn promise which often comes with an invocation of a divine witness to our actions and behavior going forward, here in Nigeria everyone is a vehicle of rape. Every president, governor, lawmaker inveigles the people for easy entry whilst he gets in and remembers that he lost his memory with the exactitudes of the election. He no longer remembers the solemn promise to service with all his strength and to uphold the honor and glory of the nation, reverse it is the case of leaders who fail consciously towards not helping the enigma of the education sector.

It would widely be known that over the years has the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) has gone for serious indefinite, comprehensive, total, and suffocating strikes but nothing has been done holistically towards these nefarious acts sprouting into. Pardon, I must have determinedly asserted holistically in my words, yeah my intuitions are right because nothing has been holistically apprehended in Nigeria since she has been toeing to her vestige and had failed her underprivileged citizens who in extreme poverty, economy at the stage of its pancreatic cancer, insecurity, banditry, and kidnapping.

It could be vividly recalled that since 1999 till date, ASUU has comprehensively gone for 15 serious warning strikes which turn to indefinite strike and since then we had previously have countless presidents that were elected since that time date whilst, unfortunately, none of them was able to rescue the shipwreck of the education except during the tenure of Goodluck Jonathan who gives the Union 200billion for ASUU call off the indefinite strike whilst Buhari led-administration and his cohorts have not to proffer any tangible solutions, indeed we are in a failed nation of egoism and self-centered.

It would be germane to avowed here towards bringing those stakeholders concerning the funneling affairs of the varsities or beneath the education sector grassroots level ranging from the President, State governor of each state, Minister of education and labor, Reps, Vice-Chancellors, each alumni president and its associations, NANS president, Philanthropists, and other stakeholders concerning the steering affairs of the concerned varsities entangled with the strike should have painstakingly find lasting solutions of the elongated strike.

It is clandestine that the twine of strikes straining Nigeria education sector over the extension of the one-month warning strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to another eight weeks strike whilst none can strictly that it would be called off since there has been serious negotiations and renegotiations amidst this indefinite strike. The damage done by these incessant strikes has been unquantifiable, looking to its effect caused by this incessant strike bringing Ladoke Akintola Univesity of Technology (LAUTECH) to the notoriety of the palaver. It would be recalled that LAUTECH has over been going for an indefinite strike for almost 4 years which makes the recent students then languished behind the curriculum of their desired course yet they couldn’t turn the hands of the time than in the sense of judiciously using the 4years studying of their preferred course which inclusive more years to it., wasn’t this one regrettable as they are jeopardizing Nigeria students future and their parents as a whole. We have been failed by this country already; she is a nation without notion.

Come to think of it, how would a Minister or President for that matter would punctiliously say they would renegotiate after the All Progressive Congress(APC) party conventions with ASUU, Nigeria’s future is at stake, it couldn’t be doubted. The way we are herding the affairs of this nation, especially the education sector is highly inconsequential and inimical which will affect the future of Nigeria. Nearly 90 days of the strikes to lasted on May 14 declared by the ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osadoke as this remained the stuff of the occasional midpage to back page commentary in the media with photos of the diminutive Chris Ngige and Mallam Adamu Adamu strutting tentatively into negotiation rooms like a peacock whilst the news of the strike lasted only a few hours on the shelf of Nigeria’s extremely busy news cycle before we shrugged and mutually moved on to other things.

A 90 days closure of a country’s entire University system- polytechnics and college of Education were also intending/threatening to be closed in the period or be half-open till the demands are met; and not a single person in the chain of responsibility lost his job! There is no sense of responsibility to react to the closure of the entire higher education system due to the systemic riot (Strikes) not even just one presidential broadcast to the nation towards giving hope to the desiccated hearts of the people who have lost hope. This wasn’t a 24/72 hours breach in the system but a total 90 days breach in the system and no one wants to know how we could barely make up with this ebb state the varsities are, all concerned was their allowances and their gross payment of 48 million naira to be duly paid without been deferred and since their wards are not schooling in Nigeria but outside the country.

For example, each of the 109 senators in the senate gaily cruises home with an outrageous #13.5million monthly running-cost separate from salaries and phantasm constituency projects annually budgeted at #200million that are never accounted for, ditto at the House of Representatives with 360 members yet Federal government remained tight-lipped and unperturbed towards not meeting up the demands of the ASUU with the demands of #1trillion. If the outrageous allowances lawmakers self-interestedly allotted to themselves could be reviewed and properly channeled to the appropriate quarters, the governments without doubt can comfortably meet the demand of the union. The bogus monthly allocations to the National Assembly can go a long way in boosting allocations to meet up with the proposed demand of the union.

The future is unalterably tied to education, even though if ASUU puts the interests of the students and the need to better the Nigeria varsities first in their demands to the federal government, our educational system will be in a total mess if care isn’t taken. Never be beguiled with the platitude, “we are fighting for the interests of the students.” The cliché is like Nigeria Police saying, “Police are your friends”. Hilarious, if they however contently kowtow that they are fighting for themselves, then, what is our (students) offense (s)? Private Universities will be better than the public ones in terms of infrastructure, better environment for learning, and even well-trained lecturers. The mission to kill the future of Nigeria has been convincingly achieved by this administration because if you are to kill a nation without using a weapon, just take quality education from the youths. Students are hoping and praying earnestly for the Federal government to fulfill its promise to ASUU so that the strike can be called off, it is imperative to acknowledge that since all this while that ASUU demands are not yet met. Let’s encourage better education uniformly.

Late last week, presidential aspirant and chieftain of All progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, donated a center of leadership development worth N1billion to Lagos state University(LASU), Ojo during the 25th convocation of the university, and yet ASUU demands are not met upon the request of.

Truth be told, a holistic approach will do the magic concerned Nigerians from both the public and private sectors as well as NGOs towards bringing their expertise, time, a wealth of experience and energy to reverse the sector likewise the need for the federal government and the state government to adhere to the budgetary allocation of 26% to education as Awolowo did back then in the 60s.

Okanlawon Uthman is an opinion writer, who writes from offa, Kwara state via eminentpen@gmail.com