“If you don’t see anything wrong when leaders flash the images of their sibling’s matriculation or graduation ceremonies in some of the world’s most prestigious or elitist universities, you shouldn’t see anything wrong with ASUU strike and demand for a better deal for Nigerian Universities.”
Providing quality education for some and not for others is aimed at entrenching and sustaining a political, social and economic dynasty of class order.
The above statement was made by Senator Shehu Sani on Monday while reacting to the indefinite strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU).
Sani’s statement is an apt description of the failure of the government to focus to invest in the education sector.
That education has fallen in Nigeria is an understatement as it’s as good as non-existent at the moment. Government at all levels in the country has paid lip service to education over the years. Workers are being owed salaries, the necessary infrastructures are not available from both primary to secondary to the tertiary institutions.
The committee on the NEEDS assessment of Nigerian Universities detailed the rot in the sector in its November 2012 report submitted to the Federal executive council.
The report read, “The Assessment Committees found that physical facilities for teaching and learning in Nigerian Universities are: Inadequate-Used beyond the original carrying capacity. Many lecturers, including Professors, share small offices. Dilapidated, Poorly ventilated, illuminated, furnished and equipped. Over-stretched/over-crowded Lectures theatres, classrooms, laboratories and workshops shared by many programmes across different Faculties. Improvised Open-air sports pavilion, old cafeteria, Convocation arenas and even uncompleted buildings used for lectures.In some cases, workshops are conducted under corrugated sheds or Trees”.
The case in 2017 five years after the report was submitted to former President Goodluck Jonathan is still the same and worse than it was in 2012. The elite have abandoned education. And this is due to the fact that their children and wards do not school in Nigeria.
At the moment, the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomosho is under lock and key due to the inability of the two owner states to pay workers salaries yet the Osun Governor in the midst of the ongoing strike spent a whole week to celebrate his 60th birthday when the students have been at home for over one year.
The total collapse being witnessed in the education sector of Nigeria has shown that we are not ready to embrace the light that education brings. And until the elite are forced to send their children to schools in Nigeria, an end may not be in sight to the education problem in the land.
Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram
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