Adamu, ASUU, should know that it is the future of Nigerian youths that is at stake
If the National Executive Council of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) meets on Sunday, August 28, 2022 and decides to continue with the industrial action, it would not come as surprise to as many. But the consequences will continue to remain dire on the system and standard.
To be clear, there does not seem to be any sense of urgency on the government and the striking lecturers to end the impasse. Both parties have allowed ego to take greater part of their engagements, accounting for the unceasing stalemate in their negotiations. In such situation, the students, the parents, the society at large and the future of the nation, continue to lose.
By the time the strike commenced on February 14, it appeared as an action that would ease off in a matter of days. But by next week, it would be entering into its 200th day and perhaps, counting.
This is the 17th strike in the series by ASUU since the commencement of the present civilian dispensation in 1999. In cumulative terms, the university system has lost two academic sessions within the period. It has to do with the failure of the Federal Government to renegotiate the agreement it signed with the teachers in 2009, the demand by the lecturers for the replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), as the payment platform in the university sector, among others.
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The teachers insist that IPPIS has never been implemented in any university system anywhere. Among its drawbacks, they say, is that it will shut the doors against foreign scholars, contract officers and researchers needed to be poached from existing universities to stabilize new ones.
But the Federal Government insists that the payment system is for transparency and neither intended to trample upon university autonomy nor designed to subsume the university into the civil service.
These are issues that can be resolved with openness of mind and sincerity of purpose by the two parties. But this is not the case. It is rather a matter of ego and haughty carriage by government officials detailed to negotiate with the striking lecturers.
At the heart of it all is living up to responsibility or the abdication of it. The maxim is that government is a continuum, which entails assumption of assets and liabilities left by a preceding administration. If this was not the case, ASUU as a body of intellectuals would not have been insisting on re-negotiating and implementing an agreement reached and signed with it in 2009 by the Federal Government.
What is required in getting over the debacle is openness of mind and commitment to agreements freely entered into. The truth is that the situation in an average Nigerian university, currently, is sordid, to put it mildly. The lecture halls are worse than modern day piggeries. Hostels are decrepit, while the libraries and laboratories look scarier than mortuaries. It will be hard for serious learning and research to thrive in such atmosphere.
In a system that bothers about its development and the future of its youths, the ongoing strike in the universities is a huge embarrassment. It is enough for the government to resign or give the officials responsible for the lapses, the boots. But the reverse is the case, here. For the senior officials of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the strike can as well last as long as it can, since they all have their children schooling abroad.
From Buhari to the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, down to the governors and the lawmakers at the state or federal levels, there are just few public office holders that do not have their wards studying outside the country.
Five of the President Buhari’s children attended prestigious universities in the United Kingdom – Buckingham University, University of Plymouth, University of Leicester and University of Surrey.
Osinbajo’s son, Fiyinfunoluwa graduated from Warwick University. The other day, Ebonyi state governor, Dave Umahi made a lavish photo show of one of his sons graduating from a university in the United Kingdom. Earlier on Thursday, April 28, social media platforms were lighted with pictures of Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai and his son, Ahmad, who bagged a degree from one of the universities in London. To celebrate the feat, El-Rufai was in London for the graduation ceremony.
Their predecessors, also had their children educated abroad. Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, had once, celebrated his daughter graduating from a foreign university. Former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who also served as governor of Kwara State, did same for his son in London School of Economics. Emeka Ihedioha, former governor of Imo state, was also in London recently with his graduating son.
It is all within their rights to train their children wherever they choose, as long as they have the means. Buhari even stressed it, when in response to a question by a foreign news medium on why his children were schooling in foreign lands and not in Nigerian universities, he said: “Because I can afford it.” Nobody begrudges them. But to rub it in on the people as the Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, recently did by asking the students affected by the industrial action to sue ASUU, is taking tomfoolery too far.
The minister was asked if the federal government had plans to compensate students affected by the strike. With a wave of the hand, he blurted; “Who do you assume will compensate students? The federal government? Probably you should take the leaders of strike unions to court to pay them. Probably the court will award damages and then, we’ll see how they pay.” That is Adamu doing what he seems to enjoy – unleashing arrogance on the people. Recall that he had once walked out on students who had visited him in his office to seek ways of ending the strike.
The Minister is a typical demonstration of the Buhari administration’s disdain for Nigerians. It is a terrible mindset that seeks to compel the people to show gratitude to the President and his aides for serving them. Buhari and his team have been getting away with this bizarre carriage all this while. But one thing is certain in the students being at home close to seven months running. It is Nigeria’s future that is being put on hold. And as Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, once observed, the society, the youth that are being neglected and abused today, will take revenge tomorrow.
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