Our Lecturers Have Gone Mad Again

By

Maikudi Abubakar Zukogi

mandzukogisawaba@yahoo.com

ASUU, the umbrella body of the university academics in Nigeria, is at it again. They have proved over and over again that the government is incapable of keeping a promise; any promise which involves a subordinate party. And because it is ever willing to demonstrate this fact for the upteenth time, it has decided to call its members to do what it knows best to do-strike- after waiting for two years to get it to honour its own side of the bargain but to no avail. This character of the government, our government, not to keep its words has unfortunately becomes a national badge, such that even the hitherto unsuspecting public is able to tell that when government says something, it actually means the opposite of that thing. It is sad that this new administration which promises a breath of fresh air is unable to reverse this sore spot which has become emblematic of our governments. And this is where madness comes in. It is always a madman, and woman, who stake his neck in something- and in the case of our academics- an ideal which is unattainable. It is not that these ideals of a humane and functional society, including sustaining well equipped and well staffed universities, are not attainable. It is just that our idea of governance is always in contradistinction to the norms of governance in a true democracy. The truth is that this self inflicted weakness has become so manifest even millions of unsuspecting public out there have come to the painful conclusion, even resignation, that this poignant contradiction is irreversible. Hence, it is not audacity but sheer madness to continue to fight for a reversal of this seemingly irremediable contradiction as ASUU is doing, and has kept on doing without commensurate result. Isn't it a psychological fact that a normal human being relapses into feats of madness once in a while? Is it then news if we say that our lecturers have gone mad again in a society where you really have to go mad to get going? What is it that has changed in relative terms since Fela sang his timeless song, Ojuelegba? Isn't our country now a giant Ojuelegba with all the gridlocks and contradictions sending our significantly jobless but productive population into insanity? It is also a fact that so many Nigerians have always avoided discussing their dear country for fear that they will suffer a relapse of nagging migraine. So it shows that some people have to be mad for our country to keep its head. And who are better poised to take this sacrifice of madness than the university academics whose task is it to mould the mind of the individual, Nigerians, so that the harmony between learning and character prepares them to go into the larger society? And the university academics are not all saints without blemishes and shortcomings. If government creates the right environment and the wherewithal for the academics to function, these blemishes will easily disappear and government will be properly positioned to take appropriate action, including of course flushing dead woods in the system. If you may then ask, what is it again that ASUU is asking for?

ASUU finally got the Federal government to sign a renegotiated agreement of the 2001 FGN/ASUU Agreement in 2009, after what Professor Omotoye Olorode described as the longest FGN/ASUU Negotiation. Since 1992 when the Jega- led ASUU leadership forced the IBB Administration to sign the first significant agreement to reverse the brain drain of university academics, a clause is always inserted to make the agreement available for review after every three years. Thus, it took ASUU eight grueling years to get the Federal government to sign the renegotiated agreement of 2001 in 2009. In between these years, ASUU has had to deal with not less than five Ministers of Education who will need eternity to digest briefs and to prepare for a new round of subterfuge, culminating in the birthday bashing Minister, Dr Sam Egwu. ASUU was criticized and blackmailed in the cause of the fight to get the agreement signed at a great cost to the union, the sacrifice of its members and the personal comfort of its negotiating team who were always on the road even at short notices. Two years on, the agreement was implemented in the breach than in the norm. The agreement captures the core issues of conditions of service, salaries and emoluments; funding of Nigerian universities; university autonomy and academic freedom, etc. The first act of government to deflate a supposedly agreed document was to go on air through Dora Akunyili, the most loquacious Minister of Information in recent Nigerian history, to the effect that 75 percent of the issues in the agreement had been resolved, and the faces of our newspapers were a washed with what was clearly a dummy. The core issue, which for ASUU is more important than salaries and emoluments that are used to blackmail it, is funding of the universities. The UNESCO benchmark remains 26 percent of annual budgets but Nigeria's annual budget to education came down to as pitifully low as 3 percent in 2009. The draft agreement estimates that all federal universities between 2009 and 2011 require N1.6 trillion to function as a true semblance of a university worth the name. Even as government consider this bill as totally impossible, Professor Olorode estimates that Nigerian leaders and their minions stole over N64 trillion from the coffers of government in the last fourty years.

Thus far, ASUU argues that government implemented only some aspects of the conditions of service, university autonomy and academic freedom, some tranches of support through the ETF, but is yet to address core funding obligations contained in the agreement. There is also the issue of the retirement age for Professors which is pegged at 70 years, and responsibility and earned allowances. The estimation is that if funding is significantly increased for all the universities, it will not only improve the quality of teaching and research, but will also increase the carrying capacity of the universities, thus improving access. For instance, in the 2011/2012 UTME, a total of 44,000 candidates applied to Bayero as a first choice university but only 17,000 were invited for the Post UME examination. Out of this total, only less than 5,000 will be admitted. This is true of all federal universities. Instead of addressing the core issue of funding which has been the bane of the universities and which has prevented them from competing favourably even with sister universities within the African sub continent, the government went ahead to create nine additional universities. What logic informed this decision other than politics? Politics has ruined core government institutions and this fact was attested to by the President himself in his speech at the 51st independence anniversary lecture. Politics has already dealt a deadly blow to the primary and post primary education, so that terrible and frightening reports of mass failure is being reported at every examination, in spite of SUBEB, ETF, MDG and other sundry funds from development partners. Nine brand new universities and new budgeting of funds that is allegedly not there. By our sheer size, we can never have enough universities, but it is logical that government should put its money where its mouth is, especially when substantial amount of this money is constantly being trafficked outside of its designated destination. Government must have received tremendous goodwill and thunderous applause from the communities which benefitted from this kind gesture, but the reality is that existing universities still suffer from massive infrastructural deficit and municipal problems such as lack of power, water and access roads. Empty and moribund laboratories, inadequate and ill equipped lecture theatres with 600 to 1000 students crammed together with half of the size standing outside is a reality that cannot wished away. And so because ASUU insists that the agreement government freely signed with it should be respected, frustrated Nigerians, majority of them parents of students in these universities, consider ASUU's act as squeezing water out of stone. Nigerians have for long resigned to fate that the desired change and regeneration will take place in their life time. It is not a crime anywhere in the world to ask governments to stand up to honour and respect its words. This is what ASUU is asking for, and that is why it is ready to use the only tool and language that our government understands. Remember, in spite of everything, these same universities which ASUU is fighting for help to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Professor Charles Soludo, Mansur Mukhtar, Okonjo-Iweala, Nasir El-Rufai, Professor Pate, Jega, and most of all, the president himself. And the teachers and Professors who help to produce these people are still out there doing what they know how to do best- imparting knowledge.

 Happy 51st Independence anniversary, Nigerians.