Setting The Record Straight On The ASUU Struggle: Can Ignorance Replace Knowledge?

The barrage of opinions on traditional and social media on the seven-month long strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is hardly surprising, since it is an important issue touching the lives of many Nigerians, students, parents and many other Nigerians. That it is also an emotional issue is evident from the vitriol in many of the opinions or publications on the matter, many of which demonstrate a lack of understanding of the core issues. While we concede that some of the opinions stem from genuine concern for a resolution of the impasse, some others are clearly based on ignorance and/or mischief. ASUU would continue to set the records straight and shed light on issues in its patriotic struggle to save our university system from those bent on ruining it.

No Work, No Pay

It is sad and amazing how some people take-over and violate our public space pretending to be experts on issues that they know next to nothing about, and about which they have regrettably refused or are incapable to learn about. All the same, some education is not out of place to upscale the ignorance of such commentators in this respect.

For example, contrary to Yemi Adebowale l s uninformed view, the work of a lecturer goes beyond teaching students. In fact, although the most visible, teaching is the simplest of a lecturer’s job. This perhaps explains why it carries a mere 10 per cent in the consideration of a lecturer l s promotion, where it is scored at all. Furthermore, in academia, good teaching is impossible without good research. Excellent and quality research are sine qua non for good teaching. While teaching is on hold during the pendency of a strike, research work goes on unimpeded. Added to this is the third leg of a lecturer’s preoccupation – community development – which is, application of research based-knowledge within and beyond the universities. This explains why contrary to conventional employment practices as it concerns letter of employment, no resumption and closing time are contained in the employment letters of academics. We work 24/7 and 365 days a year, strike or no strike.

Sadly, Yemil s prejudice and hatred for lecturers made him not to see the illogicality and danger in the government’s II NO work, No Pay” mantra, as well as its harmful implications for the students he pretends to love. Government’s refusal to pay for the strike would hurt students more and be disruptive of our public universities which government’s insensitivity has thrown into avoidable crisis. If government refuses to pay for the strike period, it is simply a directive by government that the make-up work that would otherwise be done by lecturers to cover the time lost for strike at great personal sacrifices and self-denial in the interest of our students, should not be done. In other words, if government will not pay for work it erroneously said was not done, our members in the same token are being told by government not to do works government is unwilling to pay for.

It is surprising that a lot of commentators pretend not to be aware that that this strike was forced on our Union by government’s irresponsibility and insensitivity. Our Union signed three MoAs with this government in 2017, 2019 and 2020. Additionally, President Muhammadu Buhari, set-up a committee under the chairmanship of his Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, but nothing came out of it. The petty rivalry and buck-passing of the Ministers of Labour and Education which combined to prolong this strike are also in the public domain. The question many Nigerians are refusing to ask is why government would waste scarce public  funds setting up committees to negotiate with ASUU only to reject their  recommendations. The Profs Muzaliu Jibril and Nimi Briggs renegotiation committees are clear examples. Government dumped their reports and resorted to arbitrary imposition of salary award on our Union in violation of the practice of Collective Bargaining Agreement between us established since 1981 and backed by laws.

Thanks to Prof. Nimi Briggs Committee for their courage in openly telling Nigerians that what they negotiated with our Union was based on continuous consultations and the consent of their principal, the Federal Government. The likes of Yemi deliberately ignore the truth as his jaundiced write-up shows. While Yemi quoted and insisted on the law that he did not understand on the supposedly no work no pay, he or she is too ignorant or not bothered due to an inherent slavish mentality to know that the rejection of the miserable award from our Aso Rock Leviathan by  ASUU is informed not only by Nigerian laws but global best practices which favours Collective Bargaining Agreement between employers and employees even in the private sector.

Had the government done the needful and renegotiated the FG-ASUU Agreement in 2012 as provided and kept to the timelines for the release of funds for revitalization of public universities, there would have been no strike. It is also pertinent to note that ASUU members as a collective developed the UTAS which government has finally confirmed is far better than the fraudulent and corruption-prone IPPIS which it imposed on the Federal Universities on which it has wasted and is still wasting public funds at no cost to the government during this strike. That is a good example of community development which is the third layer of our work as lecturers.

From the foregoing therefore, there is no doubt that it is the government and its functionaries that are, and must be, squarely held responsible for the strike and protracting it. Those genuinely interested in a quick resolution of this impasse would do well to avoid prescriptions capable of further prolonging the deadlock.

ILLUSIONARY KNOWLEDGE OF DR. YEMI ADEBOWALE ON NIGERIA

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ INTEREST AND LECTURERS’ WORK

PECULIARITIES

As the saying goes, if one was not present when his father was buried, he will not, on arrival, know the direction of the father’s head and feet inside the grave. This explains the illusionary understanding of Dr. Yemi Adebowale on ASUU, students’ interests and the peculiarities of lecturing job in Nigeria nay Africa. Yemi obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Nursing Science from University of Texas at Brownsville and Doctor, Nursing Practice from Touro University, Nevada. He still lives and works overseas. His children live and school overseas.

Now some questions for Yemi:

1.           How much knowledge does he have about the University system as it concerns Nigerian Universities student’s interest and the job of a lecturer in Nigeria?

2.           What is chasing Yemi and his family members from Nigeria, his fatherland?

3.           Are there no jobs in Nigeria for a Doctorate degree holder?

4.           Are there no schools in Nigeria for Yemil s children to enroll in?

The above questions are rhetorical as Yemi and even the birds of the air know the obvious answers.

For Yemi to say all is well with Nigerian universities and continue to stay and work in the US as a Doctorate degree holder is to play the Ostrich.

According to Yemi, “After inflicting so much pains on students in Nigeria public universities and their parents, the union turns around to say it is pained by its decision to declare an indefinite strike”. He went ahead to argue that “If students are indeed at the centre of ASUU’s so-called struggle, then lecturers won’t be on strike at all, not to talk of shutting public universities for almost seven months”. The illinformed Yemi also questioned why most lecturers work in other institutions.

Responding to Yemi’s obscure and illusive knowledge above is not part of ASUUl s stock in trade. However, it is expedient to extricate the public from his illusions and the colonial mentality he has subjected himself to by his continued stay abroad. Paradoxically, the same person who wants ASUU to be concerned about the quality of its products is, in the same vein, opposed to the Union’s struggle to make our public universities globally competitive. What a hypocritical mind?

The public should understand that the interest of students and parents have been the hallmark of ASUU’s struggle right from inception and will continue to be so because we are parents as well as teachers too in our institutions. Many of our members are also students in our universities. There are some other issues which are key to ASUU’s principled struggle.

Firstly, most Nigerian leaders benefited from the public universities when they were well funded with scholarships, free meals, free accommodation, stipend and high quality facilities for learning. All these are stories for the gods as these privileges no longer exist in our universities today. To this, ASUU says NO. You cannot be a beneficiary of a sound system and want to destroy the system after you. The present day students must benefit the way you benefited. To do otherwise, will amount to selfishness and wickedness.

Secondly, the selfishness of our leaders has grown to the point of utter public deceit. They proliferate and promote private universities for their friends and associates to the peril of public universities. At the same time, many of them abandon the private universities and send their children to foreign institutions. In the interest of our  students, ASUU says NO to this because it is repugnant to equity, natural justice and good              conscience.

Thirdly, all the private universities in Nigeria, without exception are profit making ventures. Currently, tuition fees in Nigeria public universities in the neighborhood of #30,000 to #40,000 naira per session as against the humongous #1.5m to #2m charged by these private universities per session. It then looks as if the owners of private universities are in partnership with the political leaders to share their profits while the latter demand the leaders to suffocate public universities to force students to their institutions. It needs be known that more that 50% parents of public university students struggle to pay this little fees for their children, how much more paying the fees of private universities which government wants to force them to. In the interest of both parents and students, ASUU says NO, it should not happen.

Fifthly, from Yemi ts first to Doctorate degree days as a student, he probably sat comfortably in air conditioned classrooms. Since he probably has never visited any of the public Nigerian universities,he is ignorant of the fact that students in most Nigerian universities sit on the floor, window frames or tables, just to learn. The hostels of our students are like prison yards with irritating odour. Ignorance has so much engulfed him to the point that he is unaware that most Professors of Nigerian universities have served and retired without having an office. Is that the same thing in the USA?

On the issue of lecturers working in other places, Yemi is too timid to admit that he lacks understanding of the issue. We wish to help his understanding by letting him know that it is the same government he seeks to protect that is the cause of that scenario. HOW?

Part of the present demand of ASUU is that both the federal and state governments of Nigeria should desist from proliferating public, especially state universities. Is it not ironical to continue establishing universities in their numbers and still claim the fund is not there to run them?

If lecturers do not visit or work in other universities, thousands of Nigerian graduates will not have the opportunity to see Professors and other senior academics to talk to them in their classrooms from year one to final year. This means that  Nigeria will continue to produce educated illiterates. This is so as the highest rank of lecturers in most of these universities they proliferate is Lecturer Il.

In light of the foregoing, the public is urged to disregard Yemi Adebowale’s misguided, ill- informed and shallow article which exhibits his poor knowledge of ASUU and the Nigerian university system having lived the greater part of his life in the United States and losing touch with the realities of university education in Nigeria.

Ade Adejumo

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