STRIKE AND SPITE

I was working on a deadline project when I decided to post some words on my FB status and few minutes later I got a reply. Reply done, I saw another post that tore at the reigns of my heart. It was from one of my students many of whom I hardly recognize or even know.

 It started thus “but Sir, am tired of siting at home o… u guyz should do sumtin o…”

I wasn’t startled at the complete deviation from my initial post, neither was his shorthand my concern but his words tore me as it had done earlier in the evening when I spoke with an elder, one of my mentors. We broached the topic of the on-going ASUP strike and he out rightly condemned our actions. He had mentioned it to me before and told me to go ask God for forgiveness for embarking on the strike action but I thought he was joking because I was just a member of ASUP and not one that would have a say to influence a nationwide strike action. This time however,

Being a medical doctor and in private practice he recalled how he spoke to a group of government employed doctors and chided them that they would always be wrong to join in a strike action, he went ahead to say how we can refuse to join in such debilitating actions that cripple the society and the unseen future. He lamented on the number of people who die once doctors or medical practitioners embark on strike actions.

As he spoke I reviewed my opinion on the matter and I really couldn’t beat my chest that I was part of a winning team. My heart began to bleed and I saw the fruitlessness of this nation’s agenda. I saw the amount of lives we were damaging just by staying at home. I saw that futures were being reoriented and destinies probably delayed. He went ahead to say that we can refuse such strikes by speaking against it in the meetings that give birth to such suggestions and he point blankly put it that if we don’t hate the strike right in our hearts then we are not better off. He was right all the way.

I remember how I kept telling anyone that cared to listen in my school days that I would be a lecturer and I would ensure that I am different from the ones that taught me. I insisted that I would do my best to raise up students that would be better than me and I would answer all their questions until they begin to value both the profession and its purpose. I have gone lengths to do my best but as per the strike, I have really fallen short.

I have learnt that… Learning that isn’t continuous is not learning at all and breeds another complex form of ignorance

I am a candidate for intensive trainings and brainstorming sessions and yet here I am staying almost three months and I can’t see the damage done to these growing ones, I hardly even pray for the strike to be off. I don’t really feel the strike because I have my hands always full but for the future of the younger ones we nurture, we have truly forgotten that they matter. As they languish in the battle field of a fight between a riotous association and a nonchalant government, it poses a very sad picture that the ones we struggle so hard to raise in the classrooms, we care less as we waste them in the bid for more money and statuses.

My cousin who is reading for his Master’s degree mentioned how his class had to buy a book for #14,000 from a lecturer, each person for a single course. I was fuming when I heard that, my mum added to it and lamented how she had to pay exorbitant amounts to buy and even photocopy handouts when she furthered her degree. I almost cursed beneath my breath on hearing all this and I knew that no matter what, I wouldn’t condescend to such practices, my dad calls the perpetrators, Academic rogues!

As I weigh my part in the strike and the cost of the #14,000 book or the practices of those Academic rogues, I dare say I am not different. I have refused to continue supervising my students and even my marking has been affected because I am “on strike”. Yet I would readily say the Nigerian pledge…”I pledge to Nigeria, my country, to be faithful, loyal and honest”.

I can’t hide my face in shame but I regret my actions and even my thoughts concerning the strike. I can beat my chest and say that when I was in school it was the strikes that gave me room to become self-trained in the fields I rule now but not everyone can handle such space of time and such temptations of prevailing boredom.

My mentor also spoke these words, he said the act of the strike simply translates to us relating with the government the way they relate with us and he said that is not Christian or Christ-like. He went ahead to say that if God relates with us the way we relate with him, even the holiest of human saints would be wanting.

If the Bible you read does not influence your day to day living then the Christianity you practice is just a mere religion.

The Bible I read affects, influences, changes, molds, fashions, recreates and metamorphosis me. I don’t care what you think, I don’t really give a hoot who reads this. My opinions are mine, my convictions are personal, and my growth is inherent of my relationship with my Saviour Jesus. I dare not quote your own scripture but mine.

It’s never enough however to confess, I repent alongside. I call off my own strike. I resume duty. Today

I can never change my environment if I continue doing those things which have never brought change to the environment. We are teaching the younger generation how to engage in strife at the least provocation. We sit at home and gladly enjoy money we have not worked for and then we blame the politician and looters of government treasuries. We are looting lives and wasting the lives we want to see flourish but God would help our mentality albeit, one at a time or as he so convicts.

I may not have an office to go to daily but I would detest the strike in my heart and work like it never happened. So help me God.

I am no saint. I am just a student of life, a child of God and I learn and apply what I receive as sieved.

Here in lies my lamp and light… (James 4:17) 

§  In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is evil. (MSG)

§  Therefore to him who knows to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin. (MKJV)

§  Whoever knows what is right but doesn’t do it is sinning. (GW)

§  If you don’t do what you know is right, you have sinned. (CEV)

§  Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. (NLT)