I ended last week’s piece with the directive from the government that local unions (in 1996) were to henceforth negotiate with their respective varsity councils in a kind of deregulated collective bargaining structure. The goal was to break ASUU. But as expected, the directive was resisted by the union while the strike continued.
One of the major problems Nigeria faces is that of noble ideas and initiatives, in essence, we suffer from “paucity” of ideas. I deliberately used the word paucity in inverted commas because those in authority often choose ideas and initiatives that stand logic on its head. How else can one describe an idea that has been used by the military more than a decade ago which was clearly unpopular then as it is now?
The same script is being played out today 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 if the strike threat is followed to the latter. How would force resolve a problem that neither logic nor diplomacy was able to resolve in the past six months?
It is instructive to note that despite of all these – in the 1990s – the strikes lasted for more than six months! Is this not supposed to have drawn the attention of someone in authority that these are battled scared ‘soldiers’ who have fought in some of the toughest trenches of all – under the military where decree after decree held sway – yet the pulled through? So why would a “democratically elected” government choose this path? That will be issue for another day.
Suffice it to say that at the end of the day – if these issues are finally resolved and lectures go back to work – what would we say has been the benefit of this strike? What are the various narratives that were thrown up and lessons learnt? It would not be out of place to say this is one of the most discussed ASUU strikes of all time. Reasons for this are not farfetched; back in the 1990s there were no internet and social media, these mediums heightened discussions and elongated the narratives enacted.
These set of narratives ranged from the government accusing ASUU of playing subversive politics with its leadership referred to as a group of militant minorities. Some commentators have labelled this action as executive recklessness. Parents, students and Nigerians also joined the narrative and in the process, most lost sight of what the real issues were as emotion took over reason with insinuations that it is part of a larger 2015 script!
In all, I find the Parents narrative quite instructive and depressing at the same time. Most parents I spoke with are only interested in the varsities opening and their children and wards “finishing their degrees and moving on with life”. Why – I ask – would you have parents who would stick to their guns that their children or wards must attend fast decaying universities and would frown at any group that consistently demands that they are made better?
Note that a university degree in Nigeria is like a meal ticket and is one of the most significant symbols of societal relevance. So if it is this relevant why would parents care less how and where these degrees are acquired?
As I try to sift through this narrative, I discovered that some parents are angry with ASUU “as if they can change Nigeria.” All they have been screaming is that they want their wards back in school, Period! As far as they are concerned, ASUU should return to class, rotten infrastructure and half-baked education notwithstanding. This is rather unfortunate and a most shocking development.
So what do we make of this? Should we leave the universities the way they are and keep on churning out unemployable graduates – like the system is doing presently – or systematically overhaul the entire curricula and the system to conform to current global realities?
With all its perceived flaws, it is the consistent struggles of ASUU over the years that has frustrated governments objective of commercialising and privatising university education. If this is achieved, a substantial portion of the population would not have access to university education.
Was there a deliberate plan by successive governments to deliberately underfund university education with the aim of weakening these institutions and surreptitiously pushing the argument that it can no longer fund them, with the ultimate ploy of privatising them? ASUU members think so that is why they are insisting on having a written communication on the N200 billion the government said it had lodged in the Central Bank. Adequate funding of the varsities will thus be the next battle that will be fought.
Now, to the constituency that matters most; the students: what are they saying? It will shock many that it is only a few students that understand what the issues are. Most are only concerned – for obvious reasons – with the “sins” of ASUU members; sex for marks, sale of handouts, favouritism in awards of examination marks, elongation of stay of uncooperative students etc. To this set of students, their lecturers are on strike mainly for increased remuneration and not for the university system. As I’ve written in the past, there are definitely some bad eggs within ASUU ranks, but I believe that most of the things they are fighting for are noble.
Ordinarily, the students’ narrative should be shocking, but it is not. Fast gone are the days when NANS can stand and take a unified position on issues of national importance like this. We have a fractured NANS today which is only interested in paying courtesy calls on politicians to curry favours.
Those who watch international news channel would not have missed the massive protests of students in Brazil demanding a reversal of government cut in university funding. This was at the same time with our own strike! Within the same period too, students in Chile also protested. In the United Kingdom- where more than 10,000 Nigerian students are studying – students took to the streets protesting unfriendly policies on university education. Egyptian students have been at the forefront of months of protest to force out the military adventurers who toppled Mohammed Morsy, even though they do not support his Islamist agenda.
What I find quite revealing is that these are students in universities with facilities far better than ours, yet they remain unrelenting in demanding a better system. It is all predicated on the prevailing consciousness in those countries and the culture of values that the older generation had succeeded in transferring to the younger ones, a culture in which you consistently demand that which is right. Unfortunately we cannot say that of Nigeria where almost everything has ethnic, regional or political colouration blindfolding us from achieving a glorious future that has been laid out for us.
We only need education here as far as it can give us any job without having a clear cut aspiration of what we want to attain in life. We would rather pursue a career in music even if we do not know how to play a single musical instrument or understand the basics of harmonics, than acquiring the knowledge of dialectic reasoning or logic. This is not to say music in itself is bad, but it is largely seen as an escape route to “success” by most of us even though it is glaring that our talent does not lie there.
While the average Indian, South Korean, Taiwanese or Chinese kid is rooted in the discipline of voracious knowledge acquisition with his counterpart in Europe, ours is either a social media loafer without the realisation that these are avenues that their counterparts chart to make millions for themselves.
I will like to conclude with this: is strike the only weapon that is effective with the government and university authorities in Nigeria? The younger generations of university teachers are divided on this. Those for often emphasise the fact that historically ASUU has never gained any concession from the governments through dialogue. Those against said it is high time new strategies are used. These two perspectives have led to speculations of a generational conflict among the academic staffs of Nigerian universities. Time will tell how it will play out in the future.
