ASUU STRIKE: My precious message to my colossus colleagues

By ABDUL AZEEZ SULAIMAN

One thing that single the media out of the agents of socialization is their power of setting agenda for their audience. Intrestingly, commotional issue like ASUU vs. FG on school, Tinubu Vs. Youth on AGE, Pantami Vs. ASUU on professorship, FG Vs. Parliament on electoral bill, Women Vs. Parliament on allocation of seats among others have been the agenda of the media and bone of contention in our father's land for the past three weeks up untill this moment.

It is inevitable that ASUU and FG issue has remained outstanding due to the standard exactness unique it has beyond others. Whereby, in all aforementioned issues, one part wins and the other loses, ASUU vs FG case remains exceptional. This is to say that the comprehensive strike embarked on by the union would neither cost the government a dime nor making ASUU to lose their monthly salary even the one they don't work for but rather letting the helpless and hopeless students under both of them to suffer psychologically and mentally. Analogically, this issue is like that of two elephants that engage in battle. Which would suffer most between them? It is obvious that it is the present grasses, bushes and trees that will bear the huge negative consequence of it.

More interestingly, it is worthy to mention that as this strike is known to be harbinger of interruption in academic activities, wasting of students' time, causing a grave loss of trust in Nigeria education system and others, it is however also advisable to turn on our torchlight and illuminate some benefits and advantages it has for a maven student. Although, these benefits might not be apparent to a just student because of the inadequate attention people often pay to it, perhaps, why I sum it up and decided to make it as a gift for my innocent colleagues.

Benefits of ASUU strike

The first benefit I would like to incorporate In my message is learning of vocational skill. Yesterday, I saw a tweet tweeted by Big.yems. it says "I really don't like when people say 'take advantages of the strike and learn a skill' if I wanted to be a shoemaker, I wouldn't have seen the need to go to university to study......". When I saw it and decided to decode it in the perspective of average student, I detected that the writer did not only lack the proper intent of what education is but also failed to understand what she thought she knew. In this century! Who would dare limit education to what is being taught in classroom? Who would carelessly restrict education to passing of tests? Would dare do so to passing of exam?.

 Pls as a student! This is when you have to transform yourself and know that education is far beyond that. So as a student who has functional IQ, this time should serve as an avenue to focus on what is more than academic. Try to engage yourself in a well reasonable skill, preferably one related to your discipline. And if you find none, look for the one you have good mindset in within your geographic location. Infact, if it can be computing stuff, there are countless of courses in the Internet now pertaining to computer. So doing this amid the strike will not only reinforce your competency but also widen your thought capacity and making you financially independent before and after graduation.

Second is that, as you engage yourself in vocational skill or training, you should also create a time table that will be solely meant for reading thereby giving you the chance to read comprehensively. If you are one that has stayed long in the university environment, you will see that almost all provided handouts or course outlines by our lecturers are filled with skeletal Information about what its pertain. So as an adept student, this strike should be used to read widely, indeptly and even make extensive research in order to face the labour market with full confidence and audacity.

For the terseness of this article, I will round off with my last message which instructs you to look for a well paid work.

My dear colleague! This ASUU strike must not be for uneccessary chat on facebook nor for useless post on whatsapp. In fact, not for meaningless and wandering tweet on twitter, rather must be seen and used as a opportunity to make money. Don't give me an excuse of being bereft of work, find any work around your vicinity and try to do it. So by the time ASUU and federal government would make their problem solvable, you would have gathered enough money and fortunately, you would invest it and subsequently, it would remove you from the gutter of poor student mentality that think students are meant to be broke.

By and large, there are other countless activities you can engage in during this strike but because of limitation of space, we are restricted to only those aforementioned, I urge you to engage in anything you deem worthy of engaging.

See you on the other side called greatest.