Convinced that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was being needlessly intransigent and combative in its strike, President Goodluck Jonathan and the supervising minister in the Ministry of Education, Nyesom Wike, have become even more openly bellicose. Would to God they had been bellicose against Stella Oduah’s malfeasances. The latest stalemate began when the leaders of ASUU sought written assurances that the federal government would keep its own side of the bargain. First to meet the university teachers with discourteous outburst was Mr Wike himself, Dr Jonathan’s redoubtable man Friday. There would be no written assurances whatsoever, he shut back in anger, nor any assurances for that matter. The president’s word was good enough, he claimed. Thereupon he launched into the most obscene and fawning rhapsodies of Dr Jonathan’s attributes and the incontestability of presidential powers.
Dr Jonathan himself, inflamed by his aides’ rhapsodies and sweeping and uncouth denigration of his opponents, summarily and unprecedentedly declared that ASUU had become subversive and a tool in the hands of the opposition. If the presidential hysteria was not embarrassing enough, Mr Wike, still breathing imprecate against the government’s phantom enemies, reviewed the December 4 ultimatum he gave the striking teachers to resume or be sacked. They should now resume work on December 9 or get the boot, he thundered as one completely ignorant of the way universities are run.
It is sad that a matter about to be resolved has become complicated by the insensitivity of the Jonathan presidency. Could university teachers, as enlightened and diverse as they are, offer themselves to be used by a political party? Is the decay in universities not apparent enough? And had teachers not gone on strike over the years, who could guess how much worse the rot would have been? Clearly the country is in need of being saved from the hands of Dr Jonathan and his fawning aides. If Dr Jonathan is still capable of listening, would former presidents please gently remonstrate with him to stop embarrassing the country he has misled for the past five years or so?
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