Dr Dele Ashiru, Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, UNILAG Chapter, in this interview with Gboyega Alaka, explains the critical issues in the ongoing nationwide industrial action by his colleagues and why the union is not backing down.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NAUS) last week gave the Federal Government 48 hours to settle all issues with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) or face nationwide protest. This is like the first time the students are literally getting involved in your struggle. Why is this so?
It is a historic role which they have missed for some time now. As you are aware, students and lecturers are partners in the business of knowledge production. Today’s students will become lecturers tomorrow, so it is in their own enlightened interest to ensure that government stops the mortgage of their future, invest heavily in education as a prelude to the advancement of their own career and development of the Nigerian society. Bear in mind that no nation can rise above its educational advancement, therefore, remaining docile when lecturers are on strike is not in the interest of the Nigerian students. And so, this new found love, to join in the struggle for a better education system by our students, is a welcome development. When I was a student, I remember that each time ASUU was on strike, we were always on the street to call on the government to accede to their demands.
In the days of Military President Ibrahim Babangida, you would have been accused of brainwashing the students.
What we have only tried to do is to enlighten both our students and the Nigerian people about the danger in leaving government to destroy the university system. What government is trying to do is to make access to university education available only to those who can pay. If we allow that to happen, it means that majority of some of our students today, may not be able to return to the universities.
If I get it right, this strike is based on government not fulfilling an agreement freely entered into with ASUU. What exactly are these issues in brief?
When we signed that agreement in 2009, it was based on four cardinal principles. The first is what we call the Condition of Service for those who teach in the university system. Reason for this is that university teachers in Nigeria have been receiving the same salary since 2009. Compare the price of rice in 2009 and now. And that is why we are clamouring for a review of that agreement. The second pillar of that agreement is what we call Funding for Revitalisation of the University System. What we are referring to is the commitment of the government to expand teaching and infrastructural facilities in our universities. The same classrooms that were used in teaching 30, 35 students some 15, 20 years ago, are the same classrooms used in teaching a thousand students today. You find universities don’t have journals in their library; some are still using stoves as Bunsen burners, and they still expect these same universities to do miracles by conducting cutting edge researches. So our union is insisting that if we must make our universities globally competitive, government must fund education, such that better accommodation facilities are provided and learning and teaching aids are up to date.
The third principle is what we call University Autonomy and Academic Freedom. But since we signed that agreement, government has done more to repudiate university’s autonomy than to grant it. Indeed, the introduction of IPPIS was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The implication of IPPIS is that no single university can decide who to employ as university teachers. All of them would have to go cap in hand to the Head of Civil Service in Abuja to recruit a lecturer. And there is nowhere in the world where that practice or practices exist.
The fourth pillar deals with other issues that have to do with our pensions, academic allowances, and other matters related to the three items above.
So we are agitating that the government should review that agreement in order to make it relevant to today’s reality.
On the IPPIS, the general opinion out there is that the lecturers don’t want to align with the federal government on the way they want to run their universities.
It is not even correct to say ‘how they want to run their universities.’ The universities belong to the Nigerian people; and those in government are supposed to be servants of the Nigerian people. But the situation in Nigeria today is that your servants are becoming our masters. When they were campaigning for votes, were they behaving like our masters? They begged us to give them that job, now they are treating us like slaves. In civilised societies, people who run the states are public servants. They are supposed to listen to the yearnings of the people and implement policies that will ameliorate their sufferings. But here in Nigeria, we have a group of people who laud themselves over us; and we are the docile citizenry who accept every rubbish they throw at us. As a union of intellectuals, we are saying that we cannot take nonsense from government, and that as workers, we have a right to negotiate how we want to be paid, as it done all over the world. As I speak with you, some of our colleagues have not received 17, 18 months’ salary, because they put them on the IPPIS. And government don’t want us to talk about it. You are beating somebody and you are saying he shouldn’t cry. What kind of thing is that?
ASUU president, Professor Osodeke the other day said that if ASUU stops fighting, Nigerian universities will die. A lot of people have countered that that is an exaggeration; they argue that the battle is more about their salary and other things are just to glorify it.
When our president speaks, we don’t review it, he has told you the way it is. If we have not been struggling the way we have been doing, government would have killed our universities. As we speak, can you send your kids to a public primary or secondary school? Why? Because government has spoilt it! And we are saying that if are not compelling government to fund the universities, they would have killed them as well, so that their own universities that they are establishing could thrive. Obasanjo has a university, Atiku has a university. Only last week, one of their co-collaborators started canvassing that universities should be concessioned, like they did NEPA, so that those who have money can buy it. If that happens, the implication is that the children of poor people would not have the opportunity to attend universities. In a country N30,000 minimum wage, can a man raise N750,000 even if he saves the whole of his salary? ASUU is saying no, that education must be assessable to any brilliant student, who acquires the relevant requirement, irrespective of whether the father can pay or not. That is the way to go in a society that desires development.
All points notwithstanding, Nigerian – parents and students, are hoping that ASUU should be willing to shift ground on their demands, so that kids can be back in school. Some of the students spoken to at the games want lectures to resume once the games are over.
It’s unfortunate that the some students are thinking like that. What we are saying is that if we allow things to go on as it is, the student have one of these two choices: they either endure this temporary delay, so that they can go back to school and get quality education or we allow government to do what they want to do, so that 75 percent of them will not be able to come back to the university.