Killing the Goose that Lay the Golden Eggs!

By

Kabiru Inuwa Tsakuwa

kabir.inuwa@gmail.com

 

Since 1991/92 when our most noble but wretched lecturers under the auspices of their union begin to agitate for improved conditions of services, the country’s educational landscape has not been the same again.

 

Nigerian teachers out of burning desires to continue rendering selfless services to an ungrateful nation were caught in-between two extremes. While on the one-hand, they have continue to endure extremes life of penury and despair in a dignified silence; on the other extremes end, they had to contend with a successive governments whose priorities on education were to say the least quit demoralising.

 

As a matter of fact, I have not heard of any country no-matter how poor; that is toying with the future of her citizens in the increasingly knowledge driven and highly competitive digital age like Nigeria.

 

Apart from the failure to implements various agreements, government have so far failed to draw a new modality on how to save our comatose educations from total collapse. For example, the ASSU/FG agreements on the issue of the 49 unilloring lecturers as fresh as it is in our minds have not been resolved amicably. This is aside the refusal of federal Government to even allow the universal minimum-UNESCO agreed standard of 26% annual budgetary allocation to education.

 

The resultant effect of all these are the apparent steep decline in the educational standard which led to the on-going mass brain-drain, terrible loss of confidence in the Nigerian educational systems by both Nigerian and non Nigerians alike which led to the current educational dichotomy between children of the rich and those of the poor.

 

Today many well-to-do in the society, who desires qualitative and functional educations, prefer to enrol their wards in far-away Ghana, Malaysia and Europe leaving behind the children of the hoi-polloi to their own hopeless design!

 

These apparent segregations in the life of Nigerians in all most everything, from schools(Nigeria Turkish international school vs. Tsakuwa central primary school) to hospitals and even markets; often made one to think of a raging black-on-black apartheid in Nigeria, which really portends ominous troubles ahead, because at the rate at which sons and daughters of the elites are pursuing quality educations in all fields, Nigerian masses most likely may revert back to pre-nineteenth century period before the abolishing of official  slavery! Allah ya sitirta.

 

Against this backdrop, the protracted strike action embarked upon by the Nigerian union of teachers (NUT) to press for the issuance of a circular on the new teacher salary scale (TSS) become very disturbing to any genuine patriots who wishes this country well. Because there is every tendency to believe that, FG may not budge from its current position for the sake of the children of the poor; that is if past and present stubborn attitudes of government are anything to go by.

 

As at today, all the stakeholders in the lingering crises have so far failed to reach an amicable consensus. While teachers refuse to re-negotiate, citing many similar efforts to no avail, the FG insisted on just 5% which leave the country at the mercy of another needless crisis. But as has been said time without number, when the two elephant fights it is the grass that suffered the terrible consequences.

 

Already poor parents are paying dearly for the unscheduled arrangements to the calendar in comparison to their meagre incomes due to uncertainty in the current educational calendar that has now been shifted indefinitely. What a pity!

 

On the economic fronts, the fallout of the whole saga can not be quantified in term of Naira and Kobo due to a very serious loss of man-hours which translates into additional economic retardations for the most frustrated yet potentially great country on the planet earth (Nigeria).

 

But public sympathies are with the poor teachers. There is no doubt about this, because no body in his right frame of mind would side with an insensitive government that has perpetually failed on several accounts to implements most of the agreements it entered with the poor Nigerian teachers on our behalves. A government that refuse to acknowledge the fact that their take home packages no-longer take them even closer to the motor parks!

 

What the NUT is legitimately demanding is that, FG should as a matter of policy issue a circular on the new salary package so that, states and local governments throughout the federation can implement. Already some state governors have promise to abide by whatever decisions the two gladiators come up with.

 

For those who may not be aware, the TSS is not a one-way thing as it was collectively agreed upon by the following stakeholders: National council of educations (NCE) in Yanagoa in 2003 and joint consultative council on educations comprising all the stakeholders in educations (Commissioners of educations and their permanent secretaries) throughout the federations plus the FCT. And this negotiation was not a new phenomenon as it has been on and off for about sixteen (16) years-1991 to be more precise.

 

What initially proved to be a stumbling block was also gladly removed when the salary and wages commission finally made its inputs into the new package. And the national assembly had already appropriated the money in the 2008 budget which is quite meagre compared with what the semi-literate political office holders are daily embezzling.

 

According to the information available, before the TSS was arrived at, many factors were taken into considerations. For example, those states with the highest revenue and those with the least were compared to get at the most equitable benchmark so that no state is over burden against the other.

Therefore, one is at a loss wallahi-tallahi to fathom the reason why Federal government is foot-dragging on the issue by failing to take into accounts the maturity exhibited by the level headed striking teachers in actualising their legitimate demands in order to safe guard the future educational well-being of Nigerian children.

 

I may be wrong, but I think that the apparent inability of government to accord educations the priority it so much deserved, were all part of the grand conspiracy to truncate our progress, because if we take a cursory look at all the developed world, we can see an educated citizenries who have formed the single most important asset of those nations. Sovereign Countries like Japan, India and china have all developed courtesy of their educated and talented human resources. Why not my beloved Nigeria?

 

May be, the Nigerian elites who incidentally constituted the ruling cabals are afraid of an educated populations that can not easily be manipulated and can be a threat to their hegemonic control and vice-grief on the jugular vein of the country. And may be they are too scared about the prospect of educated citizenries that can be mobilised easily to challenge the ugly status-quo by whatever means fair and foul! And perhaps they might be subsumed perpetually in mortal fear of an educated nations that can serve as a bulwark against the on-going grafts; in order not to loose the privileges for their immediate families yet unborn!

 

I believed quit strongly that the servant leader may not even be aware of the protracted strike actions, And being a teacher himself who was not affected by any military indoctrinations and stiff regimentations to make him behave some-how may if adequately and honestly brief by the minister of education on the issue; do something realistic and urgent to bring the unfortunate strike-actions to an amicable end. Let’s hope and pray fellow Nigerians!