Richard Ginika Izuora
The Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), at the weekend deplored the frequent strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The PGF claimed the recurring strikes were destroying the nation’s educational system.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Director-General of the PGF, Salihu Lukman, titled “ASUU and Indeterminate Power Struggle – The Boko Haram Logic.”
Lukman explained that the persistent strikes by ASUU was helping in the actualisation of the philosophy of Boko Haram.
He further lamented that a situation where the country’s universities were closed for over four years within two decades was antithetical to the development of the nation’s education sector.
The PGF DG called for a more determined approach to resolving the lingering crisis in the nation’s tertiary education sector; even as it called for a halt to the occasional resort to strikes by ASUU.
”In the last twenty-one years, ASUU was on strike for a record period of more than four years,” he said.
Lukman noted with disdain that the education sector had suffered huge damage due to persistent resort to strike by the university lecturers; lamenting that some respected Nigerian academics had often publicly celebrated it by arguing that ASUU had never lost any struggle against the Nigerian government, whether military or civilian.
“These are being said without any remorse or acknowledgement of the damage ASUU strikes have done to the Nigerian educational system.
“That we are even thinking that the closure of universities and our schools can produce any form of victory; with reference to any form of outcome demonstrates our nasty state of mind; which brings us closer to the Hobbesian reality that civilisation would have long resolved.
“How can anyone with a child whose dream and aspiration should include being educated; celebrate in any form the closure of schools? What difference is such logic from the Boko Haram objective of abolishing western education?
“It is very sad that it is common knowledge now that in the last twenty-one years; ASUU was on strike for a record period of more than four years.
“Worse still is the fact that we have people who claim to be public intellectuals that present such a reprehensible scorecard and by any standard a scandalous credential as achievement is sickening.
“At this rate, we may as well accept that Boko Haram terrorists are also public intellectuals. In any event, who is a public intellectual? Aren’t Boko Haram terrorists engaged in critical thinking, research, and reflections? If their mission is to abolish western education; how farther away from that mission is the activity of any group that causes closure of our universities for nine months in one academic calendar?
“If our universities are closed for nine months, what does that mean to the remainder of the education system? Assuming that secondary students are able to pass their exams, will they gain admission into universities? Where will the space come from when existing students have not graduated?”