USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU ON "THE STATE OF THE NATION"

I am not a fan of ASUU, everyone knows that. It is particularly maddening that this body of university dons has been silent on the matter of the ongoing crisis in Nigeria. ASUU should take time out of its strikes du jour to say something, anything about what is upsetting our nation. It is not a disinterested party in this issue. Indeed, its last communique providing arationale for its umpteenth strike provides striking clarity on its feelings in general. It is also insightful, if I may say so. It may be accessed on their website at: http://www.asuunigeria.org/ They should simply cut and paste it and send it out to the world. It would comfort the young who have felt so betrayed by ASUU and the Nigerian government. Who is managing their communications? Na wa! Anyway, here it is:

THE STATE OF THE UNION

There is now an undisputable fact about Nigeria. The various factions of the ruling class are united, no matter their other differences, by their role as feeble agents of global liberal powers. They are surrendering the fate of present and future generation of Nigerians to the grips of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Control of Nigerian government has been seized by the Western imperial powers. The World Bank and the IMF were decisive in the sponsorship and constitution of the economic team which was put in place following the inauguration of Mr. President after the April 2011 elections.

The economic team has in turn recruited like minds in preparation for mortgaging the future of our country to the World Bank, IMF and other western economic institutions. Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala also brought her "technocrats" into the team in order to reinforce the technical and ideological foundation for implementing the World Bank-IMF economic agenda in Nigeria and with it, the mortgaging of the future of generations of Nigerians to the dictates of the imperial world. With the team, the government of President Jonathan began an aggressive pursuit of privatization, commercialization, deregulation and devaluation with unparalleled zeal, with a view to completing the agenda begun since the days of the Obasanjo Presidency.

The result of the process is now public knowledge: abuse of due process, official theft of public property in the name of privatization, auctioning valuable national assets, cannibalization of parts and machinery, retrenchment of workers, general economic retardation, and destruction of social welfare and generalized insecurity. In recent months the FGN has intensified its campaign for devaluation, privatization and petroleum price increase, which the Nigerian labour movement including ASUU shall resist.

The ruling class has failed. It cannot provide jobs, education, health care, affordable transportation, roads etc. It is incapable of uniting the people: it uses ethnic origin as a political weapon; it does not believe in free and fair elections; all the ruling parties are private investments by the wealthy; the people have no say in them. The ruling class violates the integrity of the judiciary. The faction in power, with President Jonathan as head, but also the entire class, is unable to protect the people from hunger, robbery, murder of innocent citizens and generalized insecurity. Politically, Nigeria is in a precarious position in spite of the 2011 general elections.

The Nigerian ruling class is in disarray, manifesting itself in cross carpeting to other parties at will and manipulating ethnic or religious sentiments. They are in PDP today, ACN tomorrow, CPC the next, return to PDP or move to Labour or some other Party tomorrow. The call for a Sovereign National Conference has been turned into a call for ethnic bargaining among the same rulers who have ruined the economy and brought untold suffering to the people. The compelling question is: where is Nigeria heading to? We have been told by President Jonathan that Nigeria is heading towards economic collapse. But he should have added that the ruling class is responsible for the corruption, mismanagement and financial bankruptcy.

The Nigerian Foreign Policy is increasingly reflecting surrender, to imperial powers. Similarly, the Education system is being transformed to service the needs of global imperial interest by directing Universities to teach "entrepreneurship" and "economic principles" – the goal of education is no longer to produce knowledge and cultured citizens but to produce entrepreneurs.

Politicization and misplacement of priority have been salient aspects of the education system. A good example is the establishment of nine Universities, without planning and funding mechanisms even though pre-existing Universities are not adequately funded. The people are unprotected also largely because of food insecurity which is the worst form of insecurity. In such an uncertain situation, one can only survive through cheating. The masses of people are becoming increasingly in disarray. Unfortunately, the people have no party of their own to turn to. The first urgent task before organizations of the people, the Labour Movement and Civil Society groups, is to mobilize the suffering people, victims of slavish ruling class economics and politics, to reject and end the robbery of our national assets by the few in the name of privatization. Labour Movement and its allies must defeat the attempt to raise money for ruling class looting through punitive fuel price increases, under the guise of withdrawal of fuel subsidy. Nigeria is not for sale. The decisive solution to poverty, hunger, lack of security, education, jobs, health care and human dignity, is to organize a party of the people which will win political power and reorganize Nigeria.