by Eze Eluchie
Often times,
when a crisis situation unfolds in any country and thousands of people embark
on long ,seemingly endless treks to destinations unknown, there is the tendency
for people looking at the emerging pictures from afar, to think that the
persons embarking on such pitiable journeys are urchins, miscreants, ne’er-do-well’s
and people society can do without. That
impression is unfortunately, not correct.
A closer
look at the trekking mass will reveal that in that throng of human bodies,
soaked in their individual sweats, faces caked with dust, with their mattresses,
foodstuff, jerry cans of water and most precious possessions perched
precariously atop their heads with children and livestock tagging alongside parents, there
are professionals of all callings (teachers, Architects, Lawyers/Judges, Health
service providers and so on) and all those held in esteem by stable societies
on account of their intellectual prowess. When crisis ensues and survival
becomes the name of the game, class distinctions, professional rankings, wealth
and other criteria used to distinguish one from the other gradually disappear
until all persons in the given crisis laden environment merge into one
indistinguishable unit. The collapse of the State, under crisis situations,
allows for the emergence of a new breed of ‘leaders’, based on mans primitive instincts
– the rule of the brawn.
Professionals,
skilled persons and those generally termed as the ‘middle-class’ in any society
bear the brunt of any collapse of State structures. The urchins, miscreants and
ne’er-do-wells were already down and, as the saying goes, need fear no fall.
Those who have had opportunity to rule in such societies would usually have
looted sufficient funds to acquire some semblance of comfort in foreign
territories - this is however quite suspect as these category of exiles are held in absolute contempt by their American/European hosts/neighbors who know that such ex-rulers of collapsed States are basically criminal elements and their offspring's, scions of criminals. The professionals who constitute the middle-class are apparently
stuck in limbo, resigned to a life of misery in refugee camps and where they
are able to find a country willing to grant them asylum, have to contend with all manners of
indignities in the new territories they have to habit – perpetually
day-dreaming over what might have been only if they had avoided the crisis
which turned their homeland and lives around.
One only
needs to take a ride in a Taxi cab in the major cities of the United States or
European countries, dine in Restaurants in those foreign climes or even visit
Car-wash facilities to appreciate the monumental waste, to which diverse intellectual
resources which would have been of better use in the societies where the
hapless refugees originally hailed from, have been rendered. With Surgeons and
Attorneys of several years experiences competing with themselves over who would
drive a cab for a few hours in a day, to Engineers and Bankers waiting on
tables at eateries, to Teachers and Artists wasting away, washing cars in
frigid hostile temperatures – people who allow themselves and their countries
to plunge into crisis really loose out big time.
It is in the
light of the foregoing that one is perplexed by the exuberance with which
professional and labor organizations in countries in transition assiduously
work towards the collapse of their countries with extremely self-serving insistence
on a piece of their country’s flesh and blood, at times cloaking such actions
in the guise of national interests.
Unfolding
events in Nigeria would illustrate this worrisome trend. For an incredulous
period of over 4 months, the umbrella association of Nigerian public university
lecturers (the Academic Staff Union of Universities - ASUU) embarked on a
crippling strike over payment of allowances (some of these allowances had such
incredulous titles as ‘Examination’ and ‘Thesis Supervision’ – what are these
lecturers receiving salaries for?), a strike action which grounded all academic
activities in Nigerian universities, holding the Government hostage until ASUU
was able to extract whatever they felt was satisfactory.
Soon after
the strike by Lecturers, the umbrella association of Medical Doctors in Nigeria
(the Nigerian Medical Association - NMA), sensing it could likewise have its
way, threatened to call off all doctors in public service unless it was assured
that their members would in addition to maintaining dominance in the public
health sector, be assured of permanent slot as Minster of health, continued
percentage remuneration superiority gap for their members over the income of other
actors in the health sector, and creation of a novel office of ‘Surgeon General’,
crafted after the model adopted in the United States, which will be occupied
only by Medical Doctors. In private meetings with the NMA, and worried about
the collapse of the already fragile public health sector, the Federal
Government indicated it was willing to capitulate to the threats of the Medical
Doctors. Soon after and in order not to be out-done by the Medical Doctors,
other professionals in the health sector have likewise threatened a showdown
with the Government if it dared accede to what I must admit are quite greedy
demands of Doctors. A crippling strike
in our public health sector is thus guaranteed.
Even the
umbrella organization of lawyers, a profession group to which I belong, is
gleefully jumping into the fray of bodies issuing threats to Government over issues
in the polity. Following the bombing of a court house in the south-south zone
of the country, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) issued a 30-day ultimatum to
the Federal Government to conduct necessary inquiries, fish out and prosecute
culprits involved in the terror related event otherwise….. This is the same NBA
which seems not to be bothered when thousands of Nigerians are routinely sent
to their early graves resulting from terrorist attacks and whose members ‘prosper’
from a most unjust justice system which ensures that over 90% of our prison
inmate population are persons who are presumed innocent by our laws until they
are proven guilty and where civil and criminal suits drag on for seeming eternities.
Professionals
and workers in the petroleum, maritime, financial and virtually all sectors of
the Nigerian economy have issued threats which cumulatively can hasten the
demise of the Nigerian state when all such threats come to maturity later this
year.
Without
doubt, the perception, and in some cases, reality of large-scale and endemic
corruption in the polity serves to energize the quest for a piece of the ‘national
pie’ by professional and labor associations, but have we as a people wondered
what happens to the pie when all the pieces of it has been taken away? What about
the situation of the vast majority of our fellow citizens who are not opportune
to go on ‘strike’ for or negotiate their way to some slice of the national pie?
Are we all
not better off synchronizing efforts towards a holistic restructuring and
renegotiation of our polity to ensure the emergence of a system which
accommodates all: professional, skilled and unskilled, literate and illiterate
and of whatsoever category, rather than merely seeking to, via tactics akin to
hostage taking, carve out the maximum slice of the polity we can for our
professional or labor set?
Some
professionals who are deluding themselves with the thought that their
qualifications will offer a safe parachute to jump ship in the event of a
collapse of the Nigerian state to some other life/jobs abroad, should think
twice and ask of the whereabouts of other professionals from crisis-prone
countries who found refuge in foreign lands. In the event that we persist in our
various insistence on a piece of the country, we should also begin to fine-tune
our dish-washing, driving, and gigolo skills(yes, you are reading right:
gigolo), because when the chips are really down, our existence in those foreign
climes may well be dependent on such inanities and not on intellectual prowess.
Let us
renegotiate and restructure whilst there is yet time.
Picture: Refugees in motion
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