Sober Reflection

I would like to use this opportunity to welcome us all back from the unsolicited holiday, that’s those of us in public universities in Nigeria. During this period, a lot of things have happened and I want to talk about things that have lingered on mind all along.

By the time you would be reading this piece, you would have spent no less than sixteen weeks of aberrant education in the institution called Nigeria. During this relatively short period of time, you would have seen that the lifestyle in our university system is only an abstraction of the real world in which we live. A good number of us are now subscribers of publications of various print media; circumstance has made us conversant with the names of their editor and columnist, in order to get updated on the industrial action embarked upon y University lecturers. Our eyes are now opened to the numerous misdeeds in our society; we have seen (or maybe learned) the act of contract inflation, we know the extent our leaders have gone in impoverishing our educational institutions. We are abreast of how our banks are helping to put our robust economy into the ranks of the world’s top economies. The good thing is that we have a firsthand knowledge of the extent of damage done to our nation. You could say we have done a risk-assessment of the situation; that is my first step in recovering from a disaster ad it has never failed me.

The question that instinctively comes to our mind is what happens next. The failure of ASUU to abdicate on their demands might have saved the educational system, albeit temporarily. What will happen in 2012, when a renegotiation is expected to be carried out between ASUU and the Federal Government, in accordance with the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 98 and within the framework of Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) and Vision 2020? Logically, I expect to be in the final year of my study at Obafemi Awolowo University, by that time. Am I supposed to be worried about the recurrence of another industrial action during the renegotiation period? Maybe or maybe not. The point of my write-up is that I am looking beyond 2012; this implies that I am bothered by neither ASUU nor the Federal Government. I have seen enough. On a personal note, I have lost total faith in the present generation of leaders that we have. I have lost faith in both the ruling party and the opposition, and as a result I don’t expect anything worthy of note from them. I am not concerned about the 2011 General Elections, neither am I bothered about whether our president can achieve the VISION 2020 (maybe 2090, as some prefer to call it). The 7 point agenda is meaningless to me, so does his amnesty program. You may decide to see me as ‘unpatriotic’, but maybe you are wrong. I have not lost faith in Nigeria and I love her so much, more than words can explain.

Of major concern to me are the future of Nigeria and our next generation of leaders. I am concerned about what happens when the current cabal finally goes into extinction. The question I am asking is ‘Are we ready to take up the challenges facing us as a people’?  Are we ready to restore Nigeria’s lost glory, the dreams of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Obafemi Awolowo? Barak Obama famously said “Change has come to America”, but I am saying change is coming to Nigeria. Are the next generation leaders learning the elements of this change alongside their formal education? Are we learning to be the silver lining in the cloud covering Nigeria? It is of my opinion that our efforts be channelled to imbibing the values that will make us into a great people and in turn a great nation; the values of honesty, commitment, sincerity, courage, godliness, unity amongst others. We need to look beyond issues of religion an ethnicity. We must realize that the bounds of religion is too narrow to accommodate the values that God expects from us (this is a topic of discussion for another day), and definitely does not help our cause.

As I end this piece, I hop the young people of today will go into sober reflection and see how much w have helped or antagonized the Nigerian cause. We should make commitments, sacrifices; take bold actions and daring steps to fly Nigeria’s flag higher.

Maybe saying the National pledge might help:

I pledge to Nigeria my country;

To be faithful loyal an honest;

To serve Nigeria with all my strength;

To defend her unity;

And uphold her honour and glory;

So help me God.

Wale Oyediran