Is there any person in this country or group of persons, organisations, NGO or cult; whether the person(s) is a mono-lateral, bilateral or multilateral personality; whether he is a traditional or modern entity and whether he, or they, think(s) in a horizontal, vertical, oblong, triangular or rectangular manner, that can call the people they call ASUU, not to order, but to reason?
I say he or they should not call ASUU to order but to reason because those people do not appear to listen to any one neither can they reason reasonably by themselves. They neither fear God nor any man. They neither bother about conscience nor listen to appeals and solicitations for compromise.
They are simply a law unto themselves.
They heed neither appeal nor threat. They make their own laws and choose which one to obey and which to impose on the government of the land, all because they are university lecturers, a special breed. They have become an odious lot, loathed by Government, loathed by parents, loathed by students and loathed by the entire society.
I also think that some of their reasonable sons and daughters also loathe them. But they do not bother. Even some a who do not like the Buhari government and would wish it to fall by whatever means hate ASUU with undisguised vehemence. This is because everyone is tired of their often senseless and self-righteous strikes.
Those people have been on strike for about eight months now and they look set to hit a one-year mark and even beyond if their demands are not met. And one of their central demands in this latest round of their incessant strikes is that they have a right to determine what mode of payment for services, whether rendered or not, is in their best interest!
And they have been at it, been at what best they know how best to do- strike- for nearly a year now. They are at it and will continue to do much more even after this because for them, strike is bliss. No matter how long they embark on strike, they will suffer absolutely no consequences.
Their salaries and even unearned allowances will be paid to them intact. If one kobo is missing from their package, that will be another excuse to start another round of endless strike. This country has become ASUU land. The people are in paradise land where they never work but earn their upkeep.
I do not know how we got to this but I am completely baffled that a group of so-called intellectuals have banded together and refused to think beyond their personal and group interest which is often masked with popular interest. They tell parents and students not to think too badly about their prolonged strike because they are fighting government for their very interest!
They do not want to teach but to sit at home and earn money without work. How can a group of employees be on strike for eight months going to nine and at the end of the day have the conscience to say that none of them should be made to suffer any punishment and that their salaries must be paid in full before they can go back?
In which country do workers strike and collect their full pay no matter how long they have failed to perform their duties to the polity?
Surely, when the story of how Nigeria became a failed state is fully told, ASUU’s infamous effort are sure to occupy a very prominent portion in it. These people have done much to make Nigerian education non-functional. In fact, they have turned tertiary education into a laughable caricature of what it should be.
It is clear that the ASUU people are so far gone in their wayward, single-minded pursuit of strike as a solution to all problems and all grievances that they do not realise that in the eyes of most reasonable Nigerians, ASUU persons have a group of irresponsible, unreasonable, selfish, self-centred saboteurs masquerading as intellectuals.
As things are today, we must rescue our country not only from roughish politicians but also from roughish lecturers who are holding the nation by the jugulars. The list of the country’s enemies is growing longer and longer and ASUU people have joined as saboteurs-in-chief of the federation.
ASUU have gone on the wrong path so far into the bush that they need to be rescued to their senses.when they deceptively carry on about how university education is being neglected, they sound so ridiculous because they do not seem aware that there is no sector that is faring better. In fact, when compared, the tertiary sector is faring even better so why have they gone on a lone, long crusade about an area that seem to touch them only the most?
What Buhari should do now is to summon some gumption and close down our universities for two years. If he does it, many Nigerians and I will form #WeStandwithBuhariAgainstASUU because we all are tired of this ASUU nonsense. Their own has become too much.
We can’t stand them anymore. While the universities are off for two years, he should seize the chance to reorganize those schools. He should dissolve ASUU and ask those who are genuinely interested in teaching and research to re-apply. Right from the word go, re-engaging old lecturers and employing new ones should be done in the best interest of the nation.
He should mobilise retirees both in the public and private sectors and some members of the clergy who have the love for teaching and research to fill the void that may be created. We cannot proceed with the business of nation building with the kind of stony-hearted and unreasonable persons we now call lecturers. I want to declare here and now that
#IDoNotStandwithASUUAtAllAtAll. They are on their own. They are a dangerous group anyone should think twice before associating with because they do not love the nation.
I do not blame ASUU too much but our governments over the years who have portrayed themselves as weaklings. Also, ASUU may have persisted in their unpatriotism because we Nigerians have always seen almost all our governments as enemies so we have carried on with ASUU with the attitude that the enemy of our enemy is our friend. But in the course of time ASUU people have revealed their true colours.
They are not interested in forging any alliances or understanding with anybody – not with parents who bear much of the brunt of their work as persistent and permanent strikers; not with students; not with even fellow colleagues in the academic community. They are simply just on their own–to go on strike forever in order for them to extract whatever concession they want from government.
These days when ASUU people address a press conference to state their own side of the story, I do not bother myself to listen to whatever it is they are saying because I know they are sure to throw one subterfuge to draw our sympathy and to hate government. They will talk about the 2009 Agreement and the Federal Government’s unwillingness to implement that agreement when in reality all they want is what will benefit its members.
They carry on as if they are not a part and parcel of this society, as if because they lecture in the universities they must be exempt from the economic and political inadequacies plaguing this country. Yes, they carry on as if this society was created to benefit lecturers to the exclusion of all others in it. Unless we collectively kill ASUU by standing with government by forming #OnThisWeStandwithGovernment, ASUU is going to finish this country.
We Nigerians are today paying for our warped thinking that our enemies enemies must necessarily be our friends. ASUU used us to acquire a position of notoriety that they would not have acquired had we not cheered on when eggheads and patriots like Festus Iyayi, Attahiru Jega and some few others led ASUU in the late 80s and 90s.
We Nigerians should come out and tell the ASUU people to hell with their so-called concern with the state of tertiary education in the country. The type they are even offering is not what will uplift this country. And let the people be further told that Nigerians can live successful lives without tertiary education. We must call their bluff. We can’t breathe right now.
ASUU is supposed to be a body of employees but in course of time it has become so powerful that it has become a malignant dictator without conscience. It is, to me, the most powerful trade union in the world. They are so powerful that it is they who dictate to their employer how they should be paid. They determine national priorities. They have, in their wisdom, determined that university education is what should be given the number one national priority.
If they should have their way, they want that item of national expenditure to be on First Line Charge and the country to be run by only intellectuals.
This may sound like a diatribe against ASUU. If it is, it is entirely deserved.
