For those who have been following my blog posts, you probably have an idea already about my school life. I mentioned that we’ll be starting exams in a few weeks and I was scared of them postponing it because of school fees again. I just wanted us to be done with it and move on to the new session.
When it comes to my school, one can never really know what’s happening. You think things are going one way but then they end up going in a different direction and everything you’ve done up to that point might end up being for nothing. That’s exactly what happened! There’s a possibility that this exam will likely be postponed as I feared. The reason, however, is not what you’d expect! It’s not what I expected either!!
Imo state has been the hotbed for a lot of political drama in the last couple of months, and the reason is not farfetched. The governorship elections are drawing close and aspirants are doing all they can to win the people over.
I don’t really know how it happened, but we woke up one day to learn that the Chairman of the Labour Congress was attacked by thugs and beaten up pretty badly. I don’t know the circumstances surrounding it, but I do know that he was beaten so badly that he had to be rushed to the hospital. And that was the start of what would come to be a string of problems for the state. My state. Because he was attacked here!
Now, know that as the name implies, the Labour Congress is a union that serves as an umbrella for every laborer in the country. And I use laborer in a loose context because everyone is covered. Government workers, lecturers, teachers. When Labour Congress decides to go on strike, the country could just as well come to a halt. That’s how powerful they are. And now that their Chairman was attacked, all they see is red!
The first thing they took was power! Imo state has been blanketed in darkness for well over a month now. They shut down the power stations in the state and the engineers refused to work. So, everyone has been forced to rely on fuel and generators and I honestly don’t know how long we can keep this up considering how expensive fuel is.
But then, it seemed taking power was not enough to appease them, so they’re shutting down everything else! And higher institutions are one of them. All our Academic Staff officially went on strike two days ago, and since then, the school has become a desert. Not just in my school, FUTO, IMSU, and Imopoly are affected as well.
Although there is still lots of time for the government to intervene so we can write our exam on the assigned date, we’ve all seen how easily it is for a 1-week strike to morph into a 9-month strike. It has happened before and if care is not taken, it could happen again. And that is scary.
I don’t know if it’s only in Imo State that all these are happening, but I heard of them protesting in Abuja and blocking the entrance to the airport. Who knows, maybe something similar is happening in Lagos as well. Yeah, what happened to the chairman is terrible and he deserves justice, but with the way things are going, all I can see are two elephants fighting and we at the grassroots are suffering for it.
Businesses are crumbling because of lack of power. All my work is online, and without adequate power, my laptop battery can only serve me for so long. We’re the ones suffering the consequences of this thing. Not the thugs that beat him up, or the ones who sent the thugs. It’s ordinary citizens like us who have to suffer the darkness, we’re the ones missing flights because airports have been taken over, and we’re also the ones who might end up having our exams postponed because of the strike.
It’s just sad that we live in a country where rules seem nonexistent. If not, adequate measures would have been taken to ensure those who attacked him were brought to book. Honestly, I really don’t know where we’re going as a country, but I do hope that we’re at least going in the right direction. Because with all I’m seeing right now, it’s just not it for me.
No, it’s just not it.
Anyway, however things unfold, you can trust me to turn up with an update for you!
