The Elephants, The Lion and The Grasses; The tale of ASUU, CONUA and OAU Students By Ajose Gideon

• "There comes a time when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King Jr
• "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King Jr
• "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr
• "The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe, you have to make it fall* - Che Guevara

Ajose Gideon,

A long time ago in the animal kingdom (just like George Orwell painted in his Animal Farm), there was a disagreement between Mother Elephant and Father Elephant, the disagreement was based upon the sharing formula on who was to take the largest share when their children brought farm produce, this generated a lot of controversies and because of the greedy nature of Father Elephant, the family had to split. 

Fast forward to the day that the king of the Jungle (The Lion) decided to award one of the offsprings of the Elephant Family, quarrel broke out between the Mother Elephant and Father Elephant as to who goes home with it, they both got into a fight and believe me all the grasses in the fighting arena died prematurely and till date they haven't been revived, while the fight was going on, the Lion was disgusted at their irate behavior and he roared with a loud voice and calm was restored to the territory.

On 9th of December, Eagle's Post News reported that about 31% of lectures in OAU were not holding due to the national industrial action of ASUU, while the remaining 69% of the lectures remained ongoing, and the worse of it all is that exams start on 14th of Next month which mean we have about 30 days to write exams, the school management claims all is well and good with the school calendar and they aren't deterred by the development but we need to ask crucial questions

• Are the lecturers wrong for engaging in industrial actions?
• Are the students whose lectures have been put on hold for the past five (5) weeks going to write exams with the rest of us who haven't missed any lecture?
• Who bears the consequence of unfulfilled lecture timetables?
• Is this not a pointer that the rate of failure for this semester would be alarming?

Let us stop shying away from facts that stares us in the face, just like the grasses, we would be suffocated to death if we decide to keep mute even when we are on our way to academic hell, why not stand up and call with a strong voice that the issue be addressed holistically like the Lion who stood up to the occasion and saved the day? ASUU is not in power neither is it in Govt in OAU because rumours have it that major members of the Council belong to CONUA and that's why they have never failed to pitch the students against ASUU at every slight opportunity.

Freedom isn't given and the worse form of slavery is mental slavery, you don't attempt to teach critical thinking in an environment where dissenting opinions are gaged with threats of expulsion and suspension. History teaches us that Tyrants in all ages have always met their waterloo on the same way they took to avoid it, let the students rise and take their destinies into their own hands, like the students rose and allocated bedspaces when the DSA was failing in it's duties, like the students rose and safeguarded Dipo Fashina when the DSS tried carting him away from the campus, IT IS TIME.

Ajose Gideon
is the grandson of the first Vice Chancellor who wasn't the chancellor of vices