by Gladys Nwachukwu

Through all this chaos, I have paused to wonder. ASUU might have called off their strike, but ASUP is still on strike, COEASU is still on strike, Students are still idle, $20 billion is still missing, and GEJ is still saying ‘no comment’.

Indeed if anyone ever takes fancy to writing, one should just take a close look at our country, Nigeria. Without stating the obvious blessings that comes with ‘choice location’, you can tell by going through our dailies that we have just enough to take on anytime of the day.

Our economy no doubt is as volatile as it can be at the moment, everything unlucky thing seems to be happening at the same time. Last week, I woke to a very busy timeline, everyone was rattling SLS and his suspension (For those who don’t know, SLS happens to refer to the just suspended CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi). What followed was some superfluous energy and traffic on our social media. Everyone wanted to be heard, some wanted to vent, others just had to write something and in the middle of all this chaos, the whole essence of the suspension was lost on me.

Then came the cross fire, the accuser and the accused, throwing words like broken bottles in the air, words that were easily misconstrued by eager bloggers. It got me wondering, wondering if they were indeed adults. Wondering if no one ever told them of any publicity rule, wondering if beneath the chaos and noise, we weren’t distracted from the underlying issue: That $20billion was missing from the nation’s treasury.

Mid last year, The Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU were at logger heads with the government, this resulted in a 6 months strike, during which all Federal University Students were sent home, most were left idle while the association haggled with the government over FUNDS. Soon after, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic, ASUP, started out on their own indefinite strike, thus all Polytechnics across the nation too were forced to shut their classroom doors to their students. Not long after, precisely one month later, The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU started out another indefinite strike, their students too, unable to receive and resume classes, invariably, the nation was practically paralyzed in the Tertiary Education sector for 3months! 90 days of idle students roaming the streets, ninety days of idle minds on social media, ninety days of intellectuals left with almost nothing to do. Their different associations were all fighting for one thing: More Funds. More funds are being demanded in almost every sector in the economy, but NO, those funds cannot be dissipated because, somehow some of them are missing. Some have gone AWOL in their various transit to their destinations, others were kidnapped, while the rest were massacred, torn and shredded into various pieces and shares.

Now, our president, who is well known for his evasive tactics has proved to us again that he is really a pro at it. He has done it again at the media chat supposedly held to answer the questions on our mind. Of all questions asked, most were either deliberately non conclusive or ‘no comment’ was offered. Through all this chaos, I have paused to wonder. ASUU might have called off their strike, but ASUP is still on strike, COEASU is still on strike, Students are still idle, $20 billion is still missing, and GEJ is still saying ‘no comment’.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.