2019 ELECTION: OPEN LETTER TO THE NIGERIAN STUDENTS

2019 ELECTION: OPEN LETTER TO THE NIGERIAN STUDENTS

by KILIMAJAROO

 

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai said that as an undergraduate students of Quantity Surveying at Ahmadu Bello University in mid-1970s, one of our greatest sources of pride was not just the fact that ABU was the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the only university in the whole world that offered honours degrees in QS. Our closest competitors were two Polytechnics in the United Kingdom. The University of Reading joined the league much later. The quality of scholarship was highly rated; researchers and students from all over the world jostled for places. Only those who could not secure places in Nigeria went abroad for studies. Today, a ranking of the top 8,000 Universities in the world done last year showed only 5 Nigerian Universities in the first 100 in Africa.  Our top universities were:  Ilorin (55th – Africa, 5,846th – World), Obafemi Awolowo (61st – Africa, 6,265th – World), Ibadan (63rd – Africa, 6,396th – World), Jos (74th – Africa, 7,000th, World) and University of Lagos (79th – Africa, 7,246th – World).

 

There are over 60 quality universities in the Boston area. The United States (with roughly twice Nigeria’s population) has a total of 5,758 higher education institutions, an average of 115 per state. One private university – Harvard has an annual budget that exceeds the 2011 FGN investment in education, and its endowment funds were worth $37 billion in 2008!

 

Our recycled politicians who enjoyed better education in the 60s went on to destroy the educational system. How many political office-holders enroll their children in tertiary institutions in Nigeria? So why would you want to campaign for recycled politicians and recycled political parties?

 

Over the years we have had politicians come to gain power then after getting power they forget us and leave our educational sector worst off as they met it. Our curriculum are outdated while our counterparts are already miles away in the future we are still in the old era. Finland has the best educational system in the world and that does not mean that they are better than us, but when visionary leaders are in place all other things work. Moreover, for any country to grow, the educational sector must be structured. Sometimes I feel the 60’s and 70’s were the future especially when multinational companies always come begging to employ students in Yabatech. Getting scholarship was at their fingers tips. What then has gone wrong with our educational system is a question that cannot be answered unless we students collectively begin to take our future in our hands and never allow it into the hands of politicians that do not have plans for us. They only remember us when it is time for election. I guess we have been the fooled! They come months to election, share rice, money and others items in exchange for our future, and then we continue to chant ALUTA!

 

Aluta has never helped anybody, Union leaders are only fighting for their pockets and selfish reasons. 

 

I also want to let you know that the crumbs these politicians give us are just short terms benefit; why not look at the long-term benefit. They give two thousand naira and embezzle 2billion naira meant for the development of the educational sector, indirectly you have no right to question them because you have taken your share of the national cake. What should be done is to ask them what they have done in the last four years. If you want to save our nation, take them to your colleges and show them the epileptic state of the facilities there.

 

Do you know that your future is not guarantee in this country? But they choose you as the best option to mobilize students for election. Wake up!

 

Lastly, as a student, Joshua Wong led a revolution when he was 17years of age in Hong Kong, created a political party at 21. He was 18 when fortune Magazine listed him as one of the greatest leaders in the world.

 

Greatest Nigeria students, we should never be fooled by the little crumbs, don’t let them short change us. Don’t allow any union leader to come cajole you to join thugs for election, they are only after their interest, if you lose your life, you lose, your family loose. They get power steal your money and send their children to private religious schools that ought to be for the poor. If you help the wrong person to gain power, an automatic four years of pain becomes our portion.

 

Greatest Nigeria students! Let there be a paradigms shift in 2019. We can be different, we have the power. Now is the time for all of us to collectively join hands together and build a new Nigeria.

 

OUR MUMU DON DO!
God bless Nigeria!

 

 

Ohore Emmanuel Ufuoma is a Student of Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. He runs the StartNowAfrica Foundation with his friend, Taiwo Ilesanmi.

StartNowAfrica is a non-governmental organization (NGO) set up to encourage Nigerians and Africans youths to kick-start their dreams early in life. Under the same platform, the duo promotes the ONE GRADUATE, ONE SKILLS project. It was through this project that a Skill Acquisition Workshop was organized for 50 HND students in Yabatech in June 2018. Kilimajaroo is the publisher of VOICE OF NIGERIA STUDENTS MAGAZINE (VONS), a student/campus based magazine.
He is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YABATECH MAGAZINE.
He is championing the” SAY NO TO DRUG ABUSE “in his college.
He aims to launch Startnow Africa Podcast and STARTNOWAFRICA MAGAZINE IN 2019.

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