Fellow Nigerians, permit me to make a serious confession. I had
refused to pay much attention to the activities of Mr Nyesom Wike at
the Education Ministry where he’s presently the Alpha and Omega,
after the exit of the substantive Minister, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed
Rufai. The fault is not entirely mine. Wike had succeeded in spending
more time playing politics in his home state of Rivers than sitting
down at the negotiation table with the enraged and striking Nigerian
egg-heads.
Naturally, we were mostly fascinated by the war of attrition between
the rambunctious Minister and his former boss, mentor and
benefactor, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
What I find most intriguing was how the Federal Government led by
President Goodluck Jonathan condoned the kind of rascality going on
where a serving Minister is permitted to swim with such reckless
abandon in muddied political waters while his whole Ministry is on
fire and in dire need of desperate rescue.
Not just that, the Minister is allowed to seek his next political office
as Governor of Rivers against the kernels of rules laid down by the
President himself requesting that ambitious members of his cabinet
must resign in a jiffy or get summarily fired by him. The popular belief
is that Mr Wike has nothing to fear or worry about since he’s the
President’s Man Friday and numero uno pugilist in the battle for the
soul of Rivers where Amaechi currently holds the World Heavyweight
Boxing title.
For a fact, education is one of the biggest sufferers in Nigeria today.
Successive governments had watched the sector degenerate and
deteriorate to an abysmal level as if it was a normal occurrence. I
believe the Minister would have performed too well if he had been
assigned to Special Duties. There’s no question that he can give and
take deadly punches. He has taken on his former boss with the agility
of a lion without batting an eyelid. Therefore I’m reasonably
convinced that the man is in a wrong Ministry. Education requires
someone who’s very cerebral, elegant and sober. Such a person would
understand the eloquent use of language without sounding verbose
and delinquent. He would abuse without using expletive words.
If Wike was already crowned the King Kong of Rivers, our Minister
surpassed himself days ago as he launched a blistering attack on the
warring members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. In a
tone and demeanour reminiscent of our inglorious military era, Wike
instructed the lecturers to return to the classrooms or face immediate
sack from their academic jobs. There was no time for any form of
Diplomatese, as Wike belched fire and brimstone while addressing
newsmen.
I’m glad I personally watched the speech repeatedly on Channels
Television because I would never have imagined lecturers could be so
insulted under the regime of a former don. I was stunned to no end.
Even as I write this, I find it hard to believe that any leader or
politician would issue threats he can never enforce. It was my
unlettered mum who used to warn that no one should issue threats
that are not enforceable because if you fail you’re sentenced to
eternal shame!
Wike has inadvertently boxed himself and the government he
represents into such ignominious corner. He should have known from
time immemorial that lecturers may be materially poor they know how
to hold theirs high in the marketplace of ideas. All they possess and
guard jealously is their pride. Soldiers come, soldiers go; lecturers
always remain. They’ve survived many tyrants and will survive
aspiring dictators, no matter what. It is a fact.
Let’s now attempt a dissection of the main crux of the matter. ASUU
has been on strike for about five months and the hapless and
innocent students under their tutelage have been at home for that
long. Their parents are totally frustrated that once again Nigerian
students have become rudderless and defenceless. I must reiterate the
fact that this has never been a big deal in our long-suffering country.
It has almost become a curse to attend local tertiary institutions.
Most of those who can afford the hefty cash have abandoned our
shores to seek knowledge and certificates of all manners in nearby or
far-flung places. The reason isobvious.
Schooling in Nigeria has become tantamount to an Israelite’s journey
where a trip of 40 days stretches infinitesimally to 40 years. Rather
than fix the cruel situation, members of the privilegentsia would
rather vamoose with their children abroad and leave the poor ones to
roast in hell. But unknown to such short-sighted leaders, it is not
usually as simple as it looks.
The implications are legion but our leaders can hardly find the
wisdom to discover them. No one cares much about what happens to
those left behind. Since the children of the rich are not the ones
mainly affected by perennial closures, the schools can shut down for
as long as it takes without as much as a whimper from the highest
authorities in the land. Unfortunately, there’s no escape for the
wicked. Parents of those sent abroad are often too busy with their
primitive accumulation of wealth that they studiously forget to check
on the well-being of those kids.
The kids who ostensibly have everything at their beck and call are
always ready to spoil themselves silly from the booty provided by
their overloaded parents. In the process, these comfortable children
pick up dangerous habits and entertain themselves with perilous
indulgences. Not just that, most of these children become totally
alienated and far removed from reality back home. Many are never
able to re-integrate properly into African societal values.
These are the reasons I expected the Federal Government to go all out
to sort out the intractable problems of Education once and for all. Our
collective future is terribly at risk because of the incessant break in
our school calendar. No country has ever transformed into a First
World nation without investing a chunky part of its resources and
budget on Education. The Ministry of Education is also far too
important to be handed over to hard-core politicians who are rabidly
obsessed with acquiring and retaining power by any means necessary.
Unfortunately in our strange country, nothing is too big or highly
sensitive to be dashed out to political godsons.
The Education Ministry is one of those cash-cows considered very
lucrative for appointment seekers. It ranks among the top four very
important places to be coming only after Petroleum, Defence and
Finance. Education enjoys the lion’s share in our annual budget, yet
nothing has changed over the years because the politicians and civil
servants have perfected the art of movement without motion. I’ve sat
in a high-level gathering where we were regaled with tales of the
fabulous wealth of Educational Administrators. It was such a breath-
taking experience to discover there was so much money available to
appointees but none for the supposed beneficiaries. This is why
appointments and promotions have become matters of life and death
in our higher institutions. Merit has been sacrificed at the altar of
greed and avarice.
In all of this hocus-pocus, the regular lecturer and the students suffer
so much. The lecturer is abysmally poor. He lacks modern and
updated facilities to work with. It is a miracle that he’s able to catch
up with his counterparts elsewhere. Cambridge University, Oxford,
Harvard School and many others are better funded than many African
countries while our students are subjected to the most inferior forms
of learning at this time and age. Our universities now pitifully rank
extremely low on the world list and our certificates are largely treated
with disdain. It is for this reason that ASUU is seeking a total
overhaul of our university system. Those who think they are merely
fighting for salaries therefore miss the point.
Truth is, something drastic needs to be done to bring our universities
up to acceptable standards. The ding dong relationship between the
Federal Government and ASUU has been on for far too long. Many
heaved a sigh of relief when for the first time our country was led by a
President and Vice President who were once university dons. Poor
health did not allow President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua do much in
office. His eventual death deposited the heavy burden on the new
President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. On January 24, 2012, a
comprehensive agreement was signed between the Federal
Government and ASUU.
But towards the middle of 2013, nothing had happened thus
necessitating ASUU to return to the trenches. A recalcitrant
government that failed to honour its agreement carried on as if all
was well. Meanwhile a government in the middle of such gargantuan
crisis still found the space and money to approve new universities, all
in the name of political consideration. The infuriated lecturers said
there was no going back until government fulfils its promises.
When it became obvious that they won’t blink, the Federal
Government swallowed its pride and top government functionaries led
by the President intervened. While it is commendable that the
President spent about 13 hours with the ASUU leadership, it is
regrettable that his agents reneged on salient points raised at the
marathon meeting on November 4, 2013. The Federal Government is
yet to pay the agreed N100bn fund for infrastructural development.
There are other areas in the MOU that would have demonstrated good
faith on the part of government and secure the revitalisation funds for
universities. Other terms sought to protect the fate of ASUU activists
against any form of victimisation but Government has refused to
endorse any of these pledges.
As if the situation was not already bad enough, Mr Wike has now
poured petrol into the raging firing by issuing threats to an apparently
determined community of teachers. My take is that the President
would be the ultimate loser and not the Minister. For a man
desperately seeking a re-election in barely over a year to come, it is a
totally wrong move. The President should do everything within his
power to stop this unreasonable decision about sacking any lecturer
that fails to return to work by December 4, 2013. I make bold to say it
is an impossible task if the lecturers decide to call his bluff. Is the
Minister going to replace university lecturers with palmwine tappers?
By what Arithmetic did he arrive at the figure that it would be easier,
quicker and cheaper to recruit new lecturers? From where does he
think these new recruits will appear?
We are talking about lecturers, senior lecturers and Professors. I guess
Wike and his cohorts would assess and appoint new ones as they see
fit in their moment of phantasmagoria. If this issue was not so
serious it would have been a rib cracking comedy of errors.
But we have seen all this shakara too many times. This too shall
pass away.
