By Alhassan A. Bala
Though since the coming of President Muhammad Buhari administration, there’s arguably no protest that succeeded in bringing the attention of the president, while many protesters have been harassed, tear-gassed and some ended up in the police net.
Even the once-powerful Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, could not organize a successful protest or strike.
The #Revolution Now protest was one of the protests that were cracked down by the police, with so many counter protests.
For the #BringBackOurGirls movement, one can imagine that it is no longer in existence, as only a few newspapers (Daily Trust and Peoples Daily) keep the record and give a daily reminder.
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For others like #FreeZakzaky, protests are still ongoing in most northern states and the FCT.
Lest I forget, there is another group of protesters from the northwestern region due to banditry, kidnapping, and other security challenges, but the leaders of the protest were summoned to Abuja and detained for some days, which months later no any word from that northern group again.
The EndSARS protest began last week after a video emerges and went viral of how the officers of the unit brutalized some innocent youth, which the Nigerian youth said is a daily occurrence.
And in a rather unusual swift reaction, the Inspector General of Police, Muhammad Adamu on Sunday afternoon disbanded the FSARC which now brings an end to FSARS that the Nigerian youth have been protesting about. Could this bring an end to the almost two weeks protest by the Nigerian youth?
Is it not time to focus on education now?
Education is one of the most important areas every country that wants to develop give priority to, but since independence did Nigeria give the needed priority to education?
The coming of private universities can be described as a good development due to the increasing population and the few public universities but can the quality of education be compared between the two?
Since the military regime of the former head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has been going on strike due to one agitation or another, though there was a break concerning strike until after the return of democracy in the year 1999.
Since that year, a strike by ASUU has become an annual occurrence with the exception of 2004.
The strike is affecting the academic calendar each year with an extending year of graduation of hundreds of thousands of Nigerian students, not to talk of how it is affecting the quality of education the students ought to get due to the crash program of the calendar by the lecturers.
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The 2020 indefinite strike embarked upon by the ASUU was because of federal government insistence that all federal government workers must enroll in IPPIS, which ASUU kicked though some few members had since enrolled.
The union insisted that its members will not enroll while even in his budget presentation speech president Buhari insisted that only those enrolled will be paid salary.
The popular saying always goes “if two elephants are fighting the grass suffers,” FG and ASUU are the elephants while students and their parents remain the grass who are still suffering.
Thanks to the banning of FSARS now those involved in the protest online and on the streets were majorly university students who have been at home for over 7 months due to the ongoing ASUU strike. Will they now start a protest to #EndASUU strike just as they succeeded in the #EndSARS?
If they are to start who will they support: the government or the ASUU?
If they support the government and defeat ASUU they should be ready to pay more in their school fees as no visiting lecturer will go free of charge. Which subsequently the children of the poor may not be able to attend to public universities.
The opposition parties and other civil society organizations are keeping mute on the ASUU strike, but why is it so?
Many leaders of the opposition politician either have private school or their children study or are studying abroad.
And for most of the civil society activists, most of the protests they are leading were sponsored or bankrolled by some people that have an interest.
And if they support the government there are all possibilities that the suspension of the strike will only be a break, as the government is always breaking her promise with many unions.
What will the students do now? As there is no indication of calling off of the strike as the major actors still hold on to their grounds.
Who is right between the Government and the ASUU?
How can Nigeria university students compete with their counterparts from other countries?
But while I am asking these questions, I also asked myself who can or will answer them? Only time will tell.
This piece is written by Alhassan A. Bala.
President, National Association of Islamic Studies Students UniAbuja and Abuja based broadcast journalist.
He can be reached via balahassan2007@gmail.com
