2015: Why The Centre Must Hold By Yusuf Ozi-Usman

Though the political setting in Nigeria, as it is now, does not have the ingredients that made up Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, but the unfolding happenings, even the ones that are visible, seem to be portending the end product of Things Fall Apart.
That is when the centre is showing signs of not been able to hold any longer and is threatened because of vaulting personal or group ambition, being displayed wrongly.
In fact, when the political gladiators are hungrily eying the centre, and ready to trample on the nation’s unity or political stability or both, as it is gradually manifesting on the political horizon, the centre may end up, after all, not holding.
As a matter of fact, the political jig-saw Puzzle playing out in Rivers state is just a madness that is visible to all, but the scheming; the silence scheming in high quarters, for the acquisition of power at the centre, appears to pose more danger to this country than anyone would care to admit.
As a matter of fact, the political brinkmanship show in Rivers state is coming as a kind of rehearsal for the 2015 political and electoral war, and governor Rotimi Amaechi is only just too early to present the card, true or false, or indicate the hidden agenda to his brethren, for which they have become so much uncomfortable.
The political game being played, from behind the scene appears to be more divisive and dangerous for the health of the nation, because for one thing, it pitches the North against, in particular, the South South.
And, Amaechi appears to his brethren as playing a spoiler’s game for the President that is already gathering momentum, with ‘adoption’ mantra.,
The scenario, ironically, is gradually turning Amaechi, the prodigal son of the South South into a hero of sort, and of course, he is now the toast of the 2015.
This position emanated from what has actually becomes a public knowledge; that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has shifted his support for Jonathan and places it at the door step of the governor of Jigawa state and his long time foreign affairs minister when he held sway at the centre, in the person of Sule Lamido.
As a matter of fact, Obasanjo, Jonathan’s yesterday godfather, has always proved to political watchers that he can correctly read the political geography of this country and would never fail to want to be found in the right position at any given time.
The circumstances under which he threw up Jonathan behind the obviously sick Umar Musa Yar’Adua then are still fresh in the minds of those who understood Obasanjo’s calculation in 2009.
In deed, his initial calculation was to plant a South South man, straight away in the presidency, but when the North stood its ground that it would have nothing other than the President, he obliged them, knowing that democracy is all about number. What he eventually did that shut Jonathan into the Presidential seat is another subject for analysis at another time.
Now that the same North is back agitating for the same presidency, the very simple thing he thought he should do, in order not to be left in the lurch, is to go for his favourite in the North.
Rotimi Amaechi seems to be coming in with two possibilities to the Northern political agenda: either he would be peered with Sule Lamido in what may remain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or goes to the All Progressive Congress (APC) on the same platform (as Vice Presidential candidate) in the 2015 Presidential election.
Even more devastating to PDP is the rumour that speaker Aminu Tambuwal of the House of Representatives is being lured into the fold of APC with Presidential card.
And President Jonathan who may have been briefed about all these political schemings against his second term agenda would naturally, as he is surreptitiously doing, fight back and bear his anger on the traitor (s).
The worry is not that the President or his men are kicking too, but the crude way they are going about it.
Question is, when has it become a crime for a man to think of the next move he needs to make to remain relevant in the nation’s scheme of things? Or, better still, when has it become a crime for even two blood brothers to develop their individual political interests on different political platforms? Would the stronger of the two brothers kill the weaker one because the weaker one’s political plan is at variance with his own? And who would vow that it is any longer the democracy; where the space is narrowed to one-way?
It doesn’t speak well of a leader to resort to crude method of remaining in power or allows his men to do so on his behalf when their are options.
One of the options for President Jonathan, if he feels the carpet is about to be removed from under his feet is to also begin to think of a Northerner whom he would plant in PDP to slug it out with whoever APC or the ‘opposition’ in PDP would eventually present for the 2015 Presidential contest.
Clever scheming would always bring out brighter result, if sentiment to cling to power because a leader feels it is his birth right or because his kins men say so is divorced from political schemings.
We don’t need to pull down this house, this Nigeria because our ego is being touched. Unless there is more to it than ordinary watchers like us can see, the principle of democracy, which is predicated on freedom of association and choice (of political platform, etc) must be allowed to prevail. President Jonathan should be courageous enough to sack anyone in his cabinet that is flexing political muscles in his home state, otherwise, it would be taken that such cabinet member has his backing.
This is the only way Nigeria can remain intact after 2015.
University Lecturers’ Unending Strike: Shame Of Nation, By Deen Adavize
Either by design or by accident, ASUU had worn a toga of war or strike action right from its conception in 1978 with succeeding government knowingly or inadvertently creating a fertile ground for such macabre-dance of ASUU, the strike specialist.
Indeed, over the years, ASUU has consistently resorted to strike action as the only alternative means of pressing for their demand.
ASUU, it would be recalled, succeeded Association of Nigerian University Teachers which was, itself, formed in 1965. ASUU has since then, undergone series of undesirable strike actions with devastating consequences, of stunting the qualitative growth of education.
Going down the memory lane, ASUU has been characterized with rifts, strike actions and demands that have never been met by the federal government.
It is important to understand some protracted strikes which have contributed to rapid decline of quality of our graduates from the Nigerian universities.
For example, in 1988 the union organized a Nation Strike to obtain fair wages and university autonomy. As a result, the military government proscribed the union on August 7, 1988 and seized all its property. The Union was allowed to resume in 1990.
In 1991, the Union declared another strike but was again banned on 23 August 1992. However, an agreement was fairly reached on September 3, 1992 that somewhat met several demands of the Union, including the right of workers to collective bargaining.
In 1994 and 1996, the union organized another strike, protesting against the dismissal of staff by the Sanni Abacha military regime. As a matter of fact, during the military regime, the universities’ academic calendar were greatly disrupted.
In 1999 when the country returned to civilian rule, many students, including the lecturers heaved a sigh of relief, thinking the civilian rule would be better than its military counterpart. Unfortunately, the situation continues in worse form.
The civilian regime too learnt fast the art of refusing to reach consensus with ASUU by permanently resolving the incessant strikes in Nigerian universities.
From 1999 to date, strike actions, of various type and degree of duration have become part and parcel of the academic calendar in the Nigerian universities.
In 2007, the union went on three-month strike and in May 2008, it held two one-week ‘warning strikes’ to press for their demands, including an improved salary scheme and reinstatement of 49 lecturers who were dismissed many years back.
In June 2009, the ASUU again directed its members in federal and state university nationwide to proceed on an indefinite strike over non-implementation of the agreement it earlier reached with the federal government. After three months of strikes, in October 2009, the ASUU and other staff unions signed a memorandum of understanding with the government and called off the industrial action.
As the federal government delayed the implementation of the agreement, ASUU, on September 23, 2011 issued a one week warning strike, and yet the government remained adamant on the agreement which consequently resulted to another declaration of a total, indefinite and comprehensive strike by the Union. The strike lasted for about two months. The strike was aimed at compelling the government to sincerely implement the 2009 Agreement which it freely entered into with it. The strike was however, suspended on 2nd February 2012.
It is so unfortunate that, less than two years after the Union resumed from one of the protracted strike, it called for another indefinite, total and comprehensive strike. What a shame for the Unions and the Nigerian government, and a disgrace for Nigerian educational system!
As the rift between ASUU and federal government remains intractable, there is much need for universities and other academic Unions to find another alternative means of pressing home their demands, so to avoid the devastating consequences of incessant strikes in Nigeria universities.
Such alternative should take cognizance of the quality of education for all Nigerians. Strike actions should not be turned into a deep-rooted endemic culture in our educational system.
As Professor Biko Agozi rightly said in one of his publications:
”The time has come for us to review the permanent revolution strategy of ASUU and see if the mode of protest has outstripped the means of protest and what needs to be done. The preferred means of protest by ASUU is the declaration of indefinite strikes. If we look around the world, it is clear that this means of protest is no longer as popular as it once seemed in the 20th Century.
“Indefinite strikes by university teachers are almost unheard of in a modern university where the mode of struggle is predominantly intellectual and moral for obvious reasons.
If the universities in Nigeria are nowhere in the ranking of the top 1,000 universities in the world, it may not be simply because of inadequate funding but also because for large chunks of the academic year that university academic staff are on strike for legitimate reasons when they could be contributing scholarly growth that would propel our institutions into the list of some of the best in the world.” [myad]