Just when we thought ASUU was on the verge of discussing the latest offer from the Federal Government after a crucial meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan aimed, perhaps at ending the almost five month old strike action tragedy struck. The government had offered the union N220 billion as against the N400 billion originally outlined in the 2009 agreement. The National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting to discuss the offer would have held last week in Kano, Kano State.
But Festus Iyayi, a University of Benin professor of Business Administration and onetime ASUU president and frontline member of the union was killed in a road accident involving the convoy of the Kogi State Governor Captain Idris Wada. Two other leaders of the union were, according to reports, critically injured and receiving treatment at the hospital. Prof. Iyayi alongside others was on his way to attend the meeting.
I asked the same question I asked when the late activist, Chuma Ubani died in an accident a few years ago: Why do those that often fight for social justice and equity in society sometimes die terrible deaths? As is often the case, how can a mere mortal like me proffer answer to a question that only God can answer?
That the late Iyayi died on his way to ASUU NEC is a testimony to his life-long commitment to the struggle for a better public university education system in Nigeria. Even after his two year stint as president of ASUU, he remained a vocal critic of government anti-poor education and economic policies; it was therefore little surprise that he was a prominent member of ASUU’s team negotiating with government the need to honour the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement.
I never had the privilege of meeting the late erudite professor, but I met him through his numerous writings and followed his trajectory right from my days in the secondary school. I have read two of his three novels; Violence, The Contract, and Heroes, as well as some of his collection of short stories. One of them, Awaiting Court Martial, exposes the abject penury and disenfranchisement that constitute the social reality of the majority of Nigerians.
The novel, Violence is, in some ways, an elucidation of the thoughts of Frantz Fanon in the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ in the manner that Ola Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not To Blame’ explained ‘Oedipus Rex’, an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. It is the story of a young man’s brave efforts to overcome unemployment and liberate his family from the clutches of poverty. It is also the story of his unwillingness to compromise his integrity in the face of daunting challenges in the form of sleaze and corruption characterising his society.
In language that is often vitriolic and stinging, Iyayi’s protagonists potently display his contempt for the rampant corruption that strangles contemporary Nigeria. Business persons, politicians, generals, top civil servants and other officials hoard the country’s wealth and power at the expense of the working class. Through his writings, he frowns at this base depravity of the ruling class.
The facts of the tragic accident make it clear that Iyayi was a direct victim of the recklessness, irresponsibility and impunity that characterise the exercise of power at every level of our government, this impunity is at an all-time high in this democratic dispensation. Most road users must have witnessed the thuggish behaviour of drivers in government convoys and many have indeed been killed or maimed by their reckless driving. Often, the ‘urgent matter of state’ for which the convoys break every traffic rule and brutalise citizens who happen to be on the road at the same time with them, is to convey their “Excellency’s” to a social function or on some personal errand.
What is really the essence of leadership? Is it not service? But here, we have – like every other thing – turned the concept on its head thereby making it lose its meaning. Isn’t it high time we demand an end to official convoys that flout with delight every traffic regulation and civilized behaviour on the roads built with our taxes and commonwealth?
Given the immediate circumstances of this tragic event, there have been calls in certain quarters – which I also support – for the Kogi State Attorney-General to bring charges against the offending driver for manslaughter. We are talking about a precious human life here and if done it will send a clear message to the federal and state governments and to all of the public functionaries who delight in the violent, often bloody, spectacle of official convoys. I spoke to a lawyer friend and he enjoined the Iyayi family to institute a civil action, in which one of the remedies would be punitive damages.
Agreed, this would not bring him back, but the sooner we start to take our sanity back by conducting ourselves in civilized manner with a high sense of decorum, the better things would be for us as a nation.
More importantly, Iyayi would not have been on that road were it not for the ASUU strike. Had the Federal Government understood its duty towards our public universities, and failing that, kept its commitment to ASUU in numerous agreements, then Iyayi, and his travelling colleagues lucky to have survived the accident – but now scarred for life by their close shave with death – would not have traveled for the purpose of deliberating on the Federal Government’s needlessly delayed offer to end the strike.
People who believe in the prophetic power of writers may thus find cause to, in retrospection, attach more importance to one of the popular statements from Iyayi’s novel, Heroes “… those who carry the cross for society always get crucified in the end …”
Prof. Iyayi saw life as a struggle. He believed that those who struggle must stand for the cause they believe in. This was part of what defined his relationship with ASUU. Whether he lost his job or jailed for the cause of ASUU, he stood by the union all through. A few weeks ago, he wore academic gown and demonstrated with his colleagues in Benin.
At least one thing stands out clearly from the struggles of Iyayi and his colleagues: the Federal Government now understands that the academics are not pushovers and will not just accept anything shoved down their throats, they have sent a clear signal that things should be done the right way. The Federal Government had an agreement with the union on implementing certain financial commitments to better the educational system for everybody, but instead of looking straight at the matter and dealing with it, they resorted to pandering and sentiments. I believe if things go the way ASUU wants; it would not just be a victory for them in this matter, but for the entire system.
I don’t share the emotions of the Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam that the strike was politicised. Far from it, we will miss the point if we fail to understand that the issue here is the signing and adherence to an agreement; every other thing derives from this. No doubt, this has made the government to realise that tertiary institutions have been neglected for so long and that is why the President himself had to join the negotiation with ASUU at the last resort and increase the funds earlier released.
Though at some point, ignorant people who do not fully understand the issues at stake lambasted the union for the prolonged action, but I’m glad with the late Iyayi and his colleagues for making their point which forced the government to meet some of their demands. At least, close to 80 per cent of ASUU demands have been met by the government. I need to however add that no meaningful negotiation is achieved if the parties stuck to their guns; the game is called give and take. That’s why it is called negotiation.
This notwithstanding, the question in almost everyone’s lip now is would this be the last ASUU strike? Only time and the commitment of the government can answer this question. The scholar of repute would have died in vain if this strike should continue beyond this moment or happens again in the near future over the same issue of funding of our university system.
