“Will it ever end?” The constant question that has been running through almost every Nigerian student’s mind who has in one way or the other experienced the staggering educational system likened to a man who finds it so difficult to breathe, one who is always struggling to take in Oxygen. The question of how we keep using the same instrument over and over again at the expense of the student’s future. Like in the case of using a cutlass for over 20years and not ever thinking that it would become blunt and very well ineffective. Thinking that the same tool or instrument would work and make the government listen at the expense of the progress of the “leaders of tomorrow”. The question of whether the leaders of tomorrow would ever get the chance to indeed be leaders of tomorrow, if they would ever get the chance at the future they so desire to have, the one that they deserve to have. Will it ever end?
Being told of how past generations alive and dead have had to go through the same stifling progress and the uncertainty that hangs in the air of when and if they would ever get to graduate at the same time with their mates in private universities. The talks of how the strikes would never end unless full autonomy is given to each university and the constant prayers on the lips of the final year student, “They should just let me finish in peace, when I do, they can continue”- A validated and understandable selfishness. Of course, well expected from someone who is currently in the sixth year for a four-year course. The constant tussle and struggle between the government and the Association. Will it ever end?
You see, we like to applaud people for the things they are meant to do. Giving special credit to the Speaker of the House of representative for stepping in without asking the question of why he didn’t step in earlier, the question of why it took him almost 8 months to step in. Going political in the talks of education and the question of why it just had to become a discussion of political preference.
The constant actions of sabotage that the government keeps taking to cripple the educational system. What is education anymore? Of what value is it when it cannot be protected and promoted. Stripped of its value, stripped of its importance and tossed away. What then is important to the government? In between experiencing one of the worst economic crises in the history of the county and having millions of students sit at home for 8 months, the question of what the government now counts to be important is an essential question that we cannot stop asking. More the voices of students have been heard saying, “When you’re coming to a government school just add like 2 years to the normal years you are supposed to spend on campus”. When did such abnormality become normal? Strikes have become like a culture in public university, almost something we look forward to. Does it have to be like this? Will it ever end?
AASA PRESS UI 