The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) must be ‘commended’ here for standing up to the clueless federal government led by the underwhelming President, Muhammadu Buhari. Commended not because we are unaware of the consequences of their on-going 7-month strike action but because they are determined to make education a priority in the budget of the federal government. Inside many university campuses there is this decay of infrastructure; the salaries and emoluments of the lecturers are nothing tangible to write home about. No one in his sane mind would blame the academic staff for embarking on the strike given the fact that the federal government had reneged irresponsibly on the agreement it had reached with the striking varsity teachers.
Something is terribly wrong fundamentally with a nation that toys with the future of her youths or places no premium on sound education. Serious nations had exploited mass enlightenment to bring about positive socio-economic development. Education remains the key that could unlock potentials and sow a seed for the immediate and distant future. Alas, we are treating the vital sector with levity!
ASUU went on strike in February this year to press for better funding of universities and salaries. The Union equally disagreed with the federal government over a convoluted digital arrangement for salary payment. Besides, the government’s earlier resolve not to pay striking lecturers for the period they did not work (the ‘no-work-no-pay’ rule) is another thorny issue on the table. The prolonged strike has cost students almost an entire session. The ASUU imbroglio is neither new nor their demands novel. Agreements signed by previous administrations are binding on successive ones as government remains a continuum.
Having failed to resolve the crisis the Buhari administration headed to court. And an order of the National Industrial Court directing the striking lecturers to immediately end the seven months strike and resume work had been delivered recently. The order did not preclude further negotiations nor did it say that ASUU was right or wrong. Ditto the federal government. It only sought to give legal teeth to the federal government to ‘muscle’ ASUU into returning to lecture theatres across the federation.
More than any other President before him Buhari has demonstrated his disdain for education and the academia. But it is not difficult to know why this is so. Having not benefited from the formal instructions of the Ivory Tower Buhari does not know the value of education! As a former military tyrant, a coup plotter who undermined democracy, his contempt for education as a liberating and empowering tool of national development is limited to his training as a soldier.
If the dormant unproductive National Assembly members could receive millions of Naira as emoluments, if the Buhari regime could budget billions of Naira, year in year out, for Aso Rock feeding and maintenance then nothing stops the government from implementing the packages the dons are asking for.
If a former Chief of Army Staff (and now Ambassador to Benin Republic) Gen. Tukur Buratai, could siphone with impunity millions of Dollars and billions of Naira from the defense budget, fiscal resources originally meant for the procurement of armament for our gallant soldiers battling the Boko Haram terrorists up north, then ASUU is right in demanding for better wages and improved condusive environment in the tertiary institutions.
If the politicians and technocrats (including Buhari’s ex-Ministers and the CBN Governor) could afford to shell out millions of Naira to buy the APC presidential nomination forms then the education sector deserves a better annual budget and funding.
If President Buhari could afford to spend millions of Dollars of tax-payers money for his countless London medical tourisms then the universities must be given a special attention it commands and merits. If a government official could be arrested for stealing billions of Naira then there is enough money to take good care of the academic staff!
Perhaps the strike has endured because none of the children of the elite are schooling in any Nigerian university. Yusuf Buhari and his sisters (including the one that recently graduated in the UK) never attended any tertiary institution in our shores. Ditto many other high-ranking officials of the state. A trip to neighbouring Ghana, for instance, would reveal the extent to which our national education system has collapsed.
Ordinarily, the ASUU protracted strike action may appear to have its serious effects on our children’s future. Yet it may not be as significant as having thousands graduate yearly without finding any profitable employment. Buhari is very good at travelling abroad but he has never gone there and come back with investors. What he does best is borrowing and borrowing more!
Having ‘won’ the trophy ignobly as the poverty capital of the whole world Nigeria is one of the countries most terrorized. And now she is aspiring to become ingloriously the illiterate capital of the world! Millions of our compatriots (especially in Buhari’s northern region) are out of school. They beg on the streets or worse still, recruited into the Boko Haram/ISWAP fold! That is why terrorism festers and kidnapping lucrative.
In a nation ‘blessed’ with glorified executive semi-illiterates or outright illiterates calling the shots it is not surprising that they are sleeping easy and comfortable when the gates to the Ivory Towers are firmly shut for many months on end. For crying out loud the university lecturers are patriots asking for what they deserve! They have not been involved in the looting spree.
In other saner climes Buhari would have since been impeached or eased out of power for mortgaging criminally the future of the leaders of tomorrow. But our country is one of anything goes; a country where vultures feast on the carcasses of victims of banditry, kidnappings and terrorism. A nation where big men and women, godfathers and godmothers, use the stolen huge fiscal resources, filthy lucre et al, at their disposition to impose their will on the rest of us!
In the event of any opposition to their imposed dominance then the security forces beholden to them would be unleashed on those having the temerity to ask questions. That is how a failed state functions — using state terrorism to whip opponents into line!
No great nation has ever been built on such bigmanism and irresponsibility of state leadership. Yet, there is hope in the horizon that we can get it right early next year when we dutifully go to the polls to elect a President of our dreams.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) had planned blocking international airports in the country to drive home the point. Recently they started with the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. The action must continue to prevent the junketing President and the Governors and politicians from accessing the airports for their exorbitant trips abroad while our children, our youths, our future, are abandoned at home.
We daily talk about insecurity, banditry and kidnapping terrorizing many Nigerians. But can anyone blame the jobless ‘school-less’ youths if they decide to take on criminality to fend for themselves? Where lies the hope and the future?
Let Buhari and his government respect the accord they signed with ASUU. That is the solution and the way forward. The dons are not asking for jumbo salaries or recognition as special breeds. What is due them must be given to them. We urge them to continue the strike action until justice is done to their cause.
In the end the broken education system must be saved from itself. Nigeria cannot afford, in the 21st century, to be turned into an illiterate nation! The academic paralysis must end now!
SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr
