Fellow Nigerians, choose your stress: ASUU, petrol or electricity?

FOR ordinary Nigerians, stress is one of this powerful trio: Petrol, electricity and ASUU. It might be the entire three; it could be two or even one of them. There might be so many other things not mentioned including healthcare, but these three cut across. Children too are stress for some, but it’s the type you’d always want to add to your life. For those who are in the tiny clique of ‘privileged Nigerians’, there is actually not so much to worry about. The pressure on privileged Nigerians might just be how to apply wisdom in their squandering of ordinary Nigerians’ money and servile goodwill. In Nigeria, the distribution of stress is not uniform across the bar. In Nigeria’s realm of inequality, it doesn’t rain. It pours. Distribution of stress should be uniform across the bar. That’s sensible engineering. But Nigeria cannot be said to be a sensibly engineered country.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is on a strike. The strike which they called ‘warning strike’ was further explained as ‘running strike’ or ‘roll over strike’ by Professor Peter Olamakinde Olapegba of the Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan. ASUU’s angst against the government this time round is government’s manipulation and lies; lackadaisical and lacklustre attitude to education. On top of that, the government is calling ASUU a liar on its UTAS compared to governmet’s preferred IPPIS. However, millions are affected – parents and children, young and old; guardians and wards. Olapegba’s sons are in Nigerian public universities, they too are affected by the strike action. This underscores the fact that university teachers themselves are also victims of the quagmire.

Olapegba is a metaphor for Nigerian university teachers who are enmeshed in the dual quest for a sincere consideration of ASUU’s demands by the government, as workers; and the improvement of Nigerian publicly-owned universities, as parents. As a parent who cannot afford to send his sons to school overseas, Olapegba is condemned to fight for a better Nigerian university system for the sake of his children. As a university teacher, he is also condemned to fight for a better condition of service.

The phrase: ‘ASUU strike’ is one of the most commonly known here. In the 1990s, Professor Attahiru Jega led a very active ASUU that fought the military. Then, Olapegba was a university student. One of the costs of that is that some of us, who were undergraduates in that era, spent most of the decade 1990 – 2000 (the new millennium) as university students. I happen to be an example of one of those who worked many jobs back then. I had the privilege of having my cleaner/messenger/assistant job at Nouveau Business Centre in Samonda, Ibadan being designated as “Executive Assistant”. It was such a hugely, ego-massaging name for an errand boy… it was soothing because I didn’t feel like I was like a man dying of a big disease with a little name. ASUU was a potent trouble and we’ve always known it.

Then there’s the stress of electricity. That is one thoroughly harrowing aspect of of the country. It has remained an intractable labyrinth for both government and private sector operators. We have resigned to the helpless belief that we want it so. Ordinary Nigerians start with the stress of electricity early in life. Millions of Nigerian children grew up learning to speak with “up NEPA!” as one of the stepping stones. It’s nearly impossible to think that there’s a Nigerian of about 5 years and above who doesn’t know one kind of electricity generating set or another. Gens are a vital part of our life, and a cause of  untimely death for many. The older we grow, the worse the electricity situation becomes and the more Nigerians seek ways of climbing out of the ugly vale. Nowadays, places where there is electricity is besieged by Nigerians with their rechargeable torch lights and mobile telephones. Poor power supply is one stress in high octave. It is a painful crash from the height of body language stability in electricity supply we had in June 2015.

Petrol? Some say there is petrol at the filling stations if you can afford it. Well, that’s the truth about that messy situation. I am simply confused and stressed!

Many in Nigeria are long done with the farce called public water supply in many states. Interestingly, water still runs in some traditional areas of some cities and towns  in Nigeria. The feeble and insincere attempt by states to extend public water supply beyond those areas where it had been for ages is also noted. Meanwhile, borehole drilling in Nigeria is now at the same level as acquiring a source of electricity supply by each home.

Lumen Learning said this about stress in its geology course: “The earth’s crust is constantly subjected to forces that push, pull, or twist it. These forces are called stress. In response to stress, the rocks of the earth undergo strain, also known as deformation. Strain is any change in volume or shape. There are four general types of stress. One type of stress is uniform, which means the force applies equally on all sides of a body of rock. The other three types of stress, tension, compression and shear, are non-uniform, or directed, stresses. All rocks in the earth experience a uniform stress at all times.” This short lecture, to me, summarises this column’s thinking on the types of stress Nigerians face daily. Somehow, everyone of us has a share, and therefore, you are invited to choose yours.

An old farmer injured his hand and at the hospital, he struck up a conversation with his doctor that touched on topics including politics and political leadership. End of the discussion came when the elderly man said politicians and political leaders were ‘post turtles’. He said: “Well, as I see it, most politicians are post turtles’, the old man said. The doctor, not being familiar with the term, asked what a ‘post turtle’ was.

The man explained thus in reply: “When you are driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top of it, that’s a post turtle. You know he doesn’t belong up there. You know he didn’t get up there by himself. He doesn’t know what to do while he is up there. He’s elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb idiot put him up there to begin with.” The story of the old rancher entitled ‘Post Turtles’ was the end of discussion. It was also regarded as the best explanation of a politician.

The story might strike a chord. It should. That’s why it was told. The meaning is embedded. It is there for the taking. We might be docile as a people, but not all are so purblind as to not know that we are unequally stressed.

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