By Dr. Sulaiman Sani
Dept. of Mathematics
University of Swaziland
Kingdom of Eswatini
+26878607489
Parents and Guardians.
It has becomes necessary to address you at this trying time of our country and her beautiful people. Recall that, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike action seven months ago and just Friday last week, a Federal Court of Appeal ordered ASUU back to class.
It is in the light of this good looking and green light so to speak that, I write to caution you not to think that, ASUU will just come back to class without consequences on your children and your pockets or most importantly, both the two.
As wisdom begets, and in the African setting, it is said that, a hungry man is an angry man. Again, our wise men of old in our parchments and tree scrolls said, a lion that comes back home empty handed will scratch any passerby along the way for just greeting it. Mother Nature also cannot be cheated in anyway right? She can definitively find one way or the other to clinch what is hers anyhow.
Clearly, these wise sayings only justify here that, ASUU will find her ways to collect what the Buhari government failed to give her from you, covertly or overtly as it deem fit for this realistically natural egoistic claim looking like a fraternity thing of some sorts and sending most of us to the doldrums of poverty pit of dimensionless depth in both time and space.
Realistically, no man or woman will lose seven months’ salaries and then expect him or her to be a normal person in both actions and words especially, if these lost salaries are what he uses to take care of his family. So get ready to fill your pockets with enough cash to take this extra burden as you read this piece.
Immediately Universities open, the teaching pattern will change. Kindly inform your children to be strong and steadfast. They should be patient and swift in dealing with their angry lecturers. Students should follow lecturers gently and carefully to avoid unwarranted fracas sequel to overrated anger and transfer of aggression. ASUU will start collecting their earned academic allowance in kind from our sisters and other family members if care is not taken. Every girl student is a potential prey in this situation and can be harmed socially through the angered action of a frustrated supposed to be parent or guardian.
Your daughters will have to pay with their bodies this time if care is not taken because of lecturer control and misuse of societal opportunity to teach. Sex for marks syndrome will increase and skyrocket like never seen before and now, even the most trained girl student will be forcefully turned to an unlicensed prostitute and in the process, HIV infection rate may likely jump to an unexpected number. In the next five to seven years, many prospective marriages may be cancelled after HIV-AIDS testing it appears, and most likely, this assertion shall come to pass if you did not increase praying times, preaching times and fasting times for the protection of your wards. If you relent in this God seeking services, ASUU most likely, will teach your children’s bodies some lessons that future husbands will have nothing left and divorces may be the order of the day in the nearest future for something the children may have done out of compulsion.
Another student most likely to receive the bashing of the frustrated ASUU elements is the boy student. Here, ASUU must collect their seven months unpaid salaries from the innocent boy student anyhow. The means of collection will be in cash and students’ pocket monies will finish much faster in the next couple of semesters before ASUU stabilizes in this relic reality. Grades for sale posters may be hanged on doors and windows of staff for those with the third eye to see and obey. For instance, to get an A grade, a student must sacrifice 100k and may be 50k for C grade or nothing.
This is possible since lecturers cannot teach with empty stomachs and their children also are home for lack of school fees. Even the free F grade shall be paid for, this semester because the lion has roared in anguish and pain of deceit and defeat in the hands of a government with their own children schooling abroad. Kindly save enough monies before ASUU resumes so that your children complete their education without duress.
Finally, just last week, President Buhari said during the 2023 Budget presentation that, government can no longer support education alone and, you were clapping. Let me explain the Presidential statement here. It simply means that, the President was happy to inform you that, apart from ASUU egoistic largesse mentioned above and the too many other hidden ones to come to your faces, you must get ready for tuition fee hike from may be, the affordable 60k you sweat to pay, to something around 150k in 2023 with your fixed salaries that Governors are struggling to pay you at the moment out of greed and selfish interest.
Either way, we are in trouble as ASUU prepares to come back to class and with the government also, as they prepare their Children to sit on our heads, by sending them to Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Oxford and other world top Universities while, they finish the killing of our ABU, UNN, UI and other local Universities herein the country, and with our foolish support that always places us at a disadvantage in a country we all call our own.