ASUU is not making any fresh demand but has maintained that the 2009 agreement must be honoured. It is ridiculous that government officials were quoted as saying ASUU’s N1.3 trillion demand is capable of shutting down the country. No. Their insatiable and rapacious greed will. The private jets in the presidential fleet can fly, centenary celebrations is a priority to government, there’s enough money to pay humongous salaries and allowances to federal legislators and other political office holders, enough to forfeit to oil subsidy thieves, enough to pay militants bogus amnesty cheques and phantom contracts while they continue to bunker our crude oil like never before, there’s enough money to beg Boko Haram to accept amnesty but there is no money for law abiding Nigerian students who want to eke out a living using university education as a stepping stone. It is this kind of attitude from the government that provokes the use of brute force by some regional groups to attract government’s attention to their problems. Government cannot claim it has no money to fulfill this agreement. A country with 109 senators earning about N19.6 billion a year, while N51.8 billion is spent on members of House of Representatives for the same period, totaling N71.4 billion. This sum, N71.4 billion, represents 17.8 per cent of the N400bn yearly intervention fund recommended by the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities. Surely, our lecturers and universities where they were trained deserve more. When we talk of heath care, government official and the ruling elite go abroad for medical attention; we talk of bad roads, they fly private jets; we talk of power, they run their homes on 24-7 alternative electricity source; now we’re talking Education, their wards are in some of the best universities abroad. There is no way the myriad of problems bedeviling the country can be tackled if the political elite don’t feel the pangs. That Mr. President has taken out time from his ‘busy’ schedule to constantly parley with the warring factions of his party, PDP, but has never sat down with ASUU members to chart a course for Nigeria’s leaders of tomorrow clearly shows his priorities. Party affairs and chasing perceived enemies of his 2015 ambition around with apparatus of state are far more important things than bending over backwards to pander to the demands of the striking lecturers. But then, government must take into cognisance the fact that, the longer the students remain at home, chances are that they will be lured into social vices. The aftermath can be disastrous for the state. There are misplaced calls in some quarters for ASUU to be ‘reasonable’, accept FG’s offer and return to classrooms. Others lambast them for being self-centered and unpatriotic. It is unfortunate that Nigerians are always looking for quick fix solutions to monumental problems. Less endowed countries like Ghana, Botswana and Angola are making giant strides on all fronts because the citizenry have at one point or the other insisted that the needful be done. Here, anything thrown at us is accepted with glee. We must get our priorities right as a country.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 11:53:02 +0000
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