Re: Oh No! Not Again ASUU (1)

Abraham Ogbodo is my friend. It is because of his weekly sermons that I go to all lengths,  in search of Guardian on Sunday which is increasingly becoming as scarce as the Euro!

I like the permanent smile etched on his face, I like his witticisms, sarcasm, and   the way he treats hard matters softly, and I also like the way he gives TKOs whenever and wherever he feels it is necessary and without fear or favour.

Sometimes in December 2016(Guardian on Sunday, December 4 & 11,2016), the punch landed on my face, when healmost wrote off ASUU, the lecturers and Nigerian  universities.

Since I have been savouring his punches against others, I had no choice than to enjoy the punch that landed on my face; I cannot complain neither should I say: why me.

In this intervention, I do not want to challenge his assertions; I will rather do an addendum to what he wrote  about us(members of the academic community),  and  add  a little more flesh to it.

Characteristically, the article in question was punchy all the way and every sentence therein was a quotable quote on what was wrong with academics and our universities.

He highlighted ASUUs massive infiltration of government over the years and wondered why it did not rub-off positively on the universities;

regretted the persistent resort to strikes and almost criminal inability to think outside the box and concluded that lecturers are as evil and visionless as the government they are battling.

He was also not happy with our tendency to persistently throw back problems at society, absence of intellectual rigour, tendency towards populism and adopting call-to-strike, as the shortest route to fame.

He regretted that the gown and town synergy has not materialized because ASUUists are more interested in intrigues, self-aggrandisement and would rather struggle for VC-ship than engage in research.

He reminded us that universities are not just about funding and infrastructure, challenged us to push the frontiers of knowledge, chided us for not brainstorming for solutions and being street-protesters rather than providers of answers.

In effect, he declared that the ivory has left the towers in our universities.

He suggested a review of curriculum and methods and working through  ASUUG( ASUU in Government, probably led by Prof Osinbajo) to achieve our aims rather than always paralyzing the system.

I agree with him especially as our people say that it is good to agree with others so that they will also agree with you.

On 23/7/09, I delivered the valedictory lecture at the now famous(you know why) Lagos State Senior Model College, Igbonla. The topic wasManaging the challenges of the next level.

I started by reviewing the academic environment then, an environment that was characterized by uncertainty, strikes, strife and conflicts, cultism and juvenile delinquency, outrageous student-teacher ratio,

corruption and politicization of the system, grossly inadequate and Lugard-era facilities,uneducated, uneducable, and unemployable products, misapplication of the quota system, crowding–out of public schools, watering down entry qualifications  and lack of commitment and seriousness on the parts of parents and students.

I arrived at the conclusion that we were all guilty (including lecturers) and responsible the sordid state of educational affairs by failing to do that which we should do and going ahead to do that which we should not do.

I also democratically apportioned the blames as follows:Government(inconsistency, underfunding, poor remuneration, politicization of  appointments, etc);

Society( Certificate mania, decayed moral values & crash of work ethics, ‘money can buy everything” mentality, monetisiton of success, etc);

Parents(No time for children whom they force to study fancy subjects, facilitation of expo and other corrupt practices, failure to lay goods examples),

the Schools(blowing in the wind of societal decay, universities that are no longer UNIVERSities, politicization, poor attention to the core essence, and failure to model excellence or  practice what they preach);teachers(meal-ticket paradigm and  lack of interest in teaching, the Blind leading the blind, poor orientation and wanting own reward here and now);

and the students(America-mania and foreign orientation, focus on fashion and “life”, want success without work and ignorance of the reason why they were in school).

Consequently, we have a)Poorly coordinated, poorly funded and inconsistent educational policies yielding b)Ill-equipped, overcrowded, non-conducive schools in which c) Ill-trained, ill-motivated, non-committed, poorly paid, hungry and angry teachers who try to teach d) Unserious, unwilling, uneducable students who came in with expo arranged by parents who are too busy to monitor them.

These are pushed into :e) A society which wants certificate by all means; which has destroyed the system, which would not even fund the schools but yet expect the best from them and we reap tis equation: A+B+C+D+E =    K A T A K A T A !