Rescuing Nigeria From Her Leaders

By Owei Lakemfa

Intellectuals and academics from fourteen universities who gathered at the  University of Abuja on September 5 to discuss the seemingly insoluble problems of the country, concluded that Nigeria has to be rescued from its leaders.

*Buhari

They poured in from the universities in Minna, Akwa Ibom, Benin, Ekpoma, Ado Ekiti, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, Osun, Makurdi and  Ago Iwoye. Others came from the IBB, Tai Solarin and  Lagos State  Universities.  Students of the host University of Abuja also filled the Management Hall, venue of the gathering which also featured an address by their Vice Chancellor, Professor Michael  Umale Adikwu represented by Professor  Gboyega Kolawole.

Dr. Theophilus . D. Lagi, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Abuja Zonal Coordinator in addressing the theme: ‘Neo-Liberalism,  Democracy and Development in Nigeria” lamented that the country’s political leaders with their policy of ‘Government has no business in business’ have abandoned the people while simultaneously saturating the country with imported goods.

ASUU President, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, represented by the Vice President Professor Emmanuel Osadeke  said the primary task in the country, is to mobilize Nigerians to  change the system  and  ensure the people get  what is rightly theirs. The ASUU President argued that a system in which less than 2 percent of the populace  controls  over 90 percent of the resources, must not be allowed to continue. The political elites he argued, have become parasites helping themselves to the country’s wealth with which they send  their children and relatives  abroad for education, holidays and even medical care while ensuring that our public institutions including education and  health are non-functional.

Philosopher and  former ASUU President, Dr. Dipo Fashina  who is also the Coordinator of the union’s Centre  for Popular  Education (CEPED)  which organized the symposium, said the primary challenge in the country is how to change it into a society where  human beings can live freely and decently. Fashina said workers, the unemployed, farmers, students  and the “deprived in the streets” need to understand the problems of the country as a basic step towards finding a solution He added: “Some say our problem is because  some ethnic groups are in power, and we spend precious time fighting on this, only to find out that the elites later unite, while the rest of society, suffer” Human beings he said, need food, housing and clothing  and concluded  that: “Any society that cannot provide  these needs, is a nonfunctional society”

Comrade Abiodun Aremu , Secretary, Joint Action Front (JAF) who was the Guest Lecturer, said the younger generation need to know about the history of the country including the fact that we have had a governor who lived in his own house rather than the State House, and drove his personal car rather than  official cars.  Turning to the students, he said: “You are not here for your certificate alone; your education is worthless   if it is of no service to the society”

On the theme, he  argued that: “In conception and within practical realities, neoliberalism is a disaster for humanity.” In making a case for a new system, he warned Nigerians  to be wary of the ruling elites: “ When they want to divide us, they  will use ethnicity, they will use religion. But when they want to loot, they unite; when they  want to sell the country into economic slavery, they engage the World Bank and the international Monetary Fund.”

On the debate in the country on restructuring, he  argued that: “The  restructuring we  need, is the restructuring of our material existence”  He said it is in the students self-enlightened interest to support workers and lecturers in their struggles because: “It is your working parents who pay your school fees and your lecturers who lecture you,  run the schools and are defending you against reintroduction of school fees” Aremu said nothing comes without struggle adding: “ Our only option is to struggle for a change. You have your hands, you have your brains, use them  to secure a better future”

The analysis of Professor Omotoye Olorode is that the West has been on a mission of recolonizing the world in Latin America, Africa and Asia   through neo-liberalism. He said the elements of the weapon of neo-liberalism  include  the concept of ‘less government’ “individualism, private enterprise and privatisation, deregulation, trade liberalisation, devaluation of national currencies, removal of subsidies and reduction of the public sector and public-sector spending on social services (in)housing, health provisioning, education etc.”

His conclusion is that some of the  neo-liberal policies such as the privatisation of prison services in America, of  banks, education and power in Nigeria, “have turned out to be monumental disasters.” His submission is that: “In a fundamental sense, the central purpose of neo-liberalism from the beginning was to recolonize the world and reverse the gains of  the welfare state and socialist ideology.”

He lamented that: “Today the combined wealth of the world’s three richest persons is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of the forty-eight poorest countries. And inequality has increased as globalisation has progressed… It is needless to add the fact that inequalities have grown between countries of Europe and North America on one hand, and countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, on the other.” He encapsulated his international solutions in three nuggets; Socialise the ownership of monopolies, de-financialize the management of the economy and de-globalize international relations.

Specifically on Nigeria, Olorode  said   the country  needs a new patriotic struggle for the political and economic independence of Nigeria,  and wiping  out poverty, inequality, illiteracy, violence and crimes by   planning the economy    with market mechanisms based on  the interests of the masses.

He also advocated for the public ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy in production, distribution and exchange, reversal of austerity measures and  taking back public assets acquired through contrived schemes like  privatisation, concessioning and  Public-Private Partnership.

At this point, ASUU  turned the symposium into a pedagogical class by presenting  eight questions to the large audience which responded in the negative.  They include whether  students should pay fees in public universities,   Nigerians should pay for medical care in public hospitals and  for all services. Other ASUU questions were: “Nobody owes you a job; government does not owe you a job” “Government has no business in business” “Those who don’t work are not working because they are lazy”  and, “People are poor because they do not use their brains”

A satisfied ASUU said it is  moving its symposium and mass enlightenment train to other parts of the country. Dr. Fashina said ASUU’s campaign is in line with its constitution which “ Makes it obligatory for all ASUU members to fight for the protection and advancement of the socio-cultural  interest of the nation and ensure that Nigeria becomes a fair and just country.”