Nigerian students and the 2015 elections

Without empirical evidence, it is safe to contend that there are more phones in our tertiary institutions than there are books. If this claim fails qualitative scrutiny, then claiming that more hours are spent on mobile gadgets by students than are with other reading materials should be ttrue.

Anyone who has eavesdropped on conversations between Nigerian students in universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education may be roundly disappointed depending on one’s expectations. The conversations are most times predictable and prosaic – relationships, entertainment, religious figures and football find dominant spaces in the conversation mix. In buses, restaurants and a number of public spaces, the discussion is not too different from the type they have in their private spaces.

The average graduate also seems to continue in this light in post-graduation life. Nothing about society dynamics and socio-political happenings interests them. When they seldom broach such issues it is usually poorly argued with analysis too shallow to create a scratch.

If the country had always had students of these ilk, maybe it would have been less of a concern. It is hugely worrisome today because young people who were mostly students in the country at some point used to be the hope of the nation. They had the wit to engage professors who were university administrators on campus issues students wanted addressed. More impressive was their approach; they had press releases circulated around the campus at midnights, wrote intelligible letters to newspaper editors, held congresses where oratorical skills were never in short supply and, most importantly, were always current in terms of thoughts and the elements of their arguments.

It would have even been more entrenching in today’s new media age. University administrators whose policies fell short of expectation would have been called out on Twitter. Student leaders caught romancing politicians would have had their day on Facebook with issues thoroughly analysed to the delight of both students and others outside the campus. There would possibly have been lesser cases of students’ victimisation on the premise of campus politics because the world would have easily known the story and intervened. Sadly, this is not so. New media technology does not seem to be adding to the quality of students’ unionism. If anything, it is taking away from it. The three to four hours reportedly spent on the average on these gadgets are not counting for something. There are, however, rare and few flashes of difference.

As the 2015 elections in Nigeria draw closer, it does not look as if Nigerian students will play a critical role in shaping decisions on how the ship of states is rowed for the next four years. Questions are not been asked and galvanised for social action in social media space. Politicians do not in any way feel answerable to this single biggest demography in the country.

There is a dearth of manifestoes or ideologies hinting at students’ welfare and the quality of education. On the streets of Twitter, it’s hush-hush on these issues because those that are mostly affected are in themselves quiet and ignorant. A few flashes occasionally are from Nigerians in their 30’s and 40’s who have been witnesses to the glorious era of students’ colourful and radical engagement with the polity.

The National Association of Nigerian Students which used to be the common platform for such today only exists in name and with a different vision far from what it should be. This was the same body that emerged from the West African Student Union in 1925 and then became the vibrant National Union of Nigeria Students before its final metamorphosis into NANS. The body before now clearly engaged national politics from a very cerebral perspective and even had some of its leaders suffer in prison and expulsion. The toughest task then was getting information out in the open and getting the media to focus its dim or bright spotlight on the issues of agitation. Social media outlets would have made this easier but then it seems what exists today is the ghost of NANS; a body that has become one that only discusses where the leadership’s next bread and butter will come from.

While students can’t be outright blamed for this descent in quality, it is good to note that the society will continue to pay dearly for having a crop of students and graduates who are not conscious politically, who will complain about a 1,000-word article being too lengthy, who will tune away from a news and analysis channel and instead flip the station perpetually to Big Brother Africa or AfricaMagic.

NANS is too critical to be left on the fringes for the change the country so desires. Segun Mayeigun, Lanre Arogundade, Omoyele Sowore, Anthony Fashayo and a number of other comrades in their ranks must be watching with admiration the on-goings by the Hong Kong Federation of Students led by Alex Yong-Kang and his colleague from Scholarism, 18-year-old Joshua Chi-Fung, as it relates to the Umbrella Movement. This feat should be happening in Nigeria where policies are largely far from being pro-people and pro-poor and corruption appears the most thriving institution.

Young people in Nigeria under the age of 35 are estimated to be about 70 per cent of the population. The 2006 figure puts the estimate of this population to be about a hundred million. A proactive NANS would even have requested that the idea of disenfranchising corps members under the guise of being ad hoc INEC staff should also be reviewed. In the 2015 elections, an average of about 220,000 Nigerian youths will be disenfranchised, asides the number of tertiary institutions that would be shut down during elections. With student union leaders who can hardly hold decent and wistful conversations for five minutes, who will bell the cat?

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