The Nation Newspaper

Tag: ASUU STRIKE

  • ASUU strike: UNIPORT, MOUAU, UNICAL express frustration

    ASUU strike: UNIPORT, MOUAU, UNICAL express frustration

    Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) branch, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike [MOUAU] branch and University of Calabar branch have stated that university lecturers in Nigeria are going through frustrations.

    ASUU members in the three universities are also fully participating in the one-week warning strike declared by the national leadership of the union.

    UNIPORT’s branch of ASUU, yesterday in Port Harcourt, through its Vice Chairperson, Dr. Eze Wosu, accused the federal government of insensitivity to the plight of Nigerian university lecturers.

    ASUU members in UNIPORT said: “The warning strike is to draw attention of government and members of the public to the frustrations university lecturers have been going through, due to pending issues in the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement and the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which has not been implemented.”

    UNIPORT’s branch of ASUU also revealed that the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union had made efforts in the last 18 months to meet with representatives of government over the raised issues, stating that all the efforts had been rebuffed.

    ASUU MOUAU branch also said they are joining their colleagues for the strike to force the federal government to revitalise the MoU they signed with the union since November 2013.

    The stand of the union MOUAU was made known in Umuahia through a statement signed by its chairman, Dr Uzochukwu Onyebinama, and Secretary, Dr Etebom Willie.

    Also, the chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Calabar branch, Dr Tony Eyang, yesterday said the application of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to universities in the country was stifling the running of the institutions.

    Addressing reporters at the institution as they joined the nationwide one-week warning strike, he said the TSA was not designed with the running of the universities in mind.

    Also a statement signed by Eyang and the Secretary of the Union, Dr Jonas Akung, made available to The Nation, read in part: “It is with deep pains that we address you on the agonizing state of our nation as it concerns the educational sector, particularly the university system. As intellectuals, we remain avowed to our responsibility to society, part of which is the intervention role to ensure that the ship of state does not sink.”

     

  • Hold FG responsible for strike, says ASUU

    Hold FG responsible for strike, says ASUU

    …Bayelsa varsity deserted

     

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Wednesday, asked parents, students and other stakeholders to direct their grievances against the strike declared by the union to the Federal Government.

    Speaking through its chapter in the Bayelsa State-owned Niger Delta University (NDU), ASUU insisted that the industrial action was for the best interest of development of tertiary education in the country.

    Investigations revealed that NDU chapter of ASUU complied fully with the strike as lecturers’ deserted classrooms and their offices.

    Students were also seen leaving the campus with their luggage in droves following stoppage of all academic activities in the school.

    Addressing a press conference at the school’s auditorium, the NDU chapter Chairman of ASUU, Dr. Stanley Ogoun, said the union would resist any attempt by politicians, who had started the business of running private universities, to kill public institutions.

    He said the docility of stakeholders was the reason why state governments and politicians destroyed primary and secondary schools.

    Ogoun said: “We call on students, parents and the ordinary people of Nigeria to understand that our actions are geared towards resisting and frustrating the attempt by the ruling class to commercialize and privatize university education in Nigeria.

    “We will resist every attempt to kill the university system the way they killed primary and secondary schools. If we fail to stand on the side of truth, posterity will not forgive us.

    “Before now, we were receiving subventions to run the universities, but now they are withdrawing the subventions. Most state universities are almost grounded why political actors are floating private universities”, he said.

    He said the Federal Government jettisoned agreements it reached with the union adding that the 2009 agreement was to be reviewed every three years.

    Ogoun said: “The current state of the economy is manmade and the government of the day must live up to its responsibilities by initiating policy options that would move us out of our current economic state, except the government is bereft of ideas”.

    Explaining the series of strikes embarked upon by the union in 2009 and 2013, he lamented that most aspects of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it signed with the government had not been implemented.

    He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, this current action is compelled by failure of negotiations and several entreaties from our union since 2004 till date and the current trend in some states where staff salaries are sacrificed on the altar of other exigencies”.

    He listed the reasons behind the strike as non-release of funds for revitalization of public universities; non-release of subventions to state universities by the visitors and non-payment of staff salaries and  refusal to issue license for the registration of the Nigerian University Pension Management Company (NUPEMCO).

    Others according to him were refusal to pay Earned Academic Allowances (EAA); shortfall in salaries leading to payment of fractions of staff salaries; non-payment of salaries of staff in the staff primary schools and exemption of universities from the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

  • LASU lecturers join ASUU warning strike

    LASU lecturers join ASUU warning strike

    Lecturers of the Lagos State University (LASU) on Wednesday complied with the one-week nationwide warning strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

    The Chairman, ASUU, LASU Chapter, Dr Isaac Oyewunmi told newsmen in Lagos that academic activities in the university had been paralysed.

    Oyewunmi said that LASU lecturers’ compliance to the strike directive was total.
    He said that the chapter held a congress on Tuesday to discuss the strike and that a notice was sent to its members and the university management on the commencement of the strike.

    “There is no report of any infraction within the chapter; all members have complied as directed by the national body,’’ the chairman said.

    Miss Stella Nwachukwu, a student of the university’s Department of Microbiology, said that the strike was unfortunate, saying that it would affect students.

    Nwachukwu urged the Federal Government to meet with the ASUU leaders and honour the agreement it had with the union in 2009 to stop the strike.

    ASUU had declared the warning strike ‎on Tuesday to press home its demand for implementation of an agreement it reached with the Federal Government in 2009.

  • Protest in UniAbuja over ASUU strike

    Protest in UniAbuja over ASUU strike

    Students of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) yesterday protested the strike by the university chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

    The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian University (SSANU) has also joined in the strike.

    As early as 8am the university’s main gate was locked, preventing movement of people in and out of the campus.

    It took the efforts of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. James Adelabu, to calm the situation and he assured the protesting students that everything would be done to resolve the situation. He advised them to be orderly.

    ASUU has vowed to continue the strike, until the government and the institution’s governing council resolve these issues – the White Paper, check off dues and sundry claims, arrears owed lecturers, restoration of promotion process and constitution of various committees.

    But Adelabu denied the allegations levelled against the leadership of the institution.

    He said the check up dues and other allowances ASUU was demanding for have been paid with their salaries.

    His words: “The check up due is now paid with their salaries and ASUU knows about this development. Why don’t they take the check up dues from their salaries and go and pay?  On the issue of allowances, there are no allowances approved by government that I am holding unto.

    “The public has not been told the truth. The problem is the sharing formula of all the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Things must be done according to the law. ASUU has its ulterior motive. Don’t forget this trouble has been there for over two years now.”

    But ASUU Chairman Ben Ugheoke said: “Adelabu is lying. He has not paid the check up dues since April last year. He said we should be paying it ourselves.

    “The Trade Union Act Section 16 (1) states that every employer shall pay check up dues on behalf of every registered union that operates under it.”

  • There is no cause for ASUU strike, says LASU VC

    There is no cause for ASUU strike, says LASU VC

    The Vice Chancellor, Lagos State University (LASU),  Prof John Oladapo Obafunwa, has said there is no justification for the indefinite strike declared on Tuesday by the university’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Obafunwa, who spoke through LASU PRO Kayode Sutton, said it was not too late for ASUU to backpedal on its decision. In this interview with ADEGUNLE OLUIGBAMILA, Obafunwa also debunk insinuations that the recent inauguration of the Lagos State University Students Union (LAUSUSU) was to frustrate ASUU’s planned strike.

    There are insinuations that the management deliberately inaugurated the SU to nip ASUU strike in the bud.

    That cannot be true! The Student Union Government was sworn in on May 2, not because management really wanted it like that, but it was simply circumstantial.

    You will recall that on January 20, there was an election that produced the present executive, and it was a landmark event that witnessed the first e-voting facilitated by the management and was also lauded by speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly Ikuforiji. The management wouldn’t have allowed the election in the first place if it was opposed to it. But on the 23rd of same month, there was a protest in LASU that saw the entire students out of the campus, and the school was shut.

    Remember, the school was reopened in three phases; the first set of students came in on February 28, and those were the final year students. The second phase was the fresh students and that came in and did their matriculation. The 200/300 level students were the last to write their exam and actually finished penultimate Friday. So, we felt that Friday  April 24 was the most appropriate day the SU can be inaugurated because most students were on ground and we knew once they go on break after their exam it would be difficult for their inauguration again. And do not forget that the decision for the resumption was in conjunction with the Lagos State House of Assembly which waded into the January crisis, did estimate of damaged items and recommended the resumption.

    Why has LASU management unable to resolve the tuition despite repeated agitations by students and ASUU?

    There was a Visitation Panel that was brought into it and made recommendation part of which was an increase in tuition. The problem is beyond the vice chancellor. He can’t do it not because he is unwilling but because he doesn’t have what it takes to do it. When government came in with a panel, students and workers supported it because everybody was clamouring for change. If you now say what the government has offered (tuition) is on the high side, we can sit down at a roundtable and say this is what we want and overtime we will get results.  Now if the students say they don’t want it, then there must be correspondents, or a way to prompt the governor; and he was magnanimous enough to bring students and others stakeholders to as roundtable. The governor has collected the proposal and will still need to sit on it.

    (Cuts) But ASUU says management is hardliner and does not want to accommodate divergent views.

    That is not true. In this instance, the idea we are talking about is that I cannot reverse it as a Vice-chancellor. It takes a process.

    On the part of VC, he is simply saying, the people have taken up a stance by sending a proposal.  You, as an academic staff, you can equally do same rather than grounding the institution. All of these things take a process; it has to go back to the cabinet where that decision was ratified. We have a listening government. I cannot determine how long but what I know is that in due course things are going to work

    Do you agree that there are three outstanding issues?

    There are three main issues: reversal or reduction of tuition, University Miscellaneous Provision Act approved by President Jonathan in 2012 increasing retirement age 65 to 70 implemented. I know some universities have done that but the question is: Did they achieve that using strike? The third one is the ‘no vacancy; no promotion’ there is nothing like that. But what I know is that some people were promoted last year, that simply says there was promotion. This year 256 positions have been declared for ASUU. So there have been vacancies and promotion.

    As ASUU is hell bent on the strike, what message has the management for them?

    We are appealing to ASUU not to go on strike. This is not the best time; in fact we don’t really need it. LASU has suffered and has been battered enough.  LASU is on its way to achieveing greater things if this planned strike is reversed. This university has not been positively reported enough. Other universities hear mostly negative things about LASU. ASUU should consider the plights these students under which we are all here. We don’t want our students to stay in school longer than expected.  It is true that there are issues; but do not make the university the battleground.

  • Nigeria’s many managers

    Nigeria’s many managers

    Impatience of some Nigerians over the ASUU strike shows the incurable minimalist in us 

    Nigeria is blessed with managers, many managers. Indeed, she has a surfeit of them that she can even export to other nations that are not so blessed. The only issue is that such nations must be ready to look for solution to the problem associated with too many managers. Too many managers are like too many cooks: they spoil the broth. As a matter of fact, Nigeria is the way she is as a result of the problem of the too many managers.

    It is so serious that almost everyone in the country has perfected the art of ‘managing’, such that you start wondering whether companies need the services of managing directors. If you greet some people and ask them: ‘how are things’, they will simply tell you: ‘we are managing’. There are numerous other examples that space would not permit me to cite. Another common one is when the husband gives money for the family’s upkeep to the wife and she complains as women are won’t to do that it is not enough, he tells her to ‘manage’. Meanwhile, the same husband who is asking madam in the house to manage is busy spoiling the concubine/s with money.

    Sadly, this is the story of our dear country, Nigeria. We see and smell affluence all over the people who were asking the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to go and ‘manage’ at a point during their just ended strike. The same people who are adding to our yoke by raising tariffs on cars and rice are the same people buying bullet-proof cars for themselves at highly inflated costs. Yet, they say there is no money to fund education adequately. In other words, ASUU should go and ‘manage’. What a bundle of contradictions!

    This is my first piece since the ASUU members began their strike on July 1, and deliberately so. The strike ended on Tuesday. Indeed, inspiration for this write-up came from the discussion between a colleague of mine and one of the people who read his piece on the ASUU strike about three weeks ago. The reader had told my colleague that now that the Federal Government had offered the university teachers something, they should at least ‘go and manage’ that. Needless to say that my colleague was visibly angry. Indeed, every rational person who knows the value of education and who also knows that it is not that the government does not have the means to make the education sector better but is hampered by several leakages which bother essentially on corruption, should.

    Almost immediately, I remembered also the story of Major Adewale Ademoyega, who was detained after the Civil War. At a point, the food in the prison got exhausted or something, and when he approached the prison warder for what to eat, the warder told him to ‘manage’. The answer became so monotonous and meaningless to Ademoyega who got irritated at a point and told the warder that he was ready to ‘manage’ whatever was available, but at least there must be something on offer. But in a situation where nothing was available, ‘what would I manage’? The warder replied in the usual manner, ‘oga, just go and manage’! That was in the 1970s. The fact that some people were asking ASUU to ‘go and manage’ in the midst of plenty, and in this age, shows that many of us are incurable minimalists.

    When the lecturers began the strike, it was clear that it was going to be a long one. The issues could not be expected to be resolved immediately, given the antecedents. But hardly did anyone know that it would last for more than five months. But that was good because whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

    There must have been some hidden costs of the strike, no doubt, because when students who are supposed to be in school are not, and for so long, without being on holiday, anything could have happened. As the saying goes, ‘an idle hand is the Devil’s workshop’. Aside from these hidden costs, social and otherwise, we know that the strike led to the sack of the minister of education who was in charge when the strike started, as if she was the issue. Perhaps the greatest cost we know of is the death of that erudite scholar, Prof Festus Iyayi, who died on the way to Kano for a meeting related to the struggle.

    Sad as this was, we may be killing several other Iyayis silently if nothing is done to change the face of university education in Nigeria. A situation where some people, simply because they are politicians, would flaunt ill-gotten wealth and be living in the midst of plenty whereas universities are underfunded should not be allowed to continue forever. Otherwise, we would be inculcating the wrong values in our youths. So much money is being stolen in this country because many people are not asking for their rights. If every Nigerian keeps asking for what his due to him or her, politicians and their friends who are making the country bleed profusely would have little to steal.

    One may pity those who talk of ASUU ‘managing’ whatever the government has given it if only they belong to the new generation of Nigerians who were not privileged to know what some of our universities looked like years back, but not those who knew the citadels of learning when they were universities properly so-called. I recall with nostalgia, the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos where I had my first degree; how we used to see the glass windows and doors in the department ‘sweat’, as it were, from the effects of the ultra-cold air conditioners in the department. I recall the same of the law faculty in the university and a few other departments and faculties there, most of which are today a shadow of what they used to be. It was like that all over the place; and, instead of the government addressing the serious issue of infrastructural deficit on the campuses, it kept on establishing more glorified secondary schools that it calls universities.

    Shouldn’t we be bothered that we can only know when our children gain admission into the universities; we have no idea of when they will finish even though we know the duration of their programmes? Shouldn’t we be bothered that none of our universities is among the first 1,000 in the world? Shouldn’t we be bothered that we keep churning out graduates, many of them unemployable? Yet, people are talking of ‘managing’.

    Now, the same Federal Government that keeps saying there is no money has coughed up something. It may not solve all the problems; at least it is a good beginning. What it means is that if ASUU had not insisted on having it right, the N1.1trn that the government promised to commit to public universities over a five-year period might have ended up in some private pockets or spent on white elephant projects. Your guess is as good as mine, especially with general elections only one year away. People must learn to insist on having their dues. It is when they don’t that some people in government see the money they should have spent for our collective good as free funds that they can steal or spend anyhow. As we jocularly say in my place, ‘ko s’obo mo ni Idanre’ (there are no more fools in Idanre); the last fool there, when last I checked, was using an exotic jeep.

    It is gratifying that ASUU, unlike Major Ademoyega, finally got something to ‘manage’. The union has fought a good fight; its members should however manage what they got well.

  • ASUU strike: Fed Govt, Wike lose their heads

    ASUU strike: Fed Govt, Wike lose their heads

    I shudder to think what intensity of anguish Nigeria’s eminent vice-chancellors endured as they reportedly sat glumly through last Friday’s meeting with the supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike. Mr Wike, as everyone knows, is a man of many parts. Bold, dogged and energetic, the Ikwerre, Rivers State politician has made a huge impression on his followers, and, as it is obvious, is also now making a monstrously bigger impression on many Nigerians. The vice-chancellors who attended the meeting with him would doubtless have left his presence dumbfounded by the quirkiness of university education that produced such an impertinent man who many years ago defied the force and natural inclination of nature to leave a notable mark on his local government as an administrator and grassroots mobiliser.

    Not only was Mr Wike twice chairman of the now controversial Obio/Akpor local government, he performed with such distinction that he managed to win the confidence of Governor Rotimi Amaechi to become his Chief of Staff. Graduating with a law degree from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Mr Wike also developed a well-honed style of politics that saw him become an implacable force in both local and national politics. He even evaded the censorious gaze of the avuncular Peter Odili, a former governor of the state, to win his support at the initial stage of his political career. And he also managed to fool the feisty and sometimes impatient Mr Amaechi to earn the juicy and powerful post of Chief of Staff and later director-general of the Amaechi re-election campaign. He has now seduced President Goodluck Jonathan, who more and more finds solace in the arms of fixers and enforcers serenading him with sweet talk and bombast.

    It is important to understand Mr Wike’s background in order to find explanation for his hardline stand in the five-month-old Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike. He has a law degree, is streetwise, aggressive and gregarious. But those who know him and have worked with him insist there is little in his character or education, not to talk of the logic and judgement that sets an educated man apart from an illiterate, to justify the degree he is brandishing. He is a practical politician who is effective and skilful in herding votes. But at bottom, he is a man who conceals his unimpressive intellectual endowment beneath a morass of public works projects. Such a man is more likely to resent his betters when they meet in forums that require logic, thoughtfulness, restraint and cultured language and diplomacy. Mr Wike precisely found himself at one such forum last Friday when he encountered his betters, vice chancellors and former university teachers whom he gloated over.

    To a deep and lettered man, such a meeting would lead him inexorably to the veneration and modesty that the knowledge imparted to him in his university days should naturally elicit. But to one plagued by doubts and inferiority complex, such a meeting could only trigger in all its fury the resentment his intellectual failings have dammed in his angry soul over the years. Like former President Olusegun Obasanjo who under Gen Murtala Mohammed took perverse delight in purging the universities and demystifying the super permanent secretaries who mocked his inadequacies, Mr Wike has issued orders to his former teachers which no reasonable man should ever give and which even under the military no one could hope to enforce. Sadly, the Jonathan government is populated by many such upstarts who read politics into every dispute.

    Acting on behalf of the Jonathan presidency, and after opening another war front in the president’s many battles, Mr Wike has ordered the deployment of policemen in universities to secure those who would heed the command to resume work. After all, of what use is power when it cannot be used? He has also ordered the vice-chancellors to reopen the universities, when in reality it was ASUU’s withdrawal of services, not the shutting of the campuses by school administrators, that paralysed the universities in the first instance. Those who fail to resume work, Mr Wike commanded the National Universities Commission (NUC), should be sacked, notwithstanding the fact that the universities have neither the resources nor even the available pool of qualified teachers to fill more than 40,000 vacancies already existing. In the opinion of Mr Wike, force should solve a problem that neither logic nor diplomacy could resolve in five months. As far as he understood, and based on the Kano meeting of the university teachers less than two weeks ago, at least 60 percent of them already indicated willingness to resume work. Of course Mr Wike’s foolish order and outburst are bound to unite the teachers once again, for they are nobody’s fools.

    It is a worrisome indication of the incompetence of President Jonathan’s men that a crisis nearing resolution could be allowed to fester once again, thereby snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The president has himself not demonstrated brilliant statecraft, nor shown any indication he has the steady hands to propel the country to greatness. But by surrounding himself with devious and vacuous advisers and aides, he is more likely to take more wrong-headed steps capable of dooming his presidency. The president sees foreign destabilising agents, when nothing of the sort exists. Those who trouble him and the country are his ministers and aides. They are the ones who instigate him into hardline position, who alarm him with imaginary enemies, and fill his mind with anachronistic ideas of the powers and perks of a president. Thus they tell us that Dr Jonathan is the first president to engage the ASUU in 13 hours discussion, as if it is a regrettable thing, or as if his job is limited to effusing power without a corresponding acknowledgement of the burdens and responsibilities of office.

    The few outstanding issues in the ASUU strike were the warehousing of the first tranche of promised financial interventions, making the agreement already reached ironclad, and paying salary arrears. I find it difficult to see how these should be a problem. Instead, Dr Jonathan, Mr Wike and other supposedly educated officials who snivel around the presidency think it is an affront to doubt the president. Were there not enough reasons to doubt the presidency before now? Had that office not been desecrated before, and is it not now being desecrated by the thuggish characters that deface its hallowed corridors? As an adviser, I would have asked the president to approach ASUU’s new doubts (not new conditions, by the way) with the kind of self-deprecating humour US President Barack Obama is famous for.

    Answering a question on ASUU strike during his last media chat in September, Dr Jonathan said that in the heady days of the Ghanaian ‘revolution’ President J.J. Rawlings closed down universities for a long time in order to reorganise the education system. Though he added he was not thinking in that direction, it was embarrassing and insulting that his mind even wandered in that direction. If he thought nothing of closing down public universities because many around him didn’t have their children attending them, would he also close down private universities if he had his way? By now it must be obvious to everyone that we are dealing with a fascist government, not an elected presidency. (See box). They have begun to see external saboteurs and internal collaborators. They are bypassing a somnolent National Assembly and simply directly deploying the increasingly fascist police force to undermine the constitution and take away people’s rights.

    In the weeks ahead, and as the political noose tightens around his neck, a desperate Dr Jonathan will attempt extraordinary measures to keep himself in office. For all patriots, this is the time to abandon neutrality, a time to stand firm against fascism. The challenge before us then is how to guide this rampaging, paranoid bull through the country’s china shop lest we all come to grief. Indeed, the hysterical Mr Wike has managed to run the Jonathan government into a cul de sac. But if history is a guide, it is hard to see the government succeeding in its self-destructive course of action against ASUU. Not only are there no university teachers anywhere to recruit, Nigeria is hardly the right place for any competent teacher to come and offer his services, let alone for pittance and with no equipment to do the job. We are close to an election year; yet, Dr Jonathan is toying with the electorate and displaying unparalleled contempt for the youth. But perhaps we should wait to see what talisman he hopes to mesmerise us with in 2015.

  • ASUU strike: Ekiti students seek God’s intervention

    ASUU strike: Ekiti students seek God’s intervention

    Tired of the five-month-old strike of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), students of Ekiti State origin in various tertiary institutions held yesterday a prayer session, seeking God’s intervention.

    Deputy Governor Prof. Modupe Adelabu and some clerics were at the session held at the Lady Jibowu Hall of the Ekiti Government House.

    The deputy governor said the students did the right thing by taking the problem to God. She said it was unfortunate that ASUU and the Federal Government remained adamant, despite the intervention of well-meaning Nigerians.

    She said the death of former ASUU National President Prof. Festus Iyayi in a road accident on the Abuja-Lokoja Road introduced another twist to the dispute.

    Mrs. Adelabu expressed hope that the students’ prayers would yield the desired result soon and warned the undergraduates against engaging in anti-social activities.

    She said the lecturers were pressing for their rights and improved facilities to strengthen the standard of education.

    Mrs. Adelabu urged the students to engage in profitable ventures and review their lecture notes regularly as they await the re-opening of varsities.

    Pastor John Aladete, in his sermon, urged the students not to be daunted by the protracted strike, but to hope in God for the best.

    Prayers were led by the Government House Chaplain, Rev. Fr. Anthony Famuagun; Pastor Tunde Akinola of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG); Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Youths Pastor Mike Awopetu and Special Assistant to the Governor on Student Affairs Adeoye Aribasoye, among others.

  • ASUU strike beyond welfare package, says JABU VC

    ASUU strike beyond welfare package, says JABU VC

    ASUU has been on strike for about five months now, what is your impression about the development?

    The ASUU strike comes up because the government pays a lip service to proper funding of education generally. Until we get to the point of having 26 per cent commitment ratio, which is UNESCO’s minimum recommended allocation to education, we would be getting nowhere; I believe private universities can also get some crumbs from the table.

    ASUU’s grouse is not for salaries, but about the survival of the university system; how do we get equipment for the classrooms? How do we get laboratories properly equipped? As we speak, in some universities, lecturers are subsidizing teaching.

    In the classrooms lecturers still buy stationeries from their own pockets to serve their own students because the authority will not allow you to dish out handouts for students and you cannot run some of these classes without some form of stationeries, So, the lecturers use their own funds to do such things. Therefore, even if the salaries are a bit respectable, what goes home at the end of the day is still small.

    You don’t want to go to a classroom and you are using straw as pipette in your laboratories or you are using stove to heat when it is even dangerous to use kerosene or gas stove in the laboratory environment. What is prescribed for safety is the gas cylinder and you are using kerosene, so how do you then compare what you are exposing your students to with what happens abroad?

    Besides, what ASUU is asking for is not beyond what we can afford as a nation; if only we put our priorities right. So, ASUU is on strike for a legitimate cause, but I still believe that may be at the end of the strike, when we do a postmortem and re-appraise the strategies we are currently employing to get recognition of the government, we can begin to address the issues more squarely.

    Then there is need for a summit for the entire education system because, right now, I know that the union might not have done certain things the way it should but this is probably not the best time to make comments whether or not the strike should still be desirable or not.

    Why the name JABU?

    The name, Joseph Ayo Babalola University reflects the recognition for that foremost patriarch of the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria, the late Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola. Having recorded huge success in his ministry of evangelism and spiritual development for Nigeria, and as the progenitor of what now serves as the proprietor, the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) worldwide, thought it fit to honour the patriarch by naming the university after him, As a matter of fact, this university is located at the place where Apostle Babalola received his call in the 1930s,

    What has been the development in the University?

    In 2011, we were ranked the fifth among the private universities in Nigeria. By 2012, we were placed in third position, and to God be the glory, in 2013, ‘we have further climbed to the number one position. This actually is primarily because God is in this project.

    Secondly, because we have recognised that the successes you showcase on your website is a function of the traffic. When I came on board in 2011, 1 discovered that the university invested hugely in infrastructure, equipment and personnel, and this is relatively’ unknown to the rest of the world, That year, we posted the profile of all our professors on the website and a lot of the people within the academic community started visiting the website, they wanted to see what is actually happening in JABU. That was because of the large number of professors we have in our employ. As a matter of fact, we have the best teacher-student ratio in Nigeria and that is because of the huge investment in personnel.

    So having redesigned our website that way, people were visiting the site and wondering what was happening in JABU. That accounted for the traffic on the website. Thus, we were able to climb to our present status. I believe that with more work and with the Grace of God on our side, we should be able to even do better.

    What is JABU selling point in terms of academic programmes?

    Our academic programmes are designed in a way to reflect the criticality of enterprise. We are an entrepreneurial university to the extent that every degree programmes in JABU has a large dose of entrepreneurship. We believe that irrespective of your degree programme, you should be given enough skill to enable you stand on your own when you eventually graduate, that is the reason why entrepreneurship is the flagship here.

    Apart from this, our academic programmes are driven by the latest technology in terms of pedagogy. We are able to meet and even surpass the NUC benchmark’, we have the technology to drive our delivery in terms of multi-media projection in terms of huge internet facilities, committed, dedicated lecturers who will not go for the least. They want the best for the students> Apart from this, we realised that we are a university that wants the best, we have to inculcate moral upbringing in the students we are nurturing here.

    In terms of academic and spirituality, I think JABU is on track. The vision of the founding fathers of this university is that we will be able to produce graduates that will be self-sufficient, in the sense that upon graduation, they will not be roaming the streets for paid employment, but rather, they will be employers themselves, So, JABU right from the beginning, even before the NUC made entrepreneurship a general course for degree programmes in Nigeria has often obtained the approval of the NUC to run a degree programme in entrepreneurship, which means that we are not taking that as a general course but as a degree discipline. So, we are the very first university to be licensed by the NUC to run a degree in entrepreneurship.

    Our skilsl acquisition centre is second to none. Many universities have come here to see what we have in that centre with a view to adapting. To the Glory of God, that has continued to be a reference point for those who are just setting up their own (skills) acquisition centres and we are making our impact.

    What about the other academic programmes?

    We have an MBA programme now which is a part of the Postgraduate College; we are among the very few private universities to be licensed to conduct the MBA programme in Nigeria today. All our programmes are accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC). None of the programmes in JABU has a denial status. Out of the 34 degree programmes at the undergraduate level, 26 have full accreditation status and the others that have interim are on the spot, not because the infrastructure is not there, but because of packaging or other reasons.

    Because when you look at a programme that has 70 percent scores and it is yet on an interim basis, it means the NUC is telling us to go and tidy one or two things and then get your full accreditation. As we speak we have just commenced the construction of the facilities for the College of Law and I believe this is another important contribution that JABU wants to make to the development of the university system.

    Also, we have been able to accommodate all our students; the university is fully residential, there are no students living outside the campus. This consumes a lot of money which the proprietor continues to shoulder. We have had three sets of graduates, we have released three sets of robustly prepared young men and women into the Nigerian society and they are making their impact.

    What are the challenges facing your office in the face of these tasks?

    Private universities in Nigeria came on board because government thought they could not handle the demand for education from the huge population of young people desiring to be future leaders. Government realised that the private sector has a big role to play in alleviating the problem but the challenge now is mostly that private employer-organisations, missions etc have invested monumental funds in education and the patronage coming from candidates is not enough to contain the capacities of the universities. In other words, from the revenue coming from school fees, we are not able to run the university; we have to rely on grants. This is a big challenge because most candidates do not want to opt for education in a place where they pay school fees but rather tuition-free-institutions.

    Any similarities between private and public Universities especially in terms of academics?

    Our academic programmes are like those you will find in any conventional university. We have a bit of the Arts and Sciences; we have five colleges here, which include: College of Agricultural Sciences, Natural Sciences, Humanities, Social and Management Sciences, as well as Environmental Sciences. These are the programmes we have in our colleges. Hopefully we believe that the College of Law will join by the time we get the nod of the NUC and the Council for Legal Education. We do not have medical and engineering courses for now, but may in the future. We will get there.

    Taking a look at the Education sector in Nigeria what are the major loopholes?

    The educational system in Nigeria is well designed, very much effectively regulated by the regulatory agencies, and comparable to what we have anywhere in the world in terms of curriculum for the different disciplines. Even in terms of the delivery, I think we often meet up with the standards. The problem with education in Nigeria today is majorly because of the poor funding on the part of government because education is a social issue and government should have the ultimate responsibility to fund the sector.

    Even as we speak, the government is having difficulties funding its own universities, both in the federal and state categories. Government has made it clear and it is very unfortunate that they will not even touch private universities; that no form of assistance whatsoever will come to private universities. Some government functionaries even go to the point of saying that the proprietors ask for a license, make promises that they would provide grant and support, as nothing is going to come to them. This is quite unfortunate because education is a social growth, government should have the ultimate responsibility. The government is not funding private universities. That is antithetical to what we used to have in the colonial period where we have grants and grant-in-aid given to mission schools. Even the funds that come to TETfund is contributed by companies in the private sector and yet universities established by private owners could not benefit from the funds that came from that sector. These are irreconcilable contradictions.

  • Awaiting the end of ASUU strike

    Awaiting the end of ASUU strike

    It is no news that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), for over four months, has been on an indefinite strike to demand improved funding of our ivory towers. While the Federal Government has, through the supervising Minister of Education, continued to praise itself for doing its best to make universities give quality education, the striking teachers, supposedly not fighting for their pockets, have criticised the government for relegating the education sector in the scheme of things.

    Like the proverbial grass on the fabled field where two elephants fight, the students whose educational pursuits have been put on hold for the past four months are the victim of this protracted strike that has paralysed activities in several universities.

    While I applaud the recent intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan by personally meeting with ASUU officials, I wish to state categorically that this intervention was long overdue as the effect of the strike on students is worse than its aggregate effect on various sectors of the economy.

    For the benefit of doubt, ASUU had a genuine reason for embarking on the industrial action. Government has failed to meet the agreement that it entered into with the union in 2009 and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of 2012. But the Senate President David Mark introduced another angle to the crisis when he said the ASUU representatives displayed superior intellectualism when signing the 2009 agreement than the government representatives, who signed piece of paper difficult for the government to implement.

    Mark was of the opinion that government representatives led by Deacon Gamaliel Onosode didn’t know their right from their left and just went ahead to sign impracticable treaty. But then, the effect of the strike on the average student and the society is well beyond who said or did what.

    As we eagerly await an end to this lingering crisis, the issue at stake is that students, who have had to bear the brunt of this unabated crisis, earnestly desire that both parties should weigh their argument properly before reaching conclusion.

    We expect that ASUU would debate on the government’s offer to ascertain if the recommendation would be in tandem with its wishes and aspiration. Also, we hope the government had weighed its offer appropriately before presenting it to the lecturers, so next time, it would not say it was forced to present the offer before the lecturers.

    Granted, the government has, over the years, paid lip service to the development of education sector. But, in the course of the struggle, ASUU erred by not putting the interest of the average Nigerian students at heart. The warring parties may claim they have rights to maintain their stance, but it is quite clear even to the blind that the government and to some extent ASUU have lost track of their cardinal objectives towards educational development.

    There has been an upsurge in crime rate over the last four months and this is definitely the consequence of the unending strike. In the Niger Delta, oil bunkering is on the increase as criminals are massively expanding the frontier of their illegal business by initiating idle students to join the bad ventures. Female students, who do not have means of support, engage in prostitution to keep themselves busy. There has been increase also in vices such as rape, kidnapping, armed robbery and hooliganism.

    The alarming rate of social vices is a direct consequence of able youths being kept idle. For, it is out of place for people, especially youths to be idle. Idleness breeds evil thinking, which is subsequently put into practice. Idleness corrupts good manners and an idle person is easily influenced. While some students managed to engage themselves productively by engaging in one vocation or the other, there are others who have not been very fortunate in doing the same.

    Final year students in most universities who are supposed to have graduated and probably mobilised for the National Youth Service have had their dream botched by the protracted strike.

    Recent events in which the president openly associated with private universities is an indication that the pendulum is swinging in the direction of private universities and this is definitely not healthy for the country as the fees charged by these private school are well above the take home pay of average Nigerian parent.

    As we eagerly await an end to the strike, it is expected that all grey areas would be appropriately discussed, so that public universities will begin to run uninterrupted academic calendars as private schools.

    It is also expected that with the injection of N1.1 trillion in period of five years, Nigeria’s education sector would become a shining example for other African nation in terms of tertiary education. If used judiciously, the funds could transform our schools and our education would be accorded its rightful place in global rankings.

    As the strike reaches its climax, it is my hope that there will be a leap in state of the education sector for the betterment of future generations. This older generation must strive not to leave a poor education system to generations yet unborn.

     

    •Philip, 500-Level Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering, DELSU