Recently I took time to reflect on the steady progress and impact of the on-going industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) vis-à-vis the goebellian propaganda championed by the ever retrogressive Nigerian government, catalyzed by the foul crying of some myopic students against ASUU. Sadly enough, the parochial, perhaps often ideologically handicapped opinions of some parents against the aggrieved university pedagogues are bias. I have discovered among other things that there is need for the bias debaters of the on-going discourse between ASUU and the FG to think beyond the box. The FG on its part has been playing the game of agreement subversion. The unwholesome subversion would remind one of the distasteful glorification of intellectual and cerebral paucity, riling, steady and progressive promotion of mediocrity and the dearth of ideational fecundity, and of course a childishly veneration of skull emptiness.
I was engaged in an intellectually enthralling exchange of ideas with one of my highly artistry brainy, often critical allies, Ademola Adesola when he posited that it was time for us to drift responsibly from writing and speaking rhetoric to taking constructive action with structured thinking and iron clothing to shield ourselves from the sobering metaphor for the ceaseless repudiation and mockery of futuristic tendencies and scholastic deification being showcased by many Nigerian youth. In accordance with the shrewd understanding of Professor Adebayo Williams, the arts of moving away from writing and speaking about unanswered questions to the chemistry of taking actions should be done not in anger but with the view to making the seemingly magic of the past to bear on the morass of the moment. With this in mind, I want to posit that I have since began to take actions on some things but the intellectual shallowness as portrayed by some students about ASUU strike, the utterly fallacious drumbeat of some parents and the dance of shame of the FG which gives ballast to this ratiocination made me to lost the ephemeral immunity I have garnered against my pen-hence the emergence of this vignette.
It appears that our highly revered and often unbelievably cheated university teachers have lost home support-no thanks to some intellectually incarcerated ones among them who often parade themselves as faithful servants in a university in the north central region of Nigeria despite their cerebral nothingness coupled with their bi-annual production of semi-illiterate graduates. It was this revelation that prompted me to push my pen and write a strongly worded letter about ASUU strike and the state of the nation to a friend of mine who is currently a junior research fellow in Harvard University (reminds one of our trammeled thinking student governors in their failed Harvard party). In the letter, I made strong appeal to my friend to help mobilize Nigerian internationals in Harvard University in a peaceful protest to neighbouring media houses in support of ASUU strike and unhampered implementation of Justice Uwais’ Electoral Reform Recommendations.
In case some students and some parents in the hostile quarters against ASUU are still in the cloud as to what the Nigerian populace stands to benefit from ASUU strike, I will painstakingly drop few lines. The strike if supported and its aims are achieved will force the FG to make educational policies that are systematic, strategic and sustainable. The policies would be pragmatic, responsive and result-oriented, continually evolving to address emerging challenges and would be pro-active. The strike if successful, will help reposition the educational system in such a way that Nigerian universities will be best fit to compete shoulder to shoulder with universities in other thriving countries. If the strike has the required massive support-base to make it a success, it will help to restore the lost dignity in the Nigerian educational system, foster the teaching and acquisition of qualitative education, ensure stable academic calendar and ensure the production of highly skilled graduates with brainy skulls and guided thinking! The parents and students on the side of the FG should see the agitations of ASUU as a collective struggle that must be pursued with sense of purpose and constructive criticisms vis-à-vis the expected results. They should see it as something whose benefits are trans-generational.
The strike is a course whose gains are not for only this generation but also for generations to come. So if we fail to leave formidable educational legacies for the generations to come which we can easily achieve through the success of ASUU strike, history books will be there to expose our deeds. The legacies must be defined and refined, particularly in the face of accretions, cobwebs and diplomatic sheens they might collect later in future. The legacies must also be reviewed with the benefit of historical hindsight and changing historical circumstances.
We must go back to the basis, re-couple our educational vehicles with strong and protected educational engines that have unimaginably high resistance to academic corrosion and brain knocking. The new educational vehicles must be anchored by un-derailing drivers of education who have unbending historical logic, unflinching determination, telepathic understanding of the historical forces at play garnished with refined and sieved driving energy. They must in addition be aided by generalissimos of steady educational progress who will be conducting the affairs of the academic arena and will be calling on people to board the progressive educational vehicles. The educational conductors must have un-burnished determination, they must have mental focus and clarity of mind, and they must have the ability to defy earth-pulling gravity and adversity. It is thereafter that we can begin a smooth educational journey that will definitely lead us to our much awaited educational promise land.
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