For about 4 months now, the Academic staff union of universities has been on strike and all we are hearing is that the government has not reached an agreement with ASUU. I started thinking, what is ASUU asking for? One of the things that I learnt that they are asking for is better funding of our educational system. Well, I personally do not see anything wrong in asking for better funding for education in Nigeria today. Of late, most of the employers of labour in Nigeria ,have been complaining about the quality of the graduates that are being turned out of Nigerian universities.

This problem and many more are as direct result of the lack of funding of the educational sector in Nigeria. This problem can be solved if the government is willing to stop this ugly trend in our educational sector. We had thought that with a president and vice ,who have close ties with this sector , the problem will be a thing of the past but it does not seem to be so.

Recently, I read that the governors forum is urging the national assembly to approve more money to help rehabilitate militants that surrendered their arms. That is in addition to the about N50billion that has already being set aside to facilitate the amnesty programme. I smell a rat here, some people are making easy money from this whole programme and want to make more money at the expence of suffering nigerians.

Well, that is not the issue that troubles me now. What troubles me now is that our so-called learned President and Vice president, instead of thinking of sending our students back to school, prefer to spend tax payers money on militants. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Niger Delta militants.Having stayed in the Niger delta most of my life ,I believe that they where fighting for their rights( that’s aside the criminal dimension that was added to the struggle of late.)

What Mr. President does not seem to realise is that he is solving this militant problem very well, but he is not putting a long term solution to the problem. What he is doing is like cutting the leaf of a tree, when what he really needs to do is cut the tree from the root. Leaving the teeming population of young, vibrant Nigerian students at home poses more problem to the nation in the long run, than the militants.

My advice to Mr. President is that he should look into this matter and resolve this impasse, just the same way he personnally handled the militant issue in conjuction with the governors forum and other stakeholders in the sector
Nigerian students, please do not be downcasted, better days are ahead. The future of this great nation is in our hands, we need to stand up and take responsibility for where we are going as a nation . We also need to de=mand responsibilty from these rulers who think they are leaders. We seriously need to begin to determine who gets into positins of authority in our graet nation.

We have sat back for too long, now is the time to stand and be responsible. We are the people we are waiting for, no oneelse is coming after us. Our fathers’ generations have failed us, posterity will not forgive us if we fail ourselves.