Nyesom Wike A General That Does Not Pick His Fight Carefully: written by Soni Akoji At the dawn of independence from the colonial powers, the leaders of the new African states realized that political independence without economic power was phony. These leaders thus sought economic improvement of their states but their economic vision and resolve were soon respectively beclouded and weakened by internal power struggle amongst the political elites. Sequel to the sacking of the former Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyatu Rufai from the Transformation cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan, JP due to her perceived closeness to G7 Rebel Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa state who nominated her ; Mr Nyesom Wike was elevated from Minister of State for Education to the substantive Minister. As a junior Minister in the Ministry his briefs includes inter alia overseeing the construction of a litany of Almajiri schools in the far north and remodeling of the unity schools. Nothing serious, more of a Chief Mason at a construction site. This gave him the latitude to always abscond from his duty post in far away Abuja and spend more time in Rivers state in pursuit of his humdrum and often boring ambition to be the next governor of Rivers state as he activated various cells of his Garri, sorry a slip there, - Grassroots Development Initiative from one location to another across the length and breadth of the state. With his elevation to The Supervising Minister of Education (whatever that means) one would have expected Wike to settle down quickly because the Education ministry has enough challenges that have bedevilled it, which needed to be tackled in Abuja, especially the strike by members of ASUU since July 1st. Not so for Wike, as he is busy with a needless battle of supremacy with his governor, Rotimi Amaechi. The recalcitrant Minister was in Port Harcourt at the weekend and he proclaimed that last Thursdays dissolution of Obio/Akpor Local Government in Rivers state by Governor Rotimi Amaechi would not stand. The bellicose PDP chieftain vowed that the governors action would be resisted to the highest level by all means! The Minister who is from the local government area and the political godfather of the sacked council chairman, Mr. Timothy Nsirim and his councilors issued the threat on arrival in the state capital ahead of a rally on Sunday by his Garri, sorry again, I meant to say Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI) at Ogu/Bolo LGA of Rivers state. Speaking during the occasion Wike said: We will resist it to the highest level. We have passed the stage where you (Amaechi) can intimidate anybody. Nsirim remains the Chairman of Obio/Akpor LG Council. He (Nsirim) will continue working. If he (Amaechi) wants to personally come to stop him, we will also march down there. That belligerent gibberish was not spewed by a motor park tout, it actually came from the Supervising Minister of Education who is supposed to be locked in negotiations with striking Dons and committee of Vice Chancellors to fashion out a workable solution to the current imbroglio with a view to finding a lasting solution to the interregnum in our ivory towers. I shudder to think what intensity of anguish Nigerias eminent Vice-Chancellors endured as they reportedly sat glumly through last Fridays meeting with the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike. The vice - Chancellors who attended the meeting with him would doubtless have left his presence flummoxed and dumbfounded by the quirkiness of university education that gifted Wike a law degree. I put him down as another specimen from our museum of atrocity. Future generations appraising the catacombs of our current catastrophe must wonder why such a gifted and creative people allowed themselves to be so misruled by their worst and most miserable human specimens. A fish they say starts the process of necrosis from the head. And this explains why a Fisher man checks the integrity of his stored catch by lifting the operculum. Acting on behalf of President Jonathan, the Supervising Minister of Education ordered the striking Dons back to the classroom or consider themselves fired. As if thats not enough war of belligerancy in the presidents many battles, Mr Wike followed up his folly by ordering the deployment of policemen in universities to secure those who would heed the command to resume work. After all of what use is power when it cannot be used? Wike has ordered the Vice Chancellors to reopen the universities, when in reality it was ASUUs withdrawal of services, not the shutting down of the campuses by the administrators that brought the system to a standstill in the first instance. Those who fail to report at their duty post, Wike commanded the National Universities Commission (NUC), should be sacked. I am sure Wike must have thought for a moment that he was dealing with bus conductors for a fleet of SURE - P danfo buses transporting hired thugs for a demonstration. Pray where does Wike expect to get replacements for the sacked teachers? Do we even have the resources and available pool of qualified teachers to fill the vacancies already existing? In Wikes view, since he has a hammer in his hand, he sees every problem as a nail requiring a mallet. No Sir! ASUU cannot be cowed into submission. If Nyesom Wike was a good student of history, he ought to have remembered that General Ibrahim Babangidas junta in 1992 fired all lecturers and threatened to eject them from their official quarters. But when the chips were down, it became clear to the jack boot regime that the universities could not be run like a military barracks. That was a five star General beaten to submission with his tail nicely tucked in between his legs, not to mention a bloody civilian in mufti. As Albert Einstein has noted, insanity is doing the same thing all over again and expecting a different result.For starters, ASUU President, Dr Fagge has told the streetwise, aggressive and gregarious minister to go to hell as they are not going to obey his command until the government does the needful! What is the needful that ought to be done? The few outstanding issues in the current FG/ASUU face-off is the warehousing of the first tranche of promised financial interventions, making the agreement already reached iron cast, and paying salary arrears. What is the big deal here? President Jonathan, Nyesom Wike and other sycophants who swivel around the presidency thinks ASUU showed utter contempt for his person and his office by doubting him. Such banal and egregious display from an egotist! Were there not more than enough reasons to doubt the presidency before now? Had that office not been desecrated before, and is it not now being desecrated by the thuggish characters that deface its hallowed corridors? The well of communal wellbeing is already poisoned. ASUU strike, that annual rituals where universities are devoid of academic activities and students stay at home idling and wasting away for months due to government insensitivity, is a unique Nigerian contribution to modern civilization. For all Patriots, this is a clarion call, a time to abandon neutrality, a time to stand firm against fascism as we embark on a journey of reconstruction from the ruins of the past and resting place of post colonial atrocities. Luckily and as Shakespeare famously puts it, there is still some architecture in the ruins. Indeed Fascist Mr Wike have run the transformation ship into a cul de sac. The challenge before us then is how to guide this rampaging, paranoid bull out of the China shop. I shuddered in revulsion at the impending armaggeddon should Wike have his way in the ongoing war of attrition with ASUU. Not only are there no university teachers anywhere to recruit, Nigeria is hardly the right place for any competent teacher to come and offer his services, let alone for pittance, subsistence wage, nickels and dimes, peanuts, chicken feeds, small potatoes, mite, trifle and a take home pay that cannot take you home and what have you with no equipment to do the job. We call on President Goodluck Jonathan to wriggle out of the impasse by first showing his Supervising Minister of Education the exit door now! Wike MUST GO this minute, not a second later! Wike just pack your bags and baggages and go into oblivion, only to be remembered on a visit to a yet to come museum of neocolonial atrocities where catacombs of our current catastrophe are entombed. After sending Wike to Golgotha, a place of no return, President Jonathan should order the payment of five (5) months salary arrears and immediate warehousing of the first tranche of financial agreement as an assurance that he will not repudiate on the contract. There after he should personally sign the agreement in the presence of very high government officials, after he has read the agreement several times, back and forth with the help of an aide to clarify gray areas. He should then append his signature on the document. With these in place the strike should be over in minutes. Are these so much to ask from a green, naive, inexperience, impractical, incompetent, oblivious, ill-informed and clueless fascist government?
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:08:17 +0000
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