Seven months into the industrial action by Nigerian university lecturers, there appears to be no solution in sight. Committees have been set up many times, while neither side of the dispute appears prepared to make the critical concessions that would break the logjam.
Eminent Nigerians and academics like Wale Babalakin, Prof. Munzali Jibril and Prof. Nimi Briggs have headed panels to restore peace to the ivory towers to no avail since negotiations started in 2019. A new panel headed by the Minister of Education. Malam Adamu Adamu, comprising chairmen of the governing councils of the public federal universities and some vice-chancellors, has been set up to explore solutions to the grey areas.
It’s unfortunate that a government that assumed office on the promise that it was willing to turn things round has been unable to do so in education. Indeed, it appears the Muhammadu Buhari administration has little respect for education. Otherwise, it should not have been so difficult to demonstrate goodwill that would have impressed the university teachers to throw in the towel.
The point must be made that the lecturers are ordinarily fighting a good cause. WE must also stress that the lecturers must learn to come to terms that the university as an institution must develop ideas that can enforce its status as an autonomy. they should not always expect government to feed them. No one is proud of the state of facilities in our public tertiary institutions. The utilities are grossly inadequate for staff and students, auditoriums have become substandard and unsatisfactory, teacher-student ratio cannot make for quality dedication, laboratories lack reagents, even security can no longer be guaranteed on the campuses. the dependency on government is also contrived by government and lecturers seem to see government as the answer to all good.
These are notorious facts that require the attention of any serious government and the ASUU. Bringing in veterans in the sector like Professor Jubril Aminu, Professor Peter Okebukola and Professor Olufemi Bamiro as elders who could be accepted as neutral mediators is a welcome development. However, the Federal Government should demonstrate manifest good faith. Over the years, government had entered into agreements it had no intention of implementing, leaving the institutions in the same or worse shape. The seven months of strike this year, coming so soon after students were made to lose one session in 2020 to a strike must count for something. There was an agreement in 2019, a review in 2020 and another that produced a Memorandum of Action in 2021, yet nothing has changed.
But, ASUU, too, should appreciate the precarious state of the economy. It would yield no good fruit if the economy is made to collapse at this point in time. We agree with President Buhari that it serves no good purpose for government to accede to all ASUU demands only to renege on them. It’s good that both sides have now seen reason to resume negotiation and meet at some point. Both parties have already agreed that salaries of university workers have to be reviewed. While the Briggs panel recommended more than 100 per cent increase, the Federal Government has proposed 23.5 per cent for staff below the professorial cadre, and 35 per cent for professors. We hope it has not all boiled down to salaries and allowances of the lecturers. Up till now, in spite of face-off, the public does not know the dynamic of the negotiations and who has shifted ground and at what points.
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The pledge to release N150 billion to the universities in 2023, and N50 billion in the first quarter of the year can impress no one as this government would be preparing to quit the stage then. Something must be done now, not just next year.
It’s a shame that the situation has forced some of the students out of the system and may not return. Men and women of goodwill, alumni of Nigerian universities, should wade in now to save the system. The country needs universities to produce top-level manpower, as well as researches that could accelerate development. Unless the decline is arrested now, the expectation that Nigeria will soon join the league of developed countries will remain a pipe dream.