What Akwa Ibom Students May Not Know
By UbongAbasi Ise
“When kings lose direction, they become
servants” – African Proverb
Institutions
of higher learning are, of course, the pinnacle of ideas. They reflect the
height of civilization and human refinement. Every tertiary institution is not
just a community of people but a community of ideas where public officials
could always look up to in wants of ideas and models that could help run the
society in the most efficient manner. Somehow it is yet to be ascertained if the
present generation of students have perished away the radical fibres and
independent-mindedness needed to strengthen the ideological constructs of our
society. It becomes
extremely regrettable that student unions today are vulgarizing their privileged
position by hanging about politicians who only see them as means to an end and
treat them as those that lack ideas. The endorsement rally for Governor
Udom Emmanuel’s reelection as purportedly arranged by Akwa Ibom Students on Thursday
10th January 2019 has added up to the growing conversation in the
buildup to the general elections and this has largely revealed the unsavory
detail about the government-student relationship since the incumbent state
governor assumed power in 2015. To commentators
that described the student solidarity rally as a sordid and naked scam may have
a good point because it simply doesn’t follow logic that students, with all
their eruditions, could go en masse to wander the streets of Uyo under the
scotching January sun in the name of expressing support for the continuation of
the tenure of a Governor who has not paid bursary to any Akwa Ibom student
throughout the life of his administration; a Governor, who probably considers
it a waste of resources to pay law and medical students allowances, who would
not want to award scholarship to students in the critical area of scientific
learning. Perhaps, the rally was another machination of the governor’s aides
who are always looking for a way to fleece their principal who is desperately
looking for a support base as the gubernatorial battle draws nearer. After the
poor students toiled all day to-and-fro IBB Avenue and Wellington Bassey Way, a
distance of about 4 kilometers, some of them had to struggle to get N1,500 and
N2,000 peanuts late in the night following colossal pandemonium in the state
capital. The N31 million announced by
the Governor to have been donated to the students is still trailed by mixed
messages that complicated the whole narrative even more. Could it be that the brains of our students
were used in a very cheap manner just for the spectacle of the media or say political
camouflage in order to intimidate the opposition? Or were these students
ridiculed because certain political contractors wanted to make money in the
last minute of Udom Emmanuel’s administration? Whatever the response advanced
to invert the discourse to any party’s favour, Akwa Ibom students do not
deserve the devilish humiliation meted on them by the elements of Akwa Ibom
State Government on Thursday 10th January, 2019, and this ungodly treatment
should be condemned in all ramifications.
Today, Mr. Udom Emmanuel is laboring to inveigle
himself into the sympathy of the students just to win their hearts at the
polls. So bad that students are viewed merely as the election materials meant
to support the PDP governor’s renewal of tenure. If Udom Emmanuel is not using
them as means to an end, why is he recognizing them now after three years of
inexplicable snub? Why was he assuring them, about two months to the elections,
that the state government is working modalities to pay them bursaries? Could
someone sense unholy kindness in the character of the present state government?
You can fool some of these students but you cannot fool all of them so to speak.
But why are the Akwa Ibom students allowing
themselves to be used like jackass? Where are the students’ radical
socio-political ideas disappear to? The independence we are savouring today in
the country was driven by inventive thoughts of students in the colonial era.
Students at the time, whose political leanings were considered left-wing, set
up Nigerian Youths Movement (NYM). The Lagos Youth Movement, rechristened the
NYM in 1936, was created in protest of the inferior educational opportunities
and it later formed the nucleus of Nigeria’s first genuine nationalist movement
that contributed to the desire for independence which eventually was actualized
in 1960.
In present
times, our students ought to follow
progressivism in their political orientation and align themselves with
political order that promise progressive governance because such
has its ideology founded on human progress through education, science,
technology, craftsmanship, economic development, and general improvement of
social welfare.
Looking at the manifesto of the Akwa Ibom APC gubernatorial candidate, Obong Nsima Ekere,
there is a lot in it to excite Akwa Ibom students because of its progressive
orientation and expressed belief in education as the basis for sustainable
human development and rapid progress. Besides the promise for increase in
support for students in tertiary institution by raising student bursary from paltry
N5,000 to N25,000 per session, Ekere in his manifesto titled, The New Vision for the Collective
Prospective, puts that his government will be “totally committed to a
dramatic increase in funding education from the current 1.6 percent of the
state budget to a progressive increment towards meeting the UNESCO target of 23
percent by 2023. A
special intervention fund of N30 billion will be considered for the upgrade of
libraries, laboratories, sports facilities, construction of new school blocks,
and generally improve the learning environment.” In case our students were not
aware of this, they have a chance to reconsider their stance as the general
elections close in.
Yes! I am UbongAbasi Ise. For Comment, send SMS to 08189914609 | ubongabasiise@gmai.com
©The Sensor Newspaper
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