So all members of ASUU are "thugs"! Haba! Let us stop this demonization or "Ikhidization" of higher education in Nigeria! The quotation below, a summation of Ikhide's chronic conclusions, speaks to higher education across the globe. It happens in Ghana, Britain, USA, China, Brazil, etc. etc. Citizens of every country want the best for their students and go to great lengths, devoid of "Ikihidizing," to ensure that attainment. We should be able to separate good actors and actions from bad ones! Of course, someone is squirming and fuming. indeed ready to foam-scream you leave us alone: we are talking about degrees of such unholy incidences in Nigeria! Holla me, define your comparative lens on degrees, depths, numbers, latitudes, etc. that un/compromise higher education elsewhere. My point is very simple indeed! I have always maintained that we can critique our countries without deploying demonizing clouds of mediocrity that are carried all over the globe via the Internet. The negative perspectives that people around the world have on Nigeria/ns come from how some Nigerian intellectuals, with demonizing validations and renaming, construct Nigeria on websites. Then again, I like matter oh! I for talk Ghana matter and leave Nigeria for Nigerians. Me na meko no oh!
"There are rampant incidences of rogue lecturers, discrepancies in teaching schedule of individual teachers, scandals involving grades and ladies, low quality teaching, digital illiteracy, etc. Yet ASUU-NEC is content with the body's status as a government nemesis which lacks the moral weight of a Nemesis."
Kwabena
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Ikhide [xokigbo@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 2:59 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: shina73_1999@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU is on strike again! Who cares? SMH
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 2:59 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: shina73_1999@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU is on strike again! Who cares? SMH
Prof,
You have said it and you have said it well, I took your write-up before my great spell-check and you excelled yourself sef, I even forgive you all the digs and yabis at my dignity, now wahala. Know this, Ikhide and all those who rail against ASUU are not mad people, there is something really wrong somewhere. And the time for polite talk is long past. I ignore calls for analysis, prattle, prattle, prattle, and simply say it like I am feeling it. Just so you know, I am a consumer of whatever product ASUU dishes out. I have paid a lot of money for the education of relatives. I can assure you that I am not happy with the results, far from it.
I have responded to your thoughts earlier, but I wanted to say to you, ASUU's leadership could use your literary skills and temperament, THAT is one of my points. ASUU's communication has been wholly inarticulate. I am not the only one that feels that way. As for that professor that has eloped to Goodluck Jonathan's village, I shall be seeing him soon and we will have a belly laugh or two over your characterization of his temperament!
Be well, man!
- Ikhide
Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com; xokigbo@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU is on strike again! Who cares? SMH
"ASUU is on strike again. Who cares? They are thugs, they are always on strike, nobody seems to know why, except that it involves being paid a boatload of money by their counterparts, those thieves euphemistically called the Nigerian government. ASUU. My contempt for that body of narcissistic thugs knows no bounds.". Ikhide
Oga Ikhide,
I salute you!
I suspect you must be having a wonderful time with the ruckus that your ASUU post is raking up all over the net. It seems to me that you go to this length sometime to shore up your reputation as an 'irreverent' critic-of African literature and African intellectuals. However, it seem that, even for me, this ASUU summation is irreverence gone too far and too off.
Two issues on my mind: first is your fallacious summation of ASUU membership as a body of thugs, and second is your reduction of the ASUU industrial action to a mere struggle for money.
FIRST:
1. I am an ASUU member. And I subscribe to this industrial action in the hope that some concessions, however meagre, can be seized and deployed towards the rehabilitation of the Nigerian educational system. Just like your vaunted claim of being part of a sterling educational system in the US, we are also here, right in the trenches of a degenerating system, making gigantic efforts to scrape the best we can from it. There are people here who love this system, who are giving it their effort and attentio; those who have fought and those still fighting. For us, teaching is a ministry, a spiritual mandate, that will not allow us to take advantage of those entrusted into our care. I confront young minds everyday in the line of duty, and I am daily afraid-as to what they'll turn out to become within the constraint of hopelessness and institutional decay. Isn't this enough to fight for? I suspect you hold your own duty to that kind of sacred standard that would make me want to entrust my child to your care. There are people here too, in their hundreds, who take their duty with solemnity-they won't sleep with students, exhort money from them, refuse to attend and teach classes, sell handouts, or commit other nefarious acts. I won't grudge you your responsibilities over there; yet I wonder what is responsible for this often unsavoury remarks about 'African intellectuals' and their abdication of their duty? As if nothing is ever happening? As if all 'African intellectuals' have sold their souls to Western imperialism and colonisation?
2. Having made that point, let me also say my membership of ASUU does not blind me to its follies and weaknesses. I rage and fume regularly. And, again, I am not alone here. Several people are in agony over the internal anomalies that are daily eroding ASUU's moral capital in a country bereft of a civil society vanguard that could speak truth to power. However, speaking truth to power ought to commence with speaking truth to oneself. I have often wondered why the ASUU-NEC is not wise to the need to make ASUU a national conscience that agitates for transformations within and without, rather than being satisfied with the perception of the body as being solely concerned with strikes and salaries (the mistake you've apparently also fallen into; and, it would seem, due to no entire fault of yours). There are rampant incidences of rogue lecturers, discrepancies in teaching schedule of individual teachers, scandals involving grades and ladies, low quality teaching, digital illiteracy, etc. Yet ASUU-NEC is content with the body's status as a government nemesis which lacks the moral weight of a Nemesis. If we eventually succeed in forcing the government to engage its responsibilities, will our gains not be frittered away through the black hole of our internal contradictions?
3. Yet, I am still an ASUU member, and would not do a wholesale demonisation of the entire ASUU body. This is why that summation appals me. By 'that body of narcissistic thugs', what do you really intend? I suspect you reference the entire ASUU membership present. But, since ASUU is a union body with legal continuity (and since your grouse didn't begin today), does your atrocious summation not also capture ASUU members past-Jeyifo, Osundare, Eskor Toyo and other intellectual worthies who have bemoaned and fought for what they believe the Nigerian educational system can achieve within the development dynamics in Nigeria? Or, maybe you intend just the leadership of ASUU? Even that would excuse your irreverent reductionism. By what stretch of the imagination can a body of thousands of intellectuals be called narcissists or thugs? That summation is irreverence gone too far and too bad. We may bear your literary criticism; this present summation flies in the face of logic and the empirical.
4. It is a logical and empirical fact that there ought to be more to a body than what you read about or perceive in its modus operandi(since you aren't part of the system you critique so trenchantly). Yet, you neglect that logical point and conveniently wrapped yourself up in a composition fallacy which fails to disambiguate the faults of the few from the attributes of the whole.
5. It should be an interesting research to ransack the deep recesses of your personal and intellectual history in search of that juncture where you picked your disillusionment with the 'African intellectuals'. I wonder how you'll describe yourself-an American intellectual? Does that save you from your own wholesale mudslinging?
Second:
I feel so depressed that you only perceive the industrial action as only a struggle to be 'paid a boatload of money' in a case of thieves paying thugs who both neglect the consequence of their brigandage on the future of innocent children.
Pardon my moral ignorance, but is there something inherently wrong with requesting for money you have earned? The earned allowances framework is a consequence of an agreement government signed. What would you have done in a similar situation Sir?
Being a good soul, I suspect you would have mobilised the entire ASUU team to let government be, think of the 'future' of the innocent students and return to work-in dystopian laboratories where kerosene stoves replace Bunsen burners, where 'libraries' lack recent books and journals, where classrooms haven't been updated with multimedia facilities, where personal pockets fund researches.
When I read Prof. Aluko's pragmatic suggestions for ending the strike, I wondered how two friends could be so far apart in intellectual temperament. I wonder also whether Jonathan shouldn't have seen the worth of the Prof as the next Education Minister rather than a VC. Well, not all eyes observe.
Permit me to rest my case while I await the spell check and grammar lesson. I tremble at the inevitable, stentorian and dismissive 'nonsense' that is certain to come. I won't also mind the booming silence.
Adeshina Afolayan
*can't afford to cycle away since my six-year old bicycle is worn out for lack of repair. So I'm grounded as it were*
The Academic Staff Union of Universities of Nigeria. ASUU. ASUU is on strike again. Who cares? They are thugs, they are always on strike, nobody seems to know why, except that it involves being paid a boatload of money by their counterparts, those thieves euphemistically called the Nigerian government. ASUU. My contempt for that body of narcissistic thugs knows no bounds. There is really not much one needs to say about how these rogues in academic robes have colluded with any government in power (AGIP) to defraud and rob generations of beautiful children what is their right – a good education. To say ASUU is on strike is to state the obvious, they are nearly always on strike, even when they are at work, they are on strike. Their members want to have sex with every child that walks into their pretend classrooms, when they have satisfied themselves, they pimp their helpless wards, yes, they do, to their friends, constipated generals and pot-bellied rogue-politicians who have too much money in their thieving pockets.
-- Oga Ikhide,
I salute you!
I suspect you must be having a wonderful time with the ruckus that your ASUU post is raking up all over the net. It seems to me that you go to this length sometime to shore up your reputation as an 'irreverent' critic-of African literature and African intellectuals. However, it seem that, even for me, this ASUU summation is irreverence gone too far and too off.
Two issues on my mind: first is your fallacious summation of ASUU membership as a body of thugs, and second is your reduction of the ASUU industrial action to a mere struggle for money.
FIRST:
1. I am an ASUU member. And I subscribe to this industrial action in the hope that some concessions, however meagre, can be seized and deployed towards the rehabilitation of the Nigerian educational system. Just like your vaunted claim of being part of a sterling educational system in the US, we are also here, right in the trenches of a degenerating system, making gigantic efforts to scrape the best we can from it. There are people here who love this system, who are giving it their effort and attentio; those who have fought and those still fighting. For us, teaching is a ministry, a spiritual mandate, that will not allow us to take advantage of those entrusted into our care. I confront young minds everyday in the line of duty, and I am daily afraid-as to what they'll turn out to become within the constraint of hopelessness and institutional decay. Isn't this enough to fight for? I suspect you hold your own duty to that kind of sacred standard that would make me want to entrust my child to your care. There are people here too, in their hundreds, who take their duty with solemnity-they won't sleep with students, exhort money from them, refuse to attend and teach classes, sell handouts, or commit other nefarious acts. I won't grudge you your responsibilities over there; yet I wonder what is responsible for this often unsavoury remarks about 'African intellectuals' and their abdication of their duty? As if nothing is ever happening? As if all 'African intellectuals' have sold their souls to Western imperialism and colonisation?
2. Having made that point, let me also say my membership of ASUU does not blind me to its follies and weaknesses. I rage and fume regularly. And, again, I am not alone here. Several people are in agony over the internal anomalies that are daily eroding ASUU's moral capital in a country bereft of a civil society vanguard that could speak truth to power. However, speaking truth to power ought to commence with speaking truth to oneself. I have often wondered why the ASUU-NEC is not wise to the need to make ASUU a national conscience that agitates for transformations within and without, rather than being satisfied with the perception of the body as being solely concerned with strikes and salaries (the mistake you've apparently also fallen into; and, it would seem, due to no entire fault of yours). There are rampant incidences of rogue lecturers, discrepancies in teaching schedule of individual teachers, scandals involving grades and ladies, low quality teaching, digital illiteracy, etc. Yet ASUU-NEC is content with the body's status as a government nemesis which lacks the moral weight of a Nemesis. If we eventually succeed in forcing the government to engage its responsibilities, will our gains not be frittered away through the black hole of our internal contradictions?
3. Yet, I am still an ASUU member, and would not do a wholesale demonisation of the entire ASUU body. This is why that summation appals me. By 'that body of narcissistic thugs', what do you really intend? I suspect you reference the entire ASUU membership present. But, since ASUU is a union body with legal continuity (and since your grouse didn't begin today), does your atrocious summation not also capture ASUU members past-Jeyifo, Osundare, Eskor Toyo and other intellectual worthies who have bemoaned and fought for what they believe the Nigerian educational system can achieve within the development dynamics in Nigeria? Or, maybe you intend just the leadership of ASUU? Even that would excuse your irreverent reductionism. By what stretch of the imagination can a body of thousands of intellectuals be called narcissists or thugs? That summation is irreverence gone too far and too bad. We may bear your literary criticism; this present summation flies in the face of logic and the empirical.
4. It is a logical and empirical fact that there ought to be more to a body than what you read about or perceive in its modus operandi(since you aren't part of the system you critique so trenchantly). Yet, you neglect that logical point and conveniently wrapped yourself up in a composition fallacy which fails to disambiguate the faults of the few from the attributes of the whole.
5. It should be an interesting research to ransack the deep recesses of your personal and intellectual history in search of that juncture where you picked your disillusionment with the 'African intellectuals'. I wonder how you'll describe yourself-an American intellectual? Does that save you from your own wholesale mudslinging?
Second:
I feel so depressed that you only perceive the industrial action as only a struggle to be 'paid a boatload of money' in a case of thieves paying thugs who both neglect the consequence of their brigandage on the future of innocent children.
Pardon my moral ignorance, but is there something inherently wrong with requesting for money you have earned? The earned allowances framework is a consequence of an agreement government signed. What would you have done in a similar situation Sir?
Being a good soul, I suspect you would have mobilised the entire ASUU team to let government be, think of the 'future' of the innocent students and return to work-in dystopian laboratories where kerosene stoves replace Bunsen burners, where 'libraries' lack recent books and journals, where classrooms haven't been updated with multimedia facilities, where personal pockets fund researches.
When I read Prof. Aluko's pragmatic suggestions for ending the strike, I wondered how two friends could be so far apart in intellectual temperament. I wonder also whether Jonathan shouldn't have seen the worth of the Prof as the next Education Minister rather than a VC. Well, not all eyes observe.
Permit me to rest my case while I await the spell check and grammar lesson. I tremble at the inevitable, stentorian and dismissive 'nonsense' that is certain to come. I won't also mind the booming silence.
Adeshina Afolayan
*can't afford to cycle away since my six-year old bicycle is worn out for lack of repair. So I'm grounded as it were*
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 08:49:57 -0700 (PDT)
To: Toyin Falola<USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>; Ederi@yahoogroups.com<Ederi@yahoogroups.com>; krazitivity@yahoogroups.com<krazitivity@yahoogroups.com>
ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU is on strike again! Who cares? SMH
The Academic Staff Union of Universities of Nigeria. ASUU. ASUU is on strike again. Who cares? They are thugs, they are always on strike, nobody seems to know why, except that it involves being paid a boatload of money by their counterparts, those thieves euphemistically called the Nigerian government. ASUU. My contempt for that body of narcissistic thugs knows no bounds. There is really not much one needs to say about how these rogues in academic robes have colluded with any government in power (AGIP) to defraud and rob generations of beautiful children what is their right – a good education. To say ASUU is on strike is to state the obvious, they are nearly always on strike, even when they are at work, they are on strike. Their members want to have sex with every child that walks into their pretend classrooms, when they have satisfied themselves, they pimp their helpless wards, yes, they do, to their friends, constipated generals and pot-bellied rogue-politicians who have too much money in their thieving pockets.
If you don't believe me, Farooq Kperogi has a disturbing piece here on the sexual harassment epidemic in Nigerian universities. You read that piece, and when you have stopped shuddering, you understand why fully less than 10 percent of Nigerian university dons have children living in that mess called Nigeria, let alone inside the filthy chicken coops that pass for classrooms from preschool to the tertiary level. In those criminal hovels, children of the poor and dispossessed are trapped and mis-educated by those whose children are being nurtured in the West. Their children will come back home from North America and Europe on holidays to the pretend suburbs of Abuja and Lagos island, wave a Cold Stone ice cream cone at the wreck built by their thieving parents and berate Nigerians for being wretched Nigerians. They often travel First Class. Ten percent? I made it up of course. I am a Nigerian intellectual. We are lazy like that. It could be less even.
Follow me, let's go to the silly website of ASUU right here. Let us visit their officers, all of them mean looking men, except for one harried looking token lady who has the cringe-worthy patronizing title of "welfare secretary." I am sure she does important things for the #OgasAtTheTop of ASUU. Maybe she is responsible for making pounded yam and bringing water so the men could wash their filthy hands. SMH. Yes, Nigeria is the patriarchy from hell, in Nigeria, misogyny reigns even in the 21st century and even among the men of the ivory tower. Hiss. Here's ASUU's list of men "leaders" and one token woman: Dr, Nasir Isa Fagge, president, Bayero University, Kano, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, Vice president, OOU Ago-Iwoye, Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, immediate past president, IMSU, Owerri, Professor Victor Osodoke, financial secretary, MOUA Umudike, Dr. Ademola Aremu, treasurer, University of Ibadan, Professor. Daniel Gungula, internal auditor, MAUTech, Yola, Dr. Ralph Ofukwu, investment secretary, FUAM, Makurdi, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Iloh, welfare secretary, University of Benin, and Professor Israel Wurogji, legal advisor, University of Calabar. All the men and one woman have horrid looking pictures of themselves on the website, except for Professor Wurogii, ASUU's "legal advisor" who either is too lazy or too busy to provide one. He is perhaps genuinely afraid for his life – not from the SSS but from irate abused students who have spent the past decade trying to get an education from these thugs.
- Ikhide
Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
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