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So word has gone out that there may/will be a strike from the middle of this week and that Nigerians had better start stockpiling on food and other essentials. Unexpected? Not really. But in whose best interests is any possible strike action at this point?

I’m a young man. I can’t say
I’ve lived long enough to see a lot of the periods of civil disobedience that have occurred in this country. However, I’ve lived long enough to have witnessed and have been affected by a few; whether from ASUU strikes that shut down universities for months (during my time in University, there were at least three separate ASUU strikes) or general strikes that shut down the entire country. If there’s anything that all these strikes have left me with, it’s this question: at the end of it all, are we really better off?

Okay, say labor calls a general strike and shuts down the entire nation for goodness knows how long. At the end of it, the government agrees to return the subsidy on fuel. Of course, the government, like the one before it, wouldn’t do a complete return and would only partially subsidize. Meaning we would end up still having to buy fuel at roughly N100 – N110 a litre. Life goes on. The evil day is postponed again. Three years from now, maybe a different government would be in power and would, again, decide to completely remove the subsidy. There would be another outcry. There would be another strike. And then the cycle continues on and on and on. To whose benefit really? If there’s anything else I’ve learnt from strikes in Nigeria, it’s that they are rarely ever the actual solutions. They are just cyclical measures that end up benefiting nobody, least of all the common man. Think of all ASUU’s strikes over the years. If strikes were the answer, shouldn’t there have been just one strike long ago that would have solved all the issues that keep causing the recurring strikes?

And it’s not like it’s our leaders that would even suffer during the strike periods. They would see it coming. They can afford to stockpile for months on end or even leave the country, while we would sit at home, our supplies diminishing, our valuable hours going to waste. At the end of it all, we’ll come out bruised and battered with only peanuts to show for our added suffering. And they come out of it pretty much the same. Who lost really?
And it’s not even as if we are striking for important things. We are not striking for the government to raise the minimum wage to meet the new cost of living we are beset with in this country. We are not striking to get our leaders to cut the cost of running the government and instead use the money saved from cutting such costs to better the lives of the people. We are not striking for a better living – we’re striking for peanuts; we’re begging for a survival. In our own country.

I personally don’t care what anyone thinks of my opinion – it’s mine after all and I’m entitled to it. I don’t want this strike. I don’t want to continue this endless cycle of striking and begging the government for peanuts. I don’t want to participate in a strike that is not targeted at addressing real issues. Look at all the ASUU strikes that have happened over the years. It’s basically been all about the lecturers’ pay-packets. Has the standard of education in Nigeria improved as a result of those strikes? Are our universities now equipped to turn out graduates that would be able to compete on equal footing with graduates from universities elsewhere in the world? Why do Nigerian graduates, after getting first degrees here, still run abroad for post graduate degrees, some never to return? Why are foreign degrees still regarded as “carrying more weight” than degrees obtained from our local higher institutions?

In short, who strike don epp?

This strike action is just reactionary; like everything else Nigerian. We don’t address real issues or root causes. We only address superficial effects of the aforementioned two, leaving the real matter to fester, get worse and afflict us with worse problems in the future. I think it’s high time we quit it. Strikes have never been our solution. We should start looking for answers elsewhere. The strike should be optional. Those that want to sit at home should sit and let those that want to get out and be productive do so. We cannot continue this pointless cycle, because we are just leaving our problems for future generations to partake in. If this strike will not give us new refineries, what is the point? If it will not raise the minimum wage, what is the point? If it will not diversify our economy, what is the point? If it will not provide basic social amenities for the average Nigerian, what then is the point? If it will not prosecute corrupt individuals and hand them long prison sentences with hard labor, what really is the point?

If it will not truly epp us, what then is the point of it all?

https://greysweaterdude./2016/05/16/who-nigerian-strike-epp/