A Priest of the Catholic Diocese of Lokoja, Nigeria, and Executive Director and Lead Faculty of the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Reverend Father George Ehusani, has in a viral video questioned the character of Nigeria’s ruling class while reacting to the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which last Monday extended the industrial action by two months.
Reverend Father Ehusani, a prominent moral voice and regular advocate for good governance, equity, social justice and human solidarity in Nigeria, is peeved that after three months of strike by the university lecturers, the Nigerian leadership is clearly not bothered by the apparent dangers posed by ‘young people’ being kept idle at home, a situation he described as tragedy.
In the 4 minutes, 53 seconds video of a recent homily produced by the Lux Tera Leadership Foundation, entitled: “Perennial ASUU Strike & Government’s Insensitivity,” the Catholic priest, who was at one point the Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, noted the fact that people who are going about and purporting to be talking about leadership in the face of the lingering ASUU strike not being in the front burner “shows that we have a bunch of idiotic people running this country.”
He also queried what could be described as the docile character of Nigerians for allowing or tolerating the glaring insensitivity of the country’s political leadership in keeping public universities closed for months without popular resistance.
“How can we keep our public schools closed for one month, for two months, for three months, and I am talking of millions and millions of young people; [schools] closed and they are doing nothing! We have not engaged them at home; there is no online learning organised, and we think there will be a country to run for 2023! We have a bunch of jokers that are running around and we need to challenge them!”
He called on all Nigerians to demand of the leadership of the country to ensure that the universities are immediately reopened. “The minimum that we can do is, all of us, call on our leaders to make sure that the schools are open tomorrow; call on our leaders to say: this is a tragedy waiting to happen, and it’s already beginning to happen. See crime everywhere! We can’t afford to keep our schools closed! What kind of human beings do we have leading our affairs? …Is it really that we are helpless, completely helpless?”
A transcript of the video by National Record, reads:
“And so, the superintendents of the Nigerian misfortune have continued to keep people in poverty. For how many weeks; for the past nine weeks, universities have been closed, right; this is the third month, right; universities have been closed and life is going on normal. I mean, to keep young people who are 17, 18, 19, 20, 21; to keep them at home doing nothing for two, three, four months, you don’t know you are calling for tragedy!
“That anybody is going around talking about leadership without this being on the front burner, and that we can sit down and let this go on endlessly, it just shows that we have a bunch of idiotic people running this country, because what you have set in front of you is tragedy.
“There are people, experts, who have brought out videos and said keep young people busy; if you do not keep young people busy, you are calling for criminality – and idle mind is the devil’s abode.
“How can we keep our public schools closed for one month, for two months, for three months, and I am talking of millions and millions of young people; [schools] closed and they are doing nothing! We have not engaged them at home; there is no online learning organised, and we think there will be a country to run for 2023! We have a bunch of jokers that are running around and we need to challenge them!
“If you know anybody looking for governor, who is looking for senator, who is looking for president; help me [ask] him: president of where? President of where? This country that is collapsing now?
“The minimum that we can do is, all of us, call on our leaders to make sure that the schools are open tomorrow; call on our leaders to say: this is a tragedy waiting to happen, and it’s already beginning to happen. See crime everywhere! We can’t afford to keep our schools closed! What kind of human beings do we have leading our affairs? …Is it really that we are helpless, completely helpless?
“Can’t we all call all those we know, send letters to those we know; combat them with calls, with letters to say this does not make sense! Make them uncomfortable, make the president uncomfortable; make the governor uncomfortable; make everyone, ministers uncomfortable.
“How can a minister of education have a sleep through the night when all the schools that he is superintending are closed?
“And that is why I had said it here repeatedly; as long as we the Nigerian people can entertain somebody to be our minister of health who takes treatment outside the country, the health institutions will not improve. As long as we can have somebody who is minister of education whose children are schooling outside, then there will be no improvement in our circumstance. And somebody attempted to raise this in parliament and they shut him down, and I thought that that was the best bill that was ever proposed in the Nigerian parliament.
“And if we are waiting for them to be the ones to bring out such a bill and to endorse it, it will not happen. From where should it arise? From the people! We who are victims of their political misadventure; we are the ones to work on it! We are the ones to compel them to make such a law.
“There is something called enlightened self-interest. If I have my son in University of Abuja; I have my child in university of where – Federal University Lokoja – then I will do whatever it takes to make sure that schools are not closed, because I don’t want my child since February to April at home when he is supposed to be studying.
“Let’s take this up! Let NGOs take this up! Let people of vision, people who have concern for the common good, passion for the common good, take this up! Let’s take this up, and for once let’s begin to run the country the way a country should be; otherwise, what do we do with over two hundred million people?
“If this country completely fails, West Africa will not be able to accommodate us. We need to get to begin to do something!”
