One issue that has dominated the headlines in the past week or so is the mounting Chinese loans and the alleged waiver of our sovereignty should we default in the repayment of the ballooning Mandarin friendly loans. While economists will readily tell you that there is nothing wrong with borrowing money if the money is judiciously utilized for what will repay it, I hasten to add that when such loans are so huge and in a system that is opaque, everything is wrong with uncontrollable borrowing.
There is nothing of much value in binge borrowing, especially if the present administration cannot repay them. Nigerians should be worried that our debt servicing is gulping trillions of naira. While we may be forced by circumstances beyond our control to borrow money at times, we must make sure that our general interest is protected. But with the Mandarin loans, it appears that China is the ultimate winner. It gives you loans for the construction of a bridge or a railway and everything about the project from conception to completion comes from China, including the so-called experts and technicians all of whom are all from China.
Where are our engineers in these projects executed with Chinese loans? The only Nigerians you will see there are casual workers who lack technical knowhow. With this type of arrangement, Nigeria cannot learn the Chinese technology and China cannot transfer its technology to Nigerians just like that. Our over-dependence on China is akin to second colonization, having suffered the first from Britain.
The crisis in the University of Lagos is also in the news. The drama playing out in that university over the leadership of the institution cannot be said to be palatable. I think that the Federal Government should wade into the lingering crisis before more harm is done to the university. There must be order in that university. It is improper to have two vice chancellors in a university at the same time. There are other issues but just let’s take the few and go on with the new normal and the future of our university education.
I commend the Federal Government for seriously waging a strong fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The Presidential Task Force on the disease headed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, deserves plenty accolades for doing a good job. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State must be commended for ably handling the pandemic. However, he must up his game by fixing rural roads in the state. Nigerians look forward to their updates and briefings on the war against the pandemic. I must also commend the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu and his team for their professionalism and patriotism. Without doubt, we have really come a long way since the advent of COVID-19 pandemic in our shores in February this year. From the lockdown of our airports, churches, markets, banks, schools and factories, we have actually come a long a way in managing the novel disease. It is also good that the government has made progress in opening up the economy locked down by the evil pestilence that came from China. The markets have been reopened, churches are now open, final students in secondary schools have resumed to enable them do WAEC examinations. Inter-state movements are now allowed, local flights have resumed and very soon international flights will resume.
All these have demonstrated that we must find ways of living with the new normal caused by COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot continue to lockdown ourselves, economy, factories, works, universities simply because of the deadly coronavirus. The only way we can live with the new normal is to gradually open up all things locked down because of the pandemic and set rules on how those operating them can do their work under the new normal. While private universities are reaching their students through online learning platforms, the federal and state universities are under lock and key no thanks to the ubiquitous and perennial ASUU strike.
While the private universities are teaching their students and taking exams online, the state and federal universities are looking the other way yet their workers collect salaries for not doing their full work. While private universities will graduate their students this year and admit new students, I have doubt if the state and federal universities can do so in view of the lingering ASUU strike. Now that students in final classes in secondary schools have resumed and are busy taking their final exams, the Federal Government should think of how final year students in the universities, colleges of technology and education can be allowed to go back to school and finish their programmes. Their degree programmes should not be interminable.
But before the government can do this, it must settle its outstanding rift with varsity teachers who have been on strike since the coming of the pandemic. Although ASUU strike is a needless aberration in the university system, it has been sustained as a weapon of protests because Nigerian leaders have for long refused to adequately fund federal and state universities. Without doubt, ASUU has lost the sympathy of most Nigerians in the way and manner its leaders close the universities at the slightest excuse. The ASUU strike has done more harm to university education than the poor funding by the federal and state governments. To many Nigerians, ASUU may have lived its usefulness through incessant strikes that do not bode well for quality varsity education. The ASUU recourse to Aluta mentality is a disservice to varsity education even the researches they are paid to carry out as part of their teaching engagement also suffer. However, our political leaders should take a huge chunk of the blame for the dying university education. The Federal Government should have reached out to ASUU’s leadership and placate them by acceding to some of their genuine complaints and urge them to resume classes.
While the government may not have all the money to attend to ASUU demands, it can at least attend to the most pressing ones such arrears of earned academic allowances, the 2009 agreement, funding of universities amid others. The Federal Government’s silence on ASUU strike is not good enough. If politicians can hold elections and the courts are sitting and people are getting married and people are attending burials, the continued lockdown of the universities is not tenable.
The Federal Government must sit down with ASUU leaders and iron out the grey areas on the rift between it and the varsity union and give a timeline for the reopening of state and federal universities to enable final year students finish their programmes. It is pathetic that a four-year programme now lasts for seven or eight years in our public universities. This is why the children of our leaders and affluent Nigerians school abroad, thereby encouraging education tourism.
While COVID-19 pandemic is real and deadly, experience has shown that we cannot continue to lockdown ourselves because of fear of the disease. The best way to confront the disease is to take the preventive measures while carrying out our normal daily activities. Therefore, the government should factor the universities as it reopens various sectors of the economy.

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