Any nation that has value for her youth is one with a safe future. No nation that toils with her youths will have glorious old age for the elderly and wealthy.

The leadership of any nation that ignores the development or proper development of her youths will surely not enjoy old age. This is because where youths are subjected to avoidable altercation in the society, their future is put on the cross fire line. They are always the victim of what they do not know anything about. This is unsavoury for their proper growth or development.

Enabling the youths imbibe good decorium requires that the leaders do not play bad politics with their lives. Our leaders own the youths of this nation social responsibility – display of gray hair’s integrity, and not lies and deception. When our leaders show disregard for our youths, it means they do not want them to amount to anything. But one thing is sure, in the political scene, such as in Nigeria, no son is an heir apparent to his father. We are a dynamic people, such that we will not permit anything like that to take place. Nigeria belongs to every Nigerian, whether rich or poor.

The idea of leadership recycle is a testimony of how bereft our leaders are idea. They do not believe that our young men and women are capable to turn things around for the better in this country.

Otherwise, Alhaji Rilwanu Lukman, the petroleum minister presently once held that portfolio in 1985 or 1986 under Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime. His present reappointment in preference to any other capable Nigerian is borne out of the reputation he acquired as a wise man when he was chairman of oil producing. Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Because president Yar’ Adua thought that the law of diminishing return has not yet affected Rilwanu Lukman’s productivity, he though it wise to reappoint him back into the office he held and juggled out some twenty two or twenty years ago. That is lack of confidence in our youths.

During Olusegun Obasanjo’s Civilian regime, he could not see any capable young Nigeria to handle the petroleum ministry, he decided to handle it himself. But he forgot that when Mohammadu Buhari was his military petroleum minister in 1978, he was a youthful officer of less than forty five years of age. He succeeded in handling the ministry. Now, why recycle Rilwanu Lukman, Uffot Ekaette of the ministry of the Niger Delta Affair? May be one day soon, we will not be surprise to see someone like Jibril Aminu as the minister of Foreign Affairs. Uche Chuckwumerije as information and communication minister. Since twenty years ago, capable graduates have been produced from Nigerian Universities that can perform better than Rilwanu Lukman in the petroleum ministry.

Now, how much does the government care about our youths? At the age of most of our youths, our leaders were already gainfully employed, but today, our youths are wasting away and the retired elders are given employment while their own children have long been fixed up with choiced jobs. Today the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is on strike, which means that our youths who are undergraduates are at home from their various universities across Nigeria. This one does not perturb our leaders. Our youths academic well-being does not bother our leaders, otherwise ASUU members would not be on strike thereby keep on truncating the studies of our youths. As the government delights in toiling with the future or life of youths, they are invariably creating certain species of tomorrow’s leaders in every sphere of life.

Any society that prefers given plum jobs to the elderly and retired citizens while keeping the youths off such jobs is on danger of social epidemic. It is a misplaced priority to continue to armed the retired elderly and disarm the youths. The retired elderly do not go to war, it is the youths that do that. When the youths are demoralized, the retired elderly cannot do the exploit of the youths. Our retired elderly were once useful to the society in their prime until the law of diminishing return sets in. But if our leader want to continue to draw an aberrant seale of preference and the law of diminishing return, then they should bear the dire consequences when tomorrow comes.

When our under graduates are kept out of schools, what step ought a concerned government that has the interest of the youths, take to ensure that their studies are not unduly interrupted by strike action? There are things that demand prompt actions while others may take bureaucratic bottle neck. But subjecting our youths studies to a staccato process instead of uninterrupted process of four to six unbroken years of consistent studies, does not augur well for the future social health of our nation. Is the government funding public education to produce ill- equipped future leaders?

Is ASUU members demand for their selfish interest or public interest? One could see that the purpose of licensing more private universities is to serve as an alternative means of acquiring University education. If either ASUU or Student Union Government (SUG) find the need to agitate for one thing or the other which the government may not assent to SHEEPISHLY. Since neither the ASSU members or SUG populace may blink their eyes easily, the public universities can be closed down while private universities can be functioning uninterrupted. After all, the public universities are populated by the children of the masses while the private universities are opened for the privileged rich in the same society. So, if or whether ASSU members like it or not, and also whether SUG populace like it or not, if they cannot accept or dance to government tunes, the university gates, can be shut until ASUU members heed public plea to go back to classes for the sake of the masses, children who are the victims of what Wole Soyinka called, deaf government, that will never hear the plea of concerned citizens. But for how long shall we continue to “siddon look while public university education is debilitated”, of the glory of university education in the country? It should be known that relying on private universities to displace the essence of public universities in Nigeria is disservice to public interest.

The current Federal government stance on the Academic State Union of Universities (ASSU) strike is denying Nigerian electorate the benefits of public education. The real electorate’s children are being denied the power of university education that will enable them aspire to public office in futures.

If the federal government is brandishing to the public that it has raised ASUU members pay package by 40% percent, grant them university autonomy, Okayed the increased year of retirement for professors, are these the selfish interest which ASUU members refused to grab and then go back to classes?

There is more to this glorious postulated assent than meets the eyes. What is or are the Kernel of ASUU members demand that make them look beyond what the government has granted them and refused going back to the classes? What is ASUU members demand which the government failed to meet and has kept our youths; out of school? It is wrong and wicked to play politics with the life of our youths our future leaders. Integrity demands that the future or studies of our youth are not toiled with to the detriment of the society. That will be self-defeatist strategy-that is shooting a destructive bullet into one’s future.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Members have always had endemic demand from the government. They always engage in dialogue with the government but when the dialogue comes to a dead-end, strike action will be resorted to in order to press home their demands.

If the National Assembly or the Executive council wants something that would enhance their performance, it is done and got with ease. But when the teaching staff of the institutions that produce the members of the National Assembly and Executive council or its agents ask for the things that will enhance their own performance, then exception will be taken to it. A poorly funded university will produce poor products. If there is no quality research going on in the universities, students will be deficiently exposed and the consequence of this is ill-equipped products. When this happens, people will begin to cast aspersions on the academic staff for poor performance.

The credibility of the academic staff will be subjected to binocular investigation to ascertain their quality. But one fact is often forgotten; when you give poor tools to a very good carpenter to work with, his work will reflect the tools and not the quality of the carpenter. When given quality tools, the carpenter will surely come out with his best to the delight of all. So it is with the academic staff members of our universities.

It is not wise to subterfuge the quality university education our lecturers are always agitating for. Today, people talk of ‘falling standard’ in education, university graduates cannot write their names; etc, but when ASUU ask for the means to shore up education quality the government will be dragging its feet until everything result in strike action, which means a rude and crude interruption of studies. It is our youths that are directly affected in any strike action, for the lecturers are accomplished scholars, they are not negatively affected. So, the government should learn to look beyond ASUU members’ perennial demands to see the effect their action will have on our youths.