“A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies”.
-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1990).
The politicians are making some of us (students) to hate our lecturers while unknowingly some of us do not know what the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, are struggling for considering their antecedents.
To truly digest the scenario of the excessive strikes one may acknowledge why the government is not responding and fulfilling the demands of ASUU currently and in the latter years.
Nigerian students believe that the government does not care about them as a serious government will not allow universities to be closed indefinitely for more than 100 days.
Students have been at the receiving end of the prolonged ASUU vs federal government impasse. A student who lost some academic years through strikes will not be eligible for the mandatory national Youth Service Corps, NYSC, as he or she may have exceeded the age of 30 years ceiling for the exercise and may also be denied certain jobs due to age barrier.
The incessant ASUU strike has made education unattractive to the upcoming generation in Nigeria which is detrimental to the nation and its its quest to be the leading economy in Africa and the world at large.
Students continue to receive assurances at the end of each meeting between the government and ASUU but which are never actualised because the government undervalues education and sees it as a liability rather than an asset or human development.
The hope and motivation for the education by students is deem, university students are worried as a result of this situation but remain hopeful and steadfast of better days ahead.
I believe and I know almost all Nigerian politicians have no child studying in public universities in Nigeria, otherwise, the strike would have ended in a blink of an eye. Their children are abroad studying with our country’s money and always graduate at their younger age, while we are here bamboozled with a shattered and crippled education system.
Public university students should participate in the 2023 electioneering activities carefully so as not to lose their lives and relationship with anyone because politicians in Nigeria are birds of a feather.
May Allah guide our leaders to understand the importance of education. May he continue to strengthen ASUU struggle for better public universities in Nigeria, Amin.
Aliyu Idris,
Bayero University, Kano
[email protected]
