I did not plan or set out to dwell on the present topic today. As a matter of fact, the topic I had thought of for quite a period of time now, for quite sometime, in the not distant past was “Die, ASUU, die, to save our universities.” This was the topic I was nursing – or, better, that I have and had been nursing. But I decided to keep it in abeyance after a University of Benin Professor of Criminology – actually he is a Professor Emeritus of Criminology – put me on notice that he would deliver a University of Benin pivotal lecture, as I understood his preliminary invite, before his estimate of the official invite would find me.

The lecture, barring the unforeseen, would be on December 2nd this year. This is one of the reasons why I hesitated – or I have hesitated – not to address ASUU squarely now as I would have loved to do. I hope that Professor Patrick Igbinovia is reading me now.

Now I should mention with special love and gratitude some of my, nay, our readers whose courage and loyalty have helped to nourish this column: Jimbabs, Bob Majiri, Owojecho Omoha, etc. They, among others, have inspired this column today. The last named enormously influenced the title of this column. After the appearance of the last topic entitled “Da Sylva on good news from Ghana”, he as well as other readers, very generously sent me short writings of their impressions. Professor Owojecho Omoha’s in particular directly or indirectly concerned itself with my intended “Die, ASUU, die to save our universities”.

Of course, another professor, a new reader of this column, gave me the impression or feeling that she, in her peculiar way or style, shares Omoha’s own thinking on what I am calling now “Nigerian professors’ dwelling in a destitute time”. Sophia Ogwude is the name of this female professor who is a Member of the vibrantly vibrant Nigerian Academy of Letters and Literary Society of Nigeria.

Our university professors’ dwelling in this destitute time in their country your country my country our country is in their collective voice of thought which is in their poverty of scholarly or academic mind in a land where everyone is becoming blind, “writhing in the grip of a basically false meaning of being”, to borrow Albert Hofstadten’s words. This is a basic thought which shall manifest itself when I shall quote here in full Professor Owejecho Omoha’s and Professor Sophia Ogwude’s respective words. But I shall quote first Jimbabs’s and Bob Majiri’s fitting responses to the gleaner’s projective words and phenomena last week.

“This is Jimbabs, Sir. I have just finished reading another masterpiece by you. “What are political leaders for in a destitute time? The gleaners and glimpsers got the answer with the free tuition in all public universities in Ghana. While Ghana celebrates free tuition in all public universities, Nigerians watch their leaders drain resources without vision. Education is an investment – and Nigeria keeps choosing waste over its people. Nigerians have been deprived of every thinking power to realise the enormity of what the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary have done to them. They have conspired to take over what ordinarily belong to the people. I can see you have joined the Galactic Federation Family. I join you in your prayers for our Heartless Rulers and Leaders. A BIG AMEN, I join you to say in your Galactic Federation Prayers.”

Bob Majiri. “This piece, “Da Sylva on good news from Ghana,” is a good, beautiful and healthy read. The phrase “mumu masses” which Professor Da Sylva employed interests me immensely in an epoch of followership deficit, and reminds me of a legal maxim. At times you fight for people who do not want to be fought for. Those who persist on fighting for people who are not interested in being liberated from oppression are the losers. Most of our people love their fears and their oppressors”.

It is time to comprehend Professor Owojecho Omoha’s comprehension of the fundamental identity of our predicament, our political predicament, which Nigerian professors’ empty headedness damagingly constructs and builds in their willingness to listen to the tormentors who dwell conspicuously in their abysmal mind and thinkless thinking. Let’s take hold verbatim of the professor (a member of the resilient Association of Nigerian Authors) whose being of awareness is his Being of awareness in our destitute time.

“What are Nigerians politicians for? Again, ask me, TA. That is a question this generation of Nigerians has been searching for the answer. Nigerian politicians are known for looting, increase in tuitions and loans for lecturers and students to pay to cover their loots. Even now, they are thinking of increasing salaries for themselves. What are salaries meant for? Nothing, absolutely nothing!

“Ghanaians left Nigeria with their bags, and are now sensibly telling Nigerians to bag their baggage of loots. Die, if you will. Increasing salaries of Nigerians is another foreseeable glitch: killing the unwilling poor to get there. They leave us wondering at John Mahama’s policy of tuition-free universities in Ghana. That policy predicts comfort in the heads of their professors, unlike here, where their empty heads buy congregation members to go to University Governing Councils.

You are asking what Nigerian politicians are for? They use professors to rig elections. Leave the Ghanaian politician to his people-oriented policy! So, whenever the Nigerian professor leaves the Nigerian politician to his loots, a leader kind of, that you are searching for will come in Nigeria. Nigerian professors and Nigerian politicians would cry “Go to hell.” 2027 is coming. It’s here!

“TA, first search for the Nigerian professor of a kind! Again, search for the Nigerian politician of a kind. Add the kind of John Mahama and turn, blend all the kinds to turn from looting Nigeria. In doing this first go to that River that is Crossing. There at the round-about, ask of that professor-politician who betrayed the trust of his people, after a painful cry for the poor. The Nigerian historian worth his trade will tell you how he turned into a monstrous politician.

Nigerian politicians think about looting and how to increase their looting to complement further looting in their offices. Only Ghanaian politicians think well of their country. “The beautiful ones are not yet born.” John Mahama’s free tuition policy predicts the birth of beautiful ones in Ghana, the kind of leaders that you are still searching for in Nigeria (where a professor’s vision is the dwelling that is no longer its dwelling).”

Professor Sophia Ogwude’s thinking must be called now to enter here:

“I have just finished reading your column – and Da Sylva’s comments. However, before my direct comments on the learned professor’s submission, I should first like to recognize what you are trying to do in your column, which obviously or at least probably, is to tug at the conscience of the Nigerian academic in the bid to direct focus back to one of the primary goals of our calling, which I believe partly is particularly to articulate the telos of good governance, and by extension, the welfare/well being of the Nigerian people.

Unfortunately, however, the carrot and stick agenda efficiently imposed through the lopsided sharing of the perceived national cake has effectively divided the polity, academic or otherwise so much so that it would seem that there is now a collective numbness or inertia across groups on which the onus of speaking truth to power belongs. The result is a clear distancing from the primary responsibilities of academics, who should drive ideology. Very unfortunate. All is now seen through the prism of tribe, religion, politics and everything else except genuine national interests.

“On a platform, where I read your column, I was shocked into numbness when someone dismissed the point of free education in Ghana as indeed what Nigeria has since been doing! So what can any sane person say to that? The simple truth is that Nigeria is a very bad place in a very bad place. We don’t have political leaders. We have political office holders who are completely bereft of ideas as to how to salvage the nation. A pack of thieves whose only ambition is the obnoxious pilfering and looting of our commonwealth”.

How do we end this? I will call what we presently see, have and experience in Nigeria primitivism. Very painfully, our academics, our professors, immerse themselves in it. We cannot but call where their learning or intellect dwells a primitive dwelling in a destitute time. This is the current truth of their human spirit and total being. Our Professors have lost their scholars’ boldness, bravery and courage. They have lost their BBC – as they politick and politrick and hanker after appointments, positions and offices – within and outside our academe. What a shame – unscholarly and scholarly! Should this gleaner and glimpser be weeping? No! This time shall pass…
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.