WHAT THEN IS "ALUTA CONTINUA"

(The struggle continue)
I've always love to read Helon Habila "Waiting for an angel" which portrays how life in a military government was like, but the story that is of most dearest to me is that of student unionism and struggle against military dictatorship, I've always love to read stories of how students stood up and with one voice stood up against insensitive government and against strike actions, how in 2003 students from Bayaro University Kano unitedly march like soldier ants to the government house in protest of the introduction of hostel autonomy. For me I think that was ALUTA CONTINUA, ALUTA of a generation that truly knew what they wanted and are ready to get it, an ALUTA that believed in the voice of unionism with purpose.

You see, my mind have been trying to define our own ALUTA CONTINUA, an ALUTA that allows a student to get admission in 2017, studies in 2018 and is still hoping to write second semester examination by 2019, an ALUTA that allows students to rant #Sai_baba and are well #Articulated while their mates abroad are reshaping democracy, an ALUTA that allows us to let the leadership of NANS to go with just two days insult online then we start searching madly for pictures in our drawers to do #TenYearsChallenge, what then are we struggling for ??, what then is our own ALUTA all about ??, what then do we call our own type of #Future_Leaders.

ALUTA is more of a struggle, a united struggle for the welfare of students in higher institution, we are currently "enjoying" the third months of an indefinite strike embark by ASUU and no union have gone to ASUU Secretariat in protest, we keep watching episodes of "Deadlock meetings" and nobody have march to any government house with pants and rants, we've keep on listening to campaign speeches with no special emphasis on education and nobody is calling for a student boycott of the election, the highest students in Nigeria have done is to curse bitterly on Twitter, to wail heavily on Facebook, to swear sorrowfully on Instagram.

It is this same ALUTA that made students from the university of JOS to cry #Justice4Kumz by October and after two weeks forget about the death of a "true"ALUTA comrade, it was this same ALUTA that allows students in UNIAGRIC sit at home for close to six months without receiving second semester lectures or writing First semester exam, and then I ask myself if this is ALUTA, If this is what comes with being born in a digital generation, if ALUTA struggle has been sacrificed on the alter of digitalization and modernization.

Mr Fela Durotoye during a "Meet the candidates program on " Kaakaki AIT" said and I quote "God forbid that our children when they're matured will call this day the good old days" let me point out that this would be our good old days, this would be the past we would tell our children of, this would be the stories that we will tell during those nights of memories with our children. And then we'd know we never truly lived, untill both polytechnic and university students, until college of education and monotechnics students cry out in a single voice and march with one feet.

AZI OLIVER ATSEN
#Nigeria_New_Tribe

Suleja, Niger State