Buhari's Intransigence And ASUU'S Defiance
Nigeria is in its best of times. You wonder why! Nigerians are literally feeding from the dustbin, a thing that Alhaji Umaru Dikko, former Minister of Transport in the second republic that had the ugly pleasure of being smuggled in a crate home from Britain by the agents of Buhari's military administration in 1984, thought unthinkable. Nigeria's different tribes are literally at each other's throats and many fear a full-scale uprising may break out. The economy is comatose and the mainstay of Nigeria's economy, the sweet crude is being stolen at an unprecedented rate that is affecting the economy. From 2023, a large percentage of the nation's earnings will go to service debt for loans taken from China and other multilateral institutions. That means the government will be strapped for money for infrastructure and other developmental programmes. That is why Peter Obi, Labour Party's presidential candidate is shouting himself hoarse, calling on Nigerians to ditch the mainstream parties whose policies have created the existing situation. Obi comes like a breath of fresh air. That’s why Obi is the rave of the moment.
However, a man by the name of Government Ekpemukpolo, alias Tompolo; he bears Government not because he is part of the government of Nigeria, but because his people have a way with strange names, is one of the most popular personalities in the country for a special reason. Seven years ago, when President Muhammadu Buhari got to power, Tompolo was the most wanted enemy in the creeks. Buhari chased him with full military fury because Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the president that preceded Buhari, had awarded Tompolo a contract to ward off those engaged in oil bunkering in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Tompolo used his private army to do the job, but he was alleged to have gotten the job because he belongs to Jonathan's Ijaw ethnic nationality. Today, Tompolo is the darling of Muhammadu Buhari for another special reason; the oil thieves have become untamable to the Buhari military, and it is rumoured that the armed forces are included in the theft. So Buhari saw the need to bring in Tompolo's private army again.
Tompolo is part of the fierce militants warring against the alleged injustice in the allocation of the revenue that comes from oil sales. Apart from agitation, the militants also help themselves to the oil, stealing it and shipping it away to foreign lands, making humongous money from it. So, it is thought that a thief is better to fence off other thieves. Tompolo's second coming has not been as easy; his fellow militants are crying that he shouldn't be the sole head, that each of them must win the contract for his own territory. Besides, another company has also secured contracts to watch the Abuja intercity rail so as to save it from the hands of terrorists and insurgents who have bombed one train and kidnapped an unspecified number of citizens. Some have been released and some are still in captivity. A big question is who would be able to face the terrorists when the military has not been able to? Perhaps like the militants in the Niger Delta, a leader of the terrorists in the North would do.
Anyhow, it is still the best of times for Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari is tough and intransigent, and it seems the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU has found its perfect match in him. Many don't want to say that Buhari's actions bother on carelessness, but they wonder why a president will be comfortable seeing undergraduates sitting at home for six months because of a strike. However, the government has reviewed the salaries of academic staff, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu announced on Tuesday. At any rate, ASUU strikes have become yearly since 1973/1974 when they began. When ASUU goes on strike the whole nation shakes and government scampers all over to find a solution to appease the union. ASUU has taught other unions within the university system how to harass the government and the nation. Each ASUU strike encourages other unions to make similar demands. But this current strike action is different because Buhari is not having sleepless nights and Nigerians are not speaking favourably of ASUU. Nigerians do not see the university teachers as a bunch of eggheads who should be respected for their brilliance again. They are rather seen as no different from the rest of the rotten society. They allege that they sleep with the young girls kept in their charge and that they steal money allocated to them and come around to complain it is not enough. Also, they allege that they extort money from students to pass them and that they engage in other part-time jobs which does not make them concentrate on the real jobs they are paid to do. Some of them who have lobbied the politicians to serve in their governments have not fared any better.
Still, it is the best of times for Nigeria. Youths are fleeing the country for countries that Nigerians will not consider in the past. Parents, especially those who are a little rich have transferred their wards to universities in neighbouring West African countries. Now Nigeria's scarce forex is flying to those countries as school fees. President Buhari would not bother, he and his wife have found means since they got to power to train all their children abroad. About four of them have returned with foreign degrees. So also, are the children of governors, the National Assembly members, commissioners and ministers. Even a son of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Universities Commission, NUC who earns a civil servant salary was seen on social media rejoicing with his father for a degree earned in a foreign university. Please don't ask anybody how a poor civil service salary can train a child abroad.
ASUU is in a fix, and President Buhari won't yield. His Labour minister, Festus Keyamo, a former activist whose activism for Buhari's re-election in 2019 got him a post in Buhari's government, howled that Buhari will not take a loan to satisfy ASUU's demand. But Buhari can take a loan to extend the railway to the Niger Republic. Again, he can take a loan to gift 25 cars to the same Niger Republic, and he can take a loan to give a million dollars to the Afghan Taliban regime. Also, Buhari can take a loan to give a grant to a university of technology in Malaysia while all the universities of technologies in Nigeria are under lock and key.
Still, Nigeria is in the best of times. The free oil money which made all of us lazy, just sharing it, is gone, so we have to work now or perish. The oil money that funded our greed and promoted our tribalism and religiosity is gone and we will have to tame tribalism and religiosity or perish. The other time, a commissioner from Zamfara State appealed to southern states to discard their quest to determine which constituent part of the federation should collect VAT. This same VAT is shared based on population and land size which Zamfara has in abundance and used to fund a state-of-the-art IT Koranic school in the state and to send 176 persons to Umrah to pray for the end of banditry in the state. The pilgrims are back, and banditry is still ravaging Zamfara. Even the southern states would have no VAT to collect again and everybody, the north and south would have to work in order not to perish.
Still, it is the best of times for Nigeria. Nigerians are said to be reticent. They don't fight, they only pray. They don't have to work; they only have to expect manna to fall from heaven. Their president, who they elect can talk down on them, he determines the way resources are allocated. Pastors and Imams can collect money from their members and enjoy it while their members expect good only to come to them when they get to heaven. But now Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is pioneering a new Nigeria which will question and stand up to any president. “If I wanted to be in politics, he said, I could have been president, and so who is any president to say I can't speak?” The bandits are telling Aso Rock to expect them because they want to kidnap the president and take him to the bush and beat him like they have been beating other Nigerians. The armoured tanks of the Army with which Nigerians were terrorized in the days of the military coup are now lame. Bandits have been destroying them and so the military has lost its assumed invincibility. Welcome to the new Nigeria! These times will force Nigerians to think up a solution to fund its moribund university system. You are in the best of times, Nigeria. You are being forged in the furnace of fire.
Tunde Akande is a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.