An inventory of the number of things that are dead or dying in Nigeria is sure to be a daunting even if frightening exercise. For in many respects, Nigeria is a country of the walking dead with the signs of life few and far between.
For many years now, to preside over Nigeria`s slow and painful demise has been a class of privileged Nigerian who have seemingly been around forever, or having been born to families that have been around forever have found themselves either in the corridors of power or with links to the corridors of power. If the books are ever opened for Nigeria, these people would be found responsible for the cancerous tumors eating up the Giant of Africa.
Education on life support
Of the things that have long died in Nigeria, public education stands out starkly, not least because of the timeless power that education has shown to possess in its unassuming delivery.
For many Nigerians, the experience of Nigerian education right from the beginning is a troubling one. From their first day in school, there is nothing even remotely appealing to engender interest and continuity. They meet school buildings falling into disrepair. They see that school furniture is nowhere to be found, and clearly disgruntled teachers are as poor in their delivery as their welfare is. Together, these conditions ensure that what is served on many people`s first day of school is as bitter a pill as any that can be swallowed.
It is little wonder that as the education, which is the bedrock of any prosperous society, has cracked, so many Nigerians have fallen through the cracks. It is worrisome that the sorry state of education in Nigeria is bounteous fodder for some misguided Nigerian artistes who through their art cast education as a lost cause thus misleading those who have the misfortune of listening to them.
ASUU and the graveyard of education
On February 14, 2022, the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) downed their tools in a bid to force the Federal Government to accede to its demands. The fact that the strike is now in its eighth months during which time Nigerian undergraduate students have been stuck at home sis testament to the priorities of the current APC-led administration.
In this time, while the government has wailed itself hoarse that it has no money to meet ASUU`s supposedly extortionate demands, there have been spending sprees in neigbouring Niger Republic and in the primaries of political parties by some government officials.
While these aberrations have gone on, it is ire that has been injected into Nigeria`s ivory towers.
A lost voice.
The years have not been kind to the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). It is heydays, its vigorous defiance had even the most brutal military dictatorships in Nigeria on pins and needles. In those days, the association did not just stop at demanding better conditions for Nigerians students but was at the forefront of demanding that democracy be restored to Nigeria as way of offering the country a better future.
However, the association has been on a long, slow decline. Pervasive politics has since seeped into its spine, rendering it brittle, supine, and corrupting its core as a body that once spoke for Nigerian students and had the ears of the high and mighty. Today, what remains of NANS is not much. These days, its leadership is almost always constituted by eternal students planted by politicians who do all in their power to serve the interests of their benefactors.
Today, it is indeed a elegiac epitaph to Nigeria`s demise as a country and NANS` demise as a body that many of those who fronted the body in its glorious days, keeping brutal military dictators on their toes have now wormed their way into government at different levels and are rather complicit in the heist being perpetrated against education in Nigeria.
In this wise, the recent decision by the National Association of Nigerian Students, Southwest Zone to occupy streets across the South-West Region to conduct a final burial rite of public education is commendable.
The association has been silent for far too long. By all means, let the association rediscover its mojo. Let it rediscover its voice and purpose. Let it rediscover what it stands for. If it can do this, perhaps it may offer some hope that Nigerian students can get through what is quickly proving to be their darkest period.
Kene Obiezu,
Twitter: @kenobiezu
