Dairy of a Nigerian Student

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Dairy of a Nigerian Student was written by one of our readers; Nworgu Uchenna.

Lazily rising from my sleep with strained eyes and a big sigh, numbness rapidly disappearing from my fingers and toes, I roll over and curl up more tightly, hugging my knees between my arms. Its yet another new day. I am a young lad but my fears and worries are that of a Christmas goat awaiting slaughter.
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My school identity card says 2009-2013 but I know that with the way things are going I may not graduate till well into 2015. That is if I am not dead by then, blown away by a bomb, shot down by the police or even beaten to death by a violent legislator. I sound very pessimistic and gloomy, it's not my fault. The situation at hand has killed my enthusiasm and that of millions of students of government-owned tertiary institutions.

News of an impending strike started trickling into our ears around late June and we shrugged it off as one of those things, 'normal ASUU wahala' which would be resolved in no time. Alas, our joy was shortlived in the first week of July when a communiqué was issued confirming the strike action. Students living in far places were confronted with the sad fact that they may yet again have to risk their lives to return home as this strike was actually happening. 

Thank God for my Industrial Training, Facebook, and of course Twitter, I won't have to end up idle or exposed to extrajudicial killing. As ironic as this may sound, the combination of some of these 3 facilities, if not more has being responsible for maintaining the sanity of millions of Nigerian students sitting down at home idle and frustrated. So many students are spending virtually this period of strike "facebooking" and tweeting, chatting, visiting friends and just doing anything to kill the boredom.

When two elephants fight, what shall become of the grass? Question for the gods, maybe. No one knows when ASUU will be calling off the strike. How I wish the government and ASUU sheath their swords and pity our plights. How I wish the government pays more attention to funding of universities and investment in human resources.

How I wish ASUU compromises a bit and comes down to reasonable agrrement. All we here everyday is meeting upon meeting, negotiations. To make matters worse, ASUU seems to have pulled out of negotiations and the government itself is concentrating fully on political brouhaha, domestic violence, and Boko Haram issue in no particular order. Well I will not digress into the details of it all, after all what do I know?

All I know is that when I resume back to school (only God knows whenever that is) *sad face*, austerity measures might have to take its place in favour of my usual philanthropic nature. Economic meltdown has taken a rather harsh toll on my dad's finance consequently affecting my own meagre share; it means no more generosity with my belongings.

We are been told ubiquitously to pray.


"Pray for your family. Pray for your country. Pray for the whole world." So we are praying or at least I have being praying. Even with my deep pessimism and sarcasm, there's still one tiny voice in my head telling me that things will work out fine. I have survived worse. But for now its back to tweeting, chatting and hustling, at least these ones have not decided to strike yet.