BY Soneye Abdul-Azeez Lekan

I heard that ASUU has called off the strike, how true is it?

So there are many people asking this question. Where were these people in the last so many days of the strike. I repeat what is wrong with this generation. If we are not getting the best of education, but why do we lack the consciousness and courage to ask the powers  that be questions like; why is our lecturers on strike? Is there no money to pay them?

Why do you have to wait for someone to speak for you? It's always sad when issues that matters to our future is being taken slightly by the various constituted authorities in the land and the only things the student populace would say is:let's wait for the Students Union Executives to talk. It's sad. So heartbreaking. I want to be proud of my generation. I wanna grow up one day, get married, have kids and narrate to my kids the story of how we changed Nigeria for great. I don't wanna tell my kids that I tried but it was just few of us who were involved so we lost.

ASUU calling off strike shouldn't be a good news anywhere in this twenty-first century, not in an oil rich country like Nigeria. Some weeks back, I read a post on the timeline of Professor Pius Adesanmi, (Click [http://www.wordsmithpraise.com]here[/http://www.wordsmithpraise.com] to view) a don who has been known across the world for teaching beginners in lecturing job and PhD candidates, Prof. Pius Adesanmi posted that Rwanda's public schools are now so standardized that private schools are running out of market and their owners beging government to help them. Why, because no one wants to go to a private school there. The standard of their government owned schools is what a true school in the millennia should look like. While Nigeria, the 'giant' of Africa is celebrating suspension of lecturers' strike. Oh lord! Where art thou?

What I've always preached is not out of my own love for protest. But because I've understood that the only language you can speak to get your needs from the present leadership we have in this country is force. Their kids are graduating in overseas out of our money. Their doctors are in India, England and the best part of the world. They pay from our tax. Don't mind me when I say "our tax". I don't mean the tax my parents paid, the one I paid. As a prospective student, it's sad that of the prerequisite to sustain your admission in my school is to pay tax. Shall this continue? Do we have to wait until they start chopping off our head in broad day light for feast?
So there is a protest but you can't join, yet you keep blaming the system. You really expect the looters to change the system they are benefitting from. You and I is the one suffering here, if we don't change it, no one will. So the numbers of your Instgram likes, Facebook comments and twitter followers will bring peace to your mind! By the time 'NEPA' take light off and your generator disappoint you, you will enjoy the darkness.

Am not asking you to join the struggle, I just wanted to tell you ASUU has called off the strike. Sorry, on conditional. Start preparing and go back to school. Happy Resumption!!!

Soneye Abdul-Azeez Lekan LAS
08102721959
*Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neoliberal Attacks(ANSA), Coordinator,* TASUED chapter.