For being paid “half-salary” for October, branches of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would embark on a one-day protest and boycott of classes. Each branch will, however, pick own protest date.
From jumbo strikes to one-day class boycotts — quite some cascade from the Olympian heights of sweeping ASUU strikes! Thank God for small mercies! Good sense appears setting in, though it’s early days yet.
Still, the thinking remains the same: rushing off on emotive and often tendentious presumptions, which many times become untenable beyond the passion of the moment. That still is not good enough, for dons who should be clinical and far more deliberative.
Take the alleged “half-salary”. ASUU claims it was paid half-salary. The Federal Government countered it paid “pro-rated salary”. If ASUU indeed worked for 15 or 16 days in October, then “pro-rated” would appear the more accurate tag; half-salary, the more emotive — and that is simple, basic, objective use of lexis.
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Though some lawyers have made the fine points of law that the Federal Government might have acted in error (citing technicalities about the nature of ASUU appointments, etc), these can only be valid and claimable after a court of competent jurisdiction affirms such. Before then, it’s rather tendentious for ASUU to fly on its “half-salary” whims when it was clear it worked for half-a-month.
Still, the lesson is gradually sinking in, which is a good thing. The old ASUU would have been roaring now, threatening the “mother of all strikes”. But that its reaction is a whimper — even if nevertheless driven by the strike principle — is quite instructive.
The government itself should clobber together some good faith (or more appropriately, some grace) to extend an olive branch. As mercy, it should look at how it could meet ASUU part of the way. That’s more or less the principle behind Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s intervention that eventually ended the strike.
But the snag here is ASUU can’t force mercy. It cannot, as of right, claim full salaries for nine months it didn’t work for — forget that self-serving claim that apart from teaching, its members also do research and community service.
Even then, whatever mercy the government shows must clearly not reward the bad conduct of long, disruptive strikes. This is imperative because next time the Aluta hot heads go on the offensive, the more moderate voices would weigh in with more restraint, citing the dire consequences of the last time.
The government itself, however, must never enter into agreements it has no cash to back up. Both sides should rather work as partners on common interests, not as sworn antagonists.
It’s time for fresh thinking across the aisle.