I got a mail last month from a justifiably angry lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife asking why I have not commented on the ASUU strike. He wondered whether I was aware that Ife, where I schooled, had been out of session since August last year. The mail made me very guilty that I have kept quiet on the issue but what can I do, what can we do? The university system has virtually collapsed in this country with students now permanently on forced holidays.

That, I guess, is one 'achievement' of this administration. And to show the 'commitment' of the people in power to education, Professor Babalola Borishade, the Education Minister, told us during the week that the minimum entry age to university will soon be pegged at 18. Of course we all know that the children of the elite finish secondary school nowadays at age 12-15, so what will they be doing in the intervening years?

Borishade's children and those of other fat cats in government will travel abroad of course while children of poor people could easily become thugs and touts. Their children do not attend schools here anyway, at least a minister's daughter recently confirmed that on this page where she questioned the integrity of my academic qualification for the simple reason that I schooled in Nigeria. Borishade's new idea shows just how irresponsible this government has become in the management of our educational system!

But that is not all. Those who should know have argued that the only difference between this civilian administration and the military regimes before it is that while the military was killing Nigerians, this one is rather too 'benevolent' to do that: it just allows Nigerians to die! In the last couple of weeks, we have been spending all our productive hours at fuel station, the cardinal 'achievement' this government has been touting in the last three years.

Ironically, the sing-song across the country now is that we should vote for continuity and you ask: continuity of what? Well, the answer to this question was supplied by no less a person than the respected Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion. From a text message which is being passed around by GSM holders in Lagos, the Benin High Chief was said to have gone to a political rally of his son, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, the Edo State Governor. Apparently unable to stomach the criticism against his son, he was reported to have mounted the rostrum and said: "Edo people, U na say Lucky fail, Lucky fail, and for dat, make im no com back. Which kin sense be dat? If your own pikin fail for school, e no go repeat the term?"

Well, I really do not want to believe the story that Igbinedion failed. But the lesson from what could have been a lighter mood joke from the ever amiable Esama of Benin is that most of the campaign for continuity from Abuja to the states is based on this logic that once you fail you automatically deserve a second term.

So much for continuity!