By Tunde Akingbondere
Over the years, Nigeria has suffered the glitches of not just insurmountable challenges but deliberate ones, cleverly woven into a web of barricades by some overbearing elements whose job it is to plunder the country.
These
are the enemies strategically planted by providence to ambush the peace,
development and accelerated progression of the dear country. They have
their ancestry in history and had infiltrated our marketplaces, educational
institutions, public offices, churches and so forth.
No wonder Osita Agwuna wrote a fierce newsletter, which was presented publicly as a lecture under the Chairmanship of Chief Anthony Enahoro in the year 1948. The provocatively blunt newsletter canvasses the call for a sweeping revolution, it borrowed the diction of Thomas Sankara in clamouring for a total overhaul of our different sectors while laying to rest the factors which gave birth to the general strike of 1945, the Burutu Strike of 1947 too.
The
radical Zikists, who convened in the year 1946, launched the first-ever
audacious attack against the anti-people and highly traumatising policies of
the British. They mobilised the Nigerians of that time against the system in
place: this was by dissuading them from paying tax to the British but the
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons; they canvassed against their
obeying their security forces too.
From
the era when the “Call For A Revolution” was prominent till the time when there
is a need for #RevolutionNow, #EndSARS, Nigeria has
refused to be delivered from the shackles of the myriads of intrigues
militating day and night against the soul of the most populous African Country.
Democracy, a medicine believed to be the only balm on her woes was reinstated
after courageous Nigerians fought earnestly for it.
The
year 2015 election produced the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari
(retd.), who was believed to have led the Battalion of Nigerian soldiers who
chased Mohammed Marwa, best known by his nickname Maitatsine, and his radical
militant group, Yan Tatsine, to oblivion. Buhari, instead of levelling up to
the expectation of Nigerians, by chasing their challenges to hell, has
enthusiastically built around himself a cadre of ignorance. This cadre is a
contagious one, parasitically sharing a symbiotic relationship with every
sector in the country at the same time.
One of the
important sectors hibernating is the educational sector. The Academic Staff
Union of Universities has been locked in an interminable strike since February.
The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities started its agitation with
a picket, which later culminated in a strike in March. Other affiliated unions
followed.
Some of the demands of SSANU include the
inconsistent issue of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System,
unpaid earned allowances, delay in the renegotiation of FGN, SSANU,
Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and allied institutions agreements and
non-payment of minimum wage arrears.
A compassionate president with the interest of
the people at heart will not have been junketing different countries while the
future leaders are at home, wasting away. Buhari remorselessly closed his eyes
to his responsibilities and cared less about the lives being wasted in the
country every day.
The man, who could not be gentlemanly enough
to honour or adequately renegotiate the agreement signed with the lecturers by
his predecessor, has goofed with the calibre of distracted ministers he earlier
committed the job with. The constitution of the Nimi Briggs Committee appears
not to be yielding any result, this is despite the wide applause that greeted
it.
As of today, the Nigeria Labour Congress
through its President, Ayuba Wabba, has revealed how the National Working
Committee of the union felt there is no glaring improvement in the engagement
between the Federal Government, ASUU and other affiliated unions. They
threatened to lead a one-day protest to force the hand of the government. This
was corroborated by Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU President, who also confirmed
that they have not been invited.
In the coming days, Buhari is enjoined to
vacate the office. This is in the interest of the progress of the country. It
is inconceivable that a country as big as Nigeria has a docile president who
could not resolve the issue between his government and the workers. That
Nigeria is going through a recession is not strange but her intentionally
stifling her human capital by withdrawing her own education from her citizens
is dangerous.
*Tunde Akingbondere writes from Lagos
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