Forget it, the Nigerian project is irredeemable (I)

Yes. Be alarmed. That is the whole idea. I have many cogent reasons for thinking this way, but the most prominent is that there is no elite consensus to make the painful sacrifices that will lunge project Nigeria forward. Every group and every individual is holding on to their advantages and looking for more. As I type this, the unity and cohesion of this nation is broken, dangerously splintered and at the risk of melting down at any moment. If it does, we will all have ourselves to blame for it. But I know we are used to regrets. The history of the black man, especially Nigeria, is a history of negligence to do the right thing, and regrets afterwards. Nobody is speaking of the unity of Nigeria, and the sacrifices we will have to make to survive as a nation, not to talk of actually achieving something tangible with our times. When last did any of our big politicians talk of the unity and cohesion of Nigeria? Just yesterday, the Supreme Court gave its judgment in the case of Atiku vs Buhari on the 2019 elections. The PDP issued a statement attacking the judiciary, while all the APC could do, is mock the PDP and its candidates. The average age of the men involved in this nonsensical charade, with no thoughts for the future of this country, is at least 65.

Who is speaking to the unity of Nigeria? Who cares at all? Who is sacrificing anything, any convenience for Nigeria? Who is even willing to pull their paws from the cookie jar? Those are the questions. The nation has made a new budget for the year 2020. It isn’t very different from the one for 2019 which will not be implemented more than 20%. At N10.3Trillion, it is almost exactly what we have this year, if we back out inflation at 11.4% and also discount for population growth at 3%. Nigeria is on a treadmill to nowhere. We are only waiting to be buffeted backwards or in any direction but progress because none of us is giving a thought for the future.

I am compelled to write on this due to my disappointment with a section of Nigeria, which should be our very last refuge. No, it is not the judiciary. Those ones had since become irredeemable. There are a few good policemen and prison warders but majority have become rotten and that is the way the ‘system’ wants it. Forget the judiciary. I am speaking about the academia. We know, that just like the police, most of our lecturers are rotten. Thankfully, we haven’t seen a lot of our female lecturers indicted for harassing boys for sex, but many of the men are addicted to that practice. But both male and female lecturers and other workers in the academia are involved in other practices such as selling of handouts, leaking of exam papers for money, and so on.

Just as we were trying to get our heads around the moral rottenness of the academia, what with the BBC sting report wherein a number of elderly lecturers were filmed soliciting sex and harassing young students some of whom couldn’t be more than 17 years old, just as we were trying to process how some of these lecturers could claim to be professors and pastors/reverends, the latest news from those quarters is how the umbrella body of Nigerian university teachers (ASUU) is vehemently resisting the integration of their salary payment system into a transparent structure called the IPPIS. There is nothing we have not heard from Professor Ogunyemi, the ASUU President. See, while growing up and passing through the Nigerian university system, the ASUU used to take on the government on macro issues of how the economy is run. It was not just about their salaries. Those were the military days, but unfortunately, everything has devalued in Nigeria today in a civilian era! ASUU now has reduced itself to no more than another whining trade union seeking for more money by any means. They had been threatening the government with strikes because some certain trillions of naira promised them had not been paid. On no occasion did they look inwards to reform themselves from their ways. If not for technology, even the push backs that we are seeing from students will not be there. Now ASUU is threatening strike because of the call for transparency.

Or how else can we explain the vehemence behind refusing to join the IPPIS (Integrated Payroll System), a platform that at least attempts transparency and accountability in a country where we get ripped off trillions yearly by executives and big men who collect the salaries of ghost workers? What are the lecturers who teach in our universities teaching our children if they so abhor transparency? Is accountability not synonymous with transparency, which is synonymous with honesty which is synonymous with integrity? What is intellectualism without honesty and integrity? Is this attitude not at the bottom of our core problem in this country? Have we been running our universities based on fraud? Are there lecturers working as full-time staff in multiple federal universities as alleged by no less than Dr Goke Adegoroye, a former super Permsec, who should know?

The reasons advanced by ASUU gives further cause for concern. ASUU says IPPIS is a scam. A scam? Is IPPIS trying to steal their salaries? Such use of careless language betrays desperation. Then they went ideological and said it is something introduced by the IMF or World Bank or an imperialist policy. Where has ASUU been all this while when we were looking for big hitters like them to speak up on economic matters? Should ASUU only speak up when it seems like some undue advantage its members enjoy is about to be eroded? Then ASUU said IPPIS is a security risk? Haba! Well, let us be fair to ourselves in this country. How is technology deployed to shed light on a grey area national security? I feel that ASUU’s leadership still exist in the opaque realm where Nigeria is run by cults and shady fraternities. Given that, that may be true in many spheres, but technology is one phenomenon that denudes all the shadiness that has held us ransom for way too long.

The talk of IPPIS not capturing allowances, or sabbatical and so on, is therefore cheap. If claims are legitimate, IPPIS can be made to capture it. But if it is about the ease with which Vice-Chancellors can access slush funds in the name of independence, let ASUU be assured that we the people will fight them to a standstill. We criticized Buhari for not declaring his assets openly like Yar’adua. We criticized Jonathan too. ASUU members would have joined us to lampoon these leaders. They criticize even those of us who went and sacrificed in politics. They often sound puritan and sanctimonious. Therefore, they should know that Nigeria is not joking with this attempt to banish ghost workers. 80,000 of them exist in the police. It is a shame that ASUU is trying to compare itself to the police, or even rushing to the senate because they know those ones think funnily once money is involved. ASUU has sunk too low

Next week we shall look at other hypocrites.