No matter how hard you try, you really cannot avoid contemplating the shoddiness of the current crop of aspirants vying for executive post at the student union level. The shoddiness of the manifestoes? The dissonance of their statements? The age-old responses? The bare-faced patronage? The lacklustre performance? Above all, the humiliating scores that reveal, harrowingly, the mire that the current crop of students wallow in.
Tell me, how far back do we need to go? That is if we have made any progress at all in the most recent years. When it comes to the things that matter, has the student union made any in the most recent times? Do students not sleep in Kitchenettes anymore? Do students in halls of residence not struggle with the availability of water? Erratic power supply that never seems to find its feet? Poor lecture rooms and toilets for so many? This dirge is age-long, stale and really sickening.
No, it’s of no use sobering about the chicken pox spotting the skin of our union, and the — really the only — remedy, which the press has severally written about in bold, daring letters. If you care enough, you know where to go. But do you? Perhaps that is where to begin. Care.
If the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do? If that care is missing, really, everything else becomes mere activism. The condition of UItes today is deplorable. This is the gospel truth and no one seems to really care. If you really care, surf through the pages of various press organisations on campus, and see for yourself our depth in the earth. From here, you can begin to better understand the plight of the student union and perhaps restructure your hackneyed plans.
To care is one thing. To understand is another. What is there to understand, you must necessarily ask? Our current context demands that this sojourn understanding must begin from the start point: what does the unionism of students really mean and what goal does it aspire toward? What was it that made student unionism revered and compelling before government officials? You must ask, what was the value of every Nigerian student and what value can we boast of now? Value, now? Ridiculous. Nigerian students are getting kidnapped incessantly without any (mere) perfunctory acknowledgement from student leaders across the country.
The knowledge of what our value, our worth and what power we hold is lost on us. Frayed, we are unaware, ignorant and belittled. Thus, maybe a reeducation of what it means to be a union of students will put us on track. Just maybe.
