USA Africa Dialogue Series - Punch Editorial (July 18, 2013): No to ASUU’s frequent strikes

"ACADEMIC activities in public universities in the country have frozen following a strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities three weeks ago. At issue are unpaid "earned allowances" and inadequate funding of universities. The Federal Government had entered into an agreement with the union in 2009 to fulfil these obligations, resulting in ASUU suspending its three months' strike of that year. According to the lecturers, the government has observed the deal in the breach, forcing it to return to the trenches once again. But the latest, we dare say, is one strike too many. While the rot in the system is quite obvious and unacceptable, the academics, too, are as culpable as the government."

 

"A total of 78 universities, comprising 40 federally owned and 38 belonging to the states, have been shut down as a result of the strike. Only the country's 50 privately-owned universities are in session. Frequent resort to strikes by ASUU to drive home its point is a strategy that no longer commands the respect of the public and even some academics."

 

"[W]e see wisdom in Ben Nwabueze and Akinjide Osuntokun's denunciations of the ongoing strike. The two are distinguished professors who are familiar with our academic environment. "I am totally against the strike as it has destroyed the university system in Nigeria," says Osuntokun. So deep-rooted is the rot in the system that the University of Ibadan, which used to be among the very best in the Commonwealth, in the First Republic, is not even among the best 3,000 in the last global universities ranking by Webometrics, an online agency."

 

"But the Nasir Fagge-led ASUU's search for change should begin from within, with self-examination. ASUU should feel concerned about sexual harassment of female students, selling of marks and intellectually barren handouts and plagiarism rampant in universities, which have badly corroded the system. These vices need to be stamped out. Funding alone is not the solution."

 

- The Punch

 

*applause* Brilliant editorial. A must read. If only ASUU would listen. There is a near mutiny out there against ASUU's shenanigans.

 

Please read it in its entirety right here.

 

*cycles away slowly*

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - ₦36b on parties marks failure of the Nigerian bourgeoisie

₦36b on parties marks failure of the Nigerian bourgeoisie

Author(s): Ijeoma Ekoh

http://telegraphng.com/2013/09/%E2%82%A636b-parties-marks-failure-nigerian-bourgeoisie/

Two weeks ago, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State reported that residents of the state spend ₦36 billion (US$224 million) yearly on partying alone. To put that figure into context, ₦36 billion is ₦6 billion short of the health budget of Lagos State, and more than half of the ₦65.944 billion it spends on education.

This level of expenditure on partying is logically and largely the handiwork of the economically advantaged members of society. And the obscene nature of this spending by the elites is magnified by the outrageous fact that close to a 100 million Nigerians live on less than US$1 per day.

According to a Reuters news report: "The percentage of Nigerians living in absolute poverty – those who can afford only the bare essentials of food, shelter and clothing – rose to 60.9 percent in 2010, compared with 54.7 percent in 2004."

Now, bearing in mind the unreliability of statistical data in Nigeria, there are at least three possible ways to understand or respond to the entertainment spending of those few in Lagos.

1. As a demonstration of our fortitude
This is the argument usually put forward by those who falsely marvel at the resiliency of the people. For those who make this argument, Nigerians are a strong group rather than just another nation of African peoples who must cope with horrific social, economic and political conditions.

But there is a local proverb that says that one can only drink tea when one has eaten well. Hence, with some of the poor in Lagos constantly under the threat of housing demolitions, arrests and deportation, and with more than half of Lagosians living in poverty, one wonders if their fortitude contributes to that ₦36 billion in any significant way.

Further, why is the tolerance of economic injustice our mode of operation as opposed to perseverance in fighting against the forces that oppress us? With ₦1.2 billion spent on Aso Ebi or uniformed clothing for these parties, are we enduring or simply distracting ourselves from our problems?

2. As one stimuli to Nigeria's expanding service and entertainment economic sector? But is it sustainable for Nigeria to continue at this pace? What about developing a manufacturing and technology based economy? What about the diversification of the economy? What about the development of an entrepreneurial mindset and culture?

Is it not apparent that having helped themselves to the public purse, or slavishly executed their role as agents or middlemen of Western corporations, exorbitant parties become another avenue for this group to ostentatiously demonstrate their wealth and set themselves apart from the wretched masses?

Rather than "tap into" the party market as he purports to do, Mr Fashola would do better to tap into the potential of Lagos' vast human resource. He would do better to prioritise physical and social infrastructural development. And he would do better to consolidate a robust and free public education system that emphasises and privileges critical thinking, research, innovation and ingenuity.

3. As evidence of the failures and ineffectiveness of the Nigerian bourgeoisie
How does one describe the current state of affairs where a national bourgeoisie, to borrow from Frantz Fanon, lacks the dynamism, inventiveness and pioneering spirit of their Western bourgeois counterparts but unabashedly celebrates itself in its mediocrity? And that these members of the political and economic elite do so to the tune of N36 billion a year!

Immortalised in popular phrases such as the "Lagos big boy" and "Lagos big girl," the self-indulgence and frivolity being exhibited by this group is increasingly alarming and offensive to people of good conscience.

Moreover, their hedonism and contentedness with the distressing economic and social impacts of the country's continued cuts on national health, education and social programmes; and their complicity in Western economic domination of Nigeria should be worrying for anyone committed to the political, social and economic progress of our country.

In solidarity


Ajamu Nangwaya
Membership Development Coordinator, Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity

"We must practice revolutionary democracy in every aspect of our...[organization's] life. Every responsible member must have the courage of his responsibilities, exacting from others a proper respect for his work and properly respecting the work of others. Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories ...." - Amilcar Cabral - Revolution in Guinea

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - nigerian students killed--guardian report

i find this targeting of children truly horrific.
i couldn't imagine sending my child to a school under these circumstances.
how terrible people can be in the throes of their beliefs and certainties.
ken

On 9/30/13 5:25 PM, FJKolapo wrote:

One can appreciate that the Boko Haram crisis is a very serious and increasingly complex one and that the government is trying to do all it thinks it can to handle it. I also understand the need for government to show resolve and to demonstrate to the world that Boko Haram cannot and will not shut down the education of children and adults in Nigeria. However, such a resolve requires that any school that must remain open in the high risk areas and, indeed, any popular and soft target of Boko Haram in those areas, should come under an iron cast system of protection that would prevent the wasting of precious human life in such a ghastly manner as have occurred again and again. Other wise, I can only vote for the closure of those schools or, if government cannot be persuaded to do that, for parents to recall their children and save them from harms way.  If it takes consolidating 3 or 4 schools into one and relocating them to a safer zone where protection can be afforded on a steadier and more effective way, I think it should be done. Perhaps some form of on-line program, with requisite assistance from capable quarters within and without the country, should temporarily replace or supplement education in these high risk areas. I see nothing wrong in government taking some of the emergency funds to distribute some of these students to other states or local governments where continued schooling is possible. Whatever the case may be, I sincerely feel  that political ideals or resolves and mere showcasing of government capacity should not be made more important than the precious livs of multitudes of youths, the very hope of our nation. The criticalness of the situation, the seriousness of the risk and the difficulty, even of superpowers, to deal single blows to terrorism, should be allowed room in deciding whether or not any school in those high risk area should or should not remain open. This killing is absolutely horrific , mind numbing. I hope we dont get used to it!!!!

---

From: "kenneth harrow" <harrow@msu.edu>
To: "usaafricadialogue" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2013 9:14:50 AM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - nigerian students killed--guardian report

Nigeria students killed in college attack

Dozens shot dead by suspected Islamic militants in night-time assault in country's north-east similar to those on schools nearby

• Associated Press in Potiskum

• 
  
• theguardian.com, Sunday 29 September 2013 08.44 EDT

Police truck bombed by Boko Haram in Damaturu, Yobe state, Nigeria. An early morning attack on a college 40km away has killed as many as 50 students. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

Suspected Islamic extremists gunned down dozens of students as they slept in their dormitories during a night-time attack on an agricultural college in north-east Nigeria, the school's provost said.

As many as 50 students may have been killed in the assault that began at about 1am local time on Sunday, said Molima Idi Mato, provost of the Yobe State College of Agriculture in Gujba.

"They attacked our students while they were sleeping, they opened fire at them," he said, but could not give an exact death toll as security forces still were recovering bodies from the college.

The Nigerian military had collected 42 bodies and transported 18 injured students to Damaturu specialist hospital, according to a military intelligence official.

The school's other 1,000 students fled the college, about 25 miles (40km) north of Damaturu town, where there have been similar attacks on schools as part of a continuing Islamist uprising, said Mato.

He said there were no security forces stationed at the college despite government assurances that they would be deployed. The state education chief, Mohammed Lamin, held a news conference two weeks ago in which he urged all schools to reopen and promised protection from soldiers and police.

Most schools in the area closed after militants on 6 July killed 29 pupils and a teacher, burning some alive in their hostels, at Mamudo, outside Damaturu.

North-east Nigeria is under a military state of emergency to battle the Islamist uprising by Boko Haram militants who have killed more than 1,700 people since 2010 in their quest for an Islamic state. Boko Haram means "western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau last week published a video to prove he is alive and was not killed in during the crackdown by the military.

Government and security officials claim they are winning their war on terror in the north-east despite the attacks.

The Islamic extremists have killed at least 30 other civilians in the past week.

Twenty-seven people died in separate attacks on Wednesday and Thursday night in two villages of Borno state near the north-east border with Cameroon, according to the local council chairman, Modu-Gana Bukar Sheriiff.

The military spokesman did not respond to requests for information on those attacks, but a security official confirmed the death toll.

Also on Thursday, police said suspected Islamic militants killed a pastor, his son and a village head and torched their Christian church in Dorawa, about 60 miles from Damaturu. They said the gunmen used explosives to set fire to the church and five homes.

Farmers and government officials are fleeing threats of imminent attacks from Boko Haram in the area of the Gwoza Hills, a mountainous area with caves that shelter the militants despite repeated aerial bombardments by the military.

A local government official said there had been a series of attacks in recent weeks and threats of more. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life, said Gwoza town was deserted when he visited it briefly under heavy security escort on Thursday.

He said militants had chased medical officers from the town's government hospital, which had been treating some victims of attacks. He added that militants had burned down three public schools in the area.

The official said the Gwoza local government has set up offices in Maiduguri, the state capital to the north.

More than 30,000 people have fled the terrorist attacks to neighbouring Cameroon and Chad and the uprising combined with the military emergency has forced farmers from their fields and vendors from their markets.

--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu