ASUU Strike and JAMB's 140 Cut-Off Mark: The Government and the Little or No Value on Education in Nigeria.

 

I don't even know where to start from as far as ASUU is involved. It's been five months. Six in a couple of weeks. Students attending Government owned Universities have not been to class since February 14, 2022. Why? Because the Academic Staff Union of Universities are at loggerheads with the Government over the acceptance of the University Transparency Accountability Solution, the proliferation of State Universities, the payment of the Earned Academic Allowances and the implementation of the FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement under the President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua/Goodluck Jonathan Government. 

Since March, when real negotiations started, the Federal Government have been unable to reach an agreement with the University lecturers to put this strike to a halt. Rather it has been a matter of politicking and politicizing matters, especially under the Minister of Labour and Employment, Former Senator Chris Ngige. Last week at the meeting of stakeholders involved in the strike, the Education Minister Adamu Adamu accused his Labour counterpart of jeopardizing his negotiations in the name of reconcilation. Adamu had said that Nigige claimed that the Labour Ministry is the only ministry qualified to meet with the striking university unions. Adamu said to the President, General Buhari that Nigige boasted that the Labour Ministry is the only ministry that could reconcile the striking university unions, thereby putting a stop to his own work in trying to ensure the lecturers return to class. He then asked the President to step Ngige down from the negotiation process, to which the President obliged. 

At the meeting, it was reported that the President, General Buhari had given the Education Minister two weeks to ensure that an agreement was reached and signed and the lecturers and students return to school. I felt a feeling of hope, thinking that all will be well in two weeks, because the end of the two weeks falls a day after the current strike lapses. However, the official Federal Government Account on Twitter (@NigeriaGov) tweeted that the President never gave an ultimatum of two weeks to the Education Minister but that the Minister asked for two to three weeks to try to get an agreement in place with the striking University Unions. My hope fell when I read this, because it's no difference from all we've read and heard in the past. It simply reflected how low our educational value is in this country. I believe that a President who values education will not waste any time to ensure that what has to be done is done properly. There's no big deal if he even steps in the negotiations himself. What's there? He's the President. 

One thing that now baffles me is that according to the Federal Ministry of Labour on Twitter(@LabourMinNG), there is no agreement in place with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the rest of the striking unions but ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke has said that an agreement had already been reached and what was left was for the Government to sign the agreement. Who do we believe because I don't seem to comprehend anymore. What about the negotiations with the Professor Nimi Briggs committee? What's really going wrong? God help us in this country. Let's observe the coming weeks. 

I read with utter disgust, dissatisfaction and disappointment, the adoption of the 140 score as the general university admissions cut-off mark for the 2022/2023 session. I don't even know what to write about this development. But I cannot blame them. Some of our government officials contribute to this disaster. I've heard, seen and read about letters that do come in from the Ministry of Education in some states during examination period in the government owned secondary schools telling the teachers that the students must not fail, no matter their performance. As a result of this, most of these students take empty heads into examination classes (JS3 and SS3) unprepared for the external examinations they have ahead of them. They then do very poorly and the examination bodies get forced to reduce the marking standard, the cut-off marks and in most cases, both. About 1.8 million students took the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination but barely 350k students passed. Sad. 

Asides calling out the Government to maintain the educational standard in our university system, we should also call on them to ensure strict compliance with the standard in our secondary schools, if we want to produce the best of the best. Ire o.

......AND FOUR OTHER THINGS. 

ATIKU VS TINUBU.

A 7th time contestant and the Presidential Candidate of the People's Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had an interview with Arise TV recently, where he talked about different issues pertaining to his ambition to become President. He also passed a few comments on Peter Obi, his running mate in the 2019 Elections and the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party. 

Atiku had fired at Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, challenging him to an hour long interview with the intention to mock him due to the latter's allegedly declining health condition. He also faulted Tinubu's Muslim-Muslim ticket with a former Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima.

However, Tinubu fired back and said while Atiku was contesting in 2007, he(Atiku) asked him(Tinubu) to be his running mate, irrespective of their faiths. He also promised to expose Atiku's crimes committed as Customs Officer in 1997. We might be up for some interesting talks. Get your seatbelts on. It'll be an interesting journey. 

WIKE AND PDP.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and minding my business when I scrolled to see a tweet from His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike. The Governor tweeted that soon he'll speak to expose all that had been going on in the PDP. I was shocked, but the first thing I did was to turn on his post notifications. I've not been online on Twitter since then but I wasn't going to miss this. Apparently, the Rivers Governor is still pained that Atiku left him out as his choice of running mate, though Atiku did what he did for the best reason. But nevertheless, there's nobody that won't be pained in a situation like that. 

Remember also that Wike was going to clinch the PDP ticket if Atiku had not bribed his way through at the primaries. Anyways, let's see what Wike wants to say.

TERRORISTS FLOG TRAIN VICTIMS. 

Terrorists belonging to the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), released a video yesterday, flogging the remaining Abuja/Kaduna train victims brutally in a thick forest. I felt for those people. Our Government has shown again that they're not capable of protecting the lives and properties of her citizens.  

I'm not surprised anyways because at first, the Government lied that it had rescued everyone involved in the dastard attack. Later they claimed that they had rescued a majority of them but not all. Now they're not even talking about it so much. General Buhari had issued that the Nigerian Army find the abducted and rescue all but more than a month after, nothing has been done. This morning, the relatives of the victims went to protest at the Ministry of Transportation. Sighs. God help my country. God keep us all. 

PVC REGISTRATION.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has said that the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) will end on the 31st of July. Let's endeavor to get our PVCs and vote in the coming 2023 Elections. The Executive Governor of Ogun State declared tomorrow a work free day so his citizens can register for their PVCs. Some of the other state Governors have and will follow this step. Don't take it for granted.

Happy New Week! 

Oluwaseyi Jibodu, 

25th July, 2022. 

Follow Oluwaseyi Jibodu on Twitter @seyiijibodu. 

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