For many years now the ideological nature of political struggle in Nigeria has been systematically suppressed by the Nigerian press. When Nigeria politics is written about, it is in the misleadingly crude terms of power struggles between political parties (usually the APC, PDP and very recently the Labor Party). Or sometimes, the reportage is about individual personalities: Tinubu, Atiku and Obi, or the economic problems supposedly caused by poor leadership namely: hunger, poverty, disease, joblessness, soaring energy prices and lack of access to quality education, among others.
As a matter of fact, such strands of politics, reported by the Nigerian media, are merely subplots in the battle between a back-ward looking regime erected on the structures of shameful revisionism, corruption, denial of truth and unpatriotic divisiveness on the one hand, and the nationalists and intellectual workers headed by ASUU on the other. It is important to state from the outset that this latter group (led by ASUU) is acting as a check on the increasing gross inequality between the bourgeoisie and the 90 percent of the Nigerian population who are peasants and urban workers.
Straight to the point. The FGN has over the years treated ASUU so monstrously. From the regime of Babangida to Obasanjo, to that of Yaradua, to Jonathan and Buhari, it has been the same farcical drama of sham, indifference and disdain. Promises were made but not fulfilled, negotiations began and were stopped only to begin again and stop. For the past three decades, no Nigerian leader has dealt with the ASUU- FGN agreement seriously, sincerely, honestly and honorably. From 1992 to date, the rot in the University system has continued unabated; from 1992 to date the University teachers have embarked on several warning strikes and sometimes indefinite strikes all in an attempt to press the Nigerian government to tread the path of honor by respecting its promises.
Now, one can understand why since 1992 the University has been the target of government animosity. The university is a place of intellectual workers whose primary duties are to research, teach, engage in community work, seek, find and tell the truth at all times, even at great hazard. On February 14, this year, ASUU embarked on yet another warning strike reminding the FG to honor the terms of the renegotiated 2009 agreement which, among other things, include IPPS vs UTAS, payment of EAA, Revitalization Fund, release and implementation of Visitation Panel reports. Lamentably, instead of addressing these issues faithfully and honestly, the FGN opted for its usual mischievous and malicious tactic of hiring its cronies and acolytes like Keyamo, Ngige and Adamu Adamu to blackmail ASUU. More horrifying is the bare-faced, insidious fallacy and scurrilous untruths uttered by Aamu Adamu recently just for the purpose of cheap political agenda when he asked Nigerian students to sue ASUU for their continuous stay at home. Four months into the strike, all good souls in Nigeria expected that this trio would have been sacked for keeping university students out of the classroom for a long period of time but Baba in the Villa turned a blind eye to their misdeeds. Well, the trio would have earned their salaries and perhaps public acclaim for now, but one thing is for sure: nothing lasts forever and one day together with their Principal they shall retire from drinking the palm wine of power to penance and mortification forever. And as they say in my village: they are men without wisdom because they don’t know that power is the bird of the forest which nests on one tree today and tomorrow pitches its tent on another. I leave them as they fester in opulence, fame and might.
In Nigeria, as in other parts of the world, our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous battle between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those forces determined to dismantle it. It is these two forces that are in conflict every day and every where. They are with us in schools, in offices, at the market, in the churches/ mosques and even in our homes. In simple terms, there are two classes in society: the rich and the poor, the ruler and the ruled, those who pull and those who are meant to do the pulling. ASUU, as a union, is made up of a breed of university scholars who are bright, confident, original, honest and whose simple lifestyle is a stunning contrast to the dominant imported culture associated with Nigerian leaders who are the oppressors. In other words, ASUU is the only body in Nigeria that fits the honest, anti-imperialist intellectual who is armed and prepared to fight, in a certain measure, for the elimination of injustice and the mass participation of the people in the ordering of public affairs.
It could easily be perceived that only the intellectual has the capacity to put Nigeria first, to love Nigeria, to insist that education is a right and not a privilege. It is only the intellectual that has faith in the capacity of the people to change their lives, to demonstrate that people are subjects and not just passive objects of development, to insist on certain minimum professional ethics and democratic principles, to reject a society based on corruption, to reject the rule of fear, to reveal that the children of ordinary peasants and workers have a right to free education, to insist that it is the primary responsibility of any responsible government to provide education for all its citizens. But over and above all, it is the duty of the intellectual to criticize the policy of privatization of education and the whole program of looting and plundering of our commonwealth.

What then is the significance of the on-going ASUU strike? For one thing, the strike has demonstrated abundantly that the FGN has deliberately refused to live up to its primary responsibility of providing education for its citizens. For another, the strike has revealed that ASUU is the messiah and deliverer by insisting that education should be a right and not a privilege. And in this regard, ASUU has assumed the unassailable position of the champion of the poor, or better still, the voice of the voiceless. A strike for that matter is not a crime, it is just a resultant product of discontentment or intense provocation. The motive for embarking on a strike is to effect a positive change in an unacceptable condition. In this regard again, ASUU is speaking on behalf of all students, artisans, cobblers, market women, farmers, carpenters, in a word, the oppressed members of the Nigerian society.
What are the consequences of the on-going ASUU strike? The on-going ASUU strike has revealed the intolerable gap that exist between the rich and the poor. The strike has shown that there is education and prospects of a good life for the rich, but only hunger, poverty and ignorance for the poor.
Now, one would expect the Nigerian media to truthfully and honestly reflect the struggles of these working people and the intellectuals. It was Leo Tolstoy, that famed Russian writer, who once wrote that ‘the only thing necessary in life as in art is to tell the truth’. But here is the real difficulty: truth itself is a very expensive gift which you can hardly find among cheap people. Those who stand for the truth (like ASUU) are not cheap people, they are brave and courageous people who also serve as the conscience of the society. Some people cannot hold unto the truth because they are afraid of the iron hand of the ruling class. Yet, others shy away from the truth because they have sold their conscience for pecuniary rewards. Perhaps, a recent example from the media would be insightful. There is a media friend named Farooq Kperogi. I believe strongly that he needs some education about truth-telling. When the current ASUU strike began in February this year, he sensationally threw his weight behind it. But just some weeks ago he made a quick u-turn. His action is not surprising, though it is amazing, because in Nigeria when people criticize (like Kperogi, Keyamo and Adamu Adamu) they are only drawing attention to themselves so that they should be given a chance to join the looting. As soon as a Nigerian critic grows rotund from the fat of the land, he abandons the working class and join forces with the oppressor. Mr. Kperogi’s recent essay entitled ‘ASUU Call off this Strike Now’ is the clearest example of a dozen untruths flowing from the pen of a writer in this modern era. Needless to say that the essay is also the grossest falsehood and the cheapest propaganda. But most importantly, the essay shows that Kperogi has acquired the dog’s facility for throwing up and returning again to eat vomit.

Undeniably, the ASUU strike has the potential to unite both the University teachers, students and the parents, the strike has the capacity to persuade Nigerians to be more organized now to resist bad governance and tyranny on a scale they had never before attempted. And from all indications, the strike has brought out those aspects in Nigerian citizens that we did not know: resistance, solidarity, courage, defiance and outright rejection of misrule. This is as much as to say that the strike has the capacity to determine who becomes Nigeria’s helmsman in 2023. And since the contours of both life and poverty are the same in Nigerian cities and villages, since only a few can eat while the majority squirm in poverty, since some few privileged children can go to school while the majority cannot, people, peasants and workers are already organized in their villages and cities and will refuse to be cowed by a backward-looking regime. All Nigerians united by the strike should now be courageously calling for power to the people.
It is left to be said that there is no weapon equal to tenacity of purpose and by holding firmly unto its principles, ASUU is sending the message that let us draw strength from the hopes of tomorrow and refuse to perish in the darkness of today. But more than that, the on-going strike is meant to show that freedom can never be given voluntarily by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.

ASUU is very hopeful and confident. The FGN cannot eat ASUU and there is a good chance that it never will. It has seen enough of ASUU over the years to know that it risk a fearful belly-ache if it eats ASUU. My folks say that: he who despises smallness let him step on a needle. ALUTA CONTINUA

count | 431

ASUU STRIKE: FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE POOR AND NEEDY -Jeff Doki