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Academia Vs The State: The Peoples Jeopardy By Ahmadu Aliyu
It was on March 26, 2007 that the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) resume an indefinite nation-wide strike. This was made known in a communiqué signed at the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Union, which held on 24-25 March 2007. This decision was precipitated by the non-compliance of Federal Government to the June 30, 2001 FGN/ASUU Agreement.
This agreement was targeted at resuscitating the deteriorating conditions and rot of Nigerian Universities, which has led to continuous brain drain of our professional within the academic circle. While federal government maintained that the problem could be solve through salary consolidation; however, sadly enough, the salary consolidation did not take into cognizance the structure of our university system. This according to ASUU chairman: “it is an insult on our intelligence”.
However, the despicable sights of our universities and other institutions of higher leaning call for an urgent attention. Great civilizations, like the Arabian civilization laid emphasis on the quality of reasoning found in their madarassa (schools). Here, knowledge is so cherished that the society place possessor of it on a higher plane. Sometimes they are invited into the palace to dine and wine with the elders. This is predicated on the fact that: a sound mind is an enlightened mind.
Today, other nation of the world holds education of its citizens a prior. In Switzerland and, France, Japan, Russia, china, Libya, Cuba, United Kingdom etc, all proclaim education a basic human right which the state take upon itself to provide to its citizens, knowing fully that human resources is the engine room of development, growth and social transformation.
Thus, someone may rationally ask: why has subsequent military and present “democratic” regimes in Nigeria take academia with a pinch of salt? A flashback at imperial domination of Nigeria revel that only clerical staff were trained to assist the imperial lords in daily exploitation of the local people. Surprisingly, we are “independent” and education is still receiving unenthusiastic attention from the government. For eight years, the fragile monocultural Nigerian economy has been receding despite the so-called macro-economic reform. Our policy makers are yet to understand that dependence on oil revenue only is a big clog in the wheel of sustainable growth and development of the Nigerian state. The agricultural sector has received, but only lip service. Hence, we must gravitate back to the base; the academia the research centers, institution of higher learning, to simply put: our Universities. They must be resuscitated to face the challenges of modern trends.
It is obvious that the idea of importation of finished products from Europe and America would in no way solve our problem of underdevelopment and backwardness. In fact, the new trends of globalization of information and goods on the other end of it have also aggravated polarization and poverty; unequal exchanges through international investment are all bent on pauperizing the receiving nations including the Nigerian state. Why should we sell our crude oil to European countries at the same time re-import the finished goods at higher price?
This is absolutely absurd and unjust! We seem to forget history so soon. The imperial domination of this country was characterized by same trend of exploitation. Food and cash crop produce were shipped from Nigeria with the use of forced labour to Europe and America in a triangular route; sold at exorbitant prices.
For how long will this unjust circle of exploitation continue before we learn our lesson? For how long will the state continue to play a second fiddle role and for how long will the economy, politics and “general will” of this nation depend on external influences? This is the reason why government should as a matter of urgency hacking the voice of ASSU and other organized labour unions. Take a reappraisal of its policies and come to the aid of pauperized million of docile, helpless masses of this country who live from hand to month and always at the receiving end of the whole imbroglio. This set of people are the majority whose vote were recently subverted; some were coerced to sale their mandates for a paltry sum of N100. They have no choice but to sale their votes to at least sustain their lively-hood. The lives of Nigerians have been endangered in the last four years of the second phase of Obasanjo’s administration. This was done through the so-called economic reforms; engendered by global rugged capitalism, living Nigerians poorer than they were before the inception of this ungodly regime.
With it new found love for liberalization and outright sales of all public enterprises in lime with the neo-liberal ideology that is rooted in materialism, promoted by IMF and Britons wood institutions: the federal government has sold virtually all public enterprises; living Nigerians’ to pay through their nose for services that maximum satisfaction is in no way derived! The federal government is continuously “rolling back” the frontiers of state apparatuses living it expose to the vamparic private sector.
However, it has completely eluded that memories of the “intellectuals” that form government economic team that the essence of the state in a neo-liberal economy is to provide an enabling environment for the smooth operation of the private sector while protecting its citizens from the vagaries of the “invisible hand” which may lead to few individual controlling state resources. As stated under the fundamental objectives and directive principle of state policy in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: “that the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individual or of a group Alas! On the contrary admits this harsh economic policies, Nigerians in recent years have witnessed movement of funds abroad by few individuals instead of real investment at home, particularly in the human resources.
Thus, government has found it impossible to look within, tape the mineral resources abound in all the geo-political zones of the country and develop her human resources. More so empower the knowledge class through adequate funding of our universities and institution of higher learning. However, for the academia the challenges are enormous. It lies on their abilities to use the lecture theatre and classrooms more effectively to consciencetise, socialize and if possible subvert policies they consider inimical to Nigerian citizenry; as demonstrated in the first republic by Nigerian students and academia against Balewa’s government (i.e. the violent demonstrations by members of the academic community against the Anglo-Nigerian Defense Pact of 1961)
Hence, Nigerian academia must learn from Dr Ali Shariati, the prolific Iranian scholar, who use the class rooms and lecture theaters not only to attract students who registered in his summer classes but also many thousands of people from different background who were fascinated by his teachings in the pre-revolutionary Iranian Universities. It can be said of him without exaggeration that while the Mulla directed and lead the revolution, Shariati prepared the ground for it. This he did by presenting the challenges of martyrdom in a way, which fixed the imagination and enthusiasm of Ianian youths, many of whom have remain loyal servant of the revolution. A retrospect into the Iranian revolution, how “faith” subverted a kind while the “faith” was far away in France, depict that only the knowledge class (the academia) that can change the sober antecedents of a state rule by whims and caprices of men instead of rule by law.
Needless to say, there is the urgent need for the academia to take up the challenges if we really want a change our dear country is in the hands of home “imperialist” with glittering looks, but ready to loot the resources of the state at any slightest chance. It is only by the concerted effort of the academia supported by the civil society that a new social order can be created where equity justice and fairness prevail.
Ahmadu Aliyu, formally the President, National Association of Political Science Students, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. P O Box: 8541, Kaduna State
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