By OMOLAOYE SODIQ
As the 2015 general elections draw closer, the political atmosphere seems hot and exciting. The polity is definitely getting stoke as the two largest political parties in Nigeria enroll in a friendly battle to claim supremacy. However, as usual, when something of such national importance is coming on board, any step to be taking by any group or organization needs to be carefully debated on.
The executives of the national association of Nigerian students again did not fail to surprise us with their bootlicking, sycophancy and flunky orientations. It’s visible to the blind and audible to the deaf that the umbrella body that houses all students’ union government has diverted from their mission of protecting the interest of students to being a brown noser. I may have heard but I have not seen that there was a time the student union was vibrant and stand as a formidable force to reckon with whenever bent to achieve its aims. Ironically, instead of focusing on its main objective, NANS is now use as a political tool to carry out political atrocities.
If I could vividly remember in 2013, when the academic staff union of universities went on an indefinite strike which unfortunately lasted for six months, NANS was a like a toothless bulldog, just giving out ineffective ultimatum to the federal government, releasing press statement saturated with fantasies, and making the issues raised look like it doesn’t affect them. Well, we shouldn’t be astonished, what else should we expect from a compromised body characterized by executives who are only interested in having meeting with politicians at Abuja while they vividly know the rendezvous won’t end without something to their pocket?
This write-up is actually not to make the student union looks unproductive and irrelevant, it goes out to make them realize the fact that they are representing intellectuals, and also recognized as the only union that can speak for all Nigerian students. Their modus operandi should not be the conferment of awards on anybody who is willing to pay the price and we quite know our politicians live on undeserved award. They scout for them like vultures would scout for carcasses.
NANS executives should also stop making mouth-watering promises to these politicians that they would canvass student’s votes for them. The body is not a political one, but a union that was constituted to beshield the rights of students in Nigeria.
Whisking down home, the student representative council of Ahmadu Bello University, which is part and parcel of NANS is also not left out in these impure and tainted acts. Though, no one is a saint, but before taking any decision that would affect the students, either positively or negatively, a wider consultation should be carried out. Insinuations and murmurs on ground have it that the SRC as a body has been compromised, and the realities on ground speak favor of these grumbles. Still and all, SRC should stick with its mission for it to achieve its articulated visions.
And for NANS, for the union to reclaim its lost glory, the executives have to go back to the drawing board, stop their foul, dirty and unholy acts, and sketch a wide line between politics and students’ unionism as the former fight for selfish interests, while the latter combat for collective interests. These can and would definitely make NANS great again.
ALUTA CONTIUA, VICTORIA ACERTAA
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