Dr. Nasir Fagge is President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). In this interview with our Deputy Editor, Nation’s Capital, YOMI ODUNUGA and Correspondent, GBENGA OMOKHUNU, he vowed that the lingering strike which has kept students at home for over four months will continue until government implements the 2009 agreement. Excerpts:
IT was reported that you met with the Minister of Education and the government delegation on Tuesday. Does that mean an end in sight and students should be preparing to go back to the classrooms?
We had a meeting with the minister on Tuesday. We reported back to the minister the outcome of the consultation with our members on the implementation of the 2009 agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of 2012. The response of our members is that it appears government is drawing us into renegotiating the 2009 agreement without implementing it. On the basis of that, our members said that we should report to government that they were not convinced it was seriously interested in implementing the agreement because what government has placed on the table fell far short of what is required to implement that agreement. In any case, our members consider what government has placed on the table as palliative. The conviction of our members is that it will be more important for government to implement, at least, the MoU which is the road map that government set for itself for the implementation of the 2009 agreement. So, on the basis of that understanding, our members said that nothing has really changed to warrant their reviewing the earlier position. That is what happened at Tuesday’s meeting and government said we will continue meeting, hoping that we will find a lasting solution to the crisis. On our part, we concluded that we are willing to continue the dialogue with government until we find a lasting solution. But it is clear that we have to go by the dictates of our members. ASUU is a union of intellectuals and we cherish internal democracy in the union.
What is your reaction to the view expressed by some highly-placed people in government and concerned stakeholders that ASUU is asking for money that government cannot give out or source for?
Point of correction, ASUU is not asking for money. Government said in 2012 that ‘I have this problem in implementing your agreement but this is how I am going to do it.’ Is that the same thing as asking for money? Two years later, government has not implemented the agreement as promised. What ASUU is simply saying is that government should respect its promise. I think we are not really asking for anything, nobody is making any fresh demand of government. We are just saying ‘you said you are going to do this please go ahead and do it.’ Our members are looking at what is happening. Government is saying when it comes to implementation of agreement relating to public education, there is no money to implement the agreement. But we have also seen recently that government is giving money to private enterprises. Let me give you an example; just last week it was all over the newspapers that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had given a lifeline of about N2.6 trillion to the banking sector. The banking sector is a private enterprise, owned by individuals who want to acquire wealth. These individuals will now ask us to come and keep our money with them as deposits and then ultimately they will go and squander our money. And we will still use public money to bail them out. Do you think that makes sense? In any case, we are sure of what is happening in most of our ministries where you find a minister spending huge resources belonging to the public on luxury vehicles that are not necessary. What government needs to do is talk with the same voice when it affects public institutions and private enterprises. That is the only way Nigerians will be convinced that yes there is no money. But when at this point government says there is no money and money is spent for another thing then that is contradiction. The Minister of Finance should stop deceiving people. We all know that there is money in this country.
The National Assembly has expressed willingness to increase the budgetary provision in order to meet ASUU’s demand. Is that what you want?
Even before we started this fight, we engaged the National Assembly committees on education on the need to implement the provisions of the MoU to ensure that we avert this crisis. At a point, the Senate Committee on Education chairman wanted to assist. The problem is that the responsibility of the National Assembly is to legislate. It is not their responsibility to act in an executive manner. So, if the National Assembly is saying we will do this and if the executive arm of government is not willing to do it, I want to assure you that it may end up not being done. It is not the first time that the National Assembly is coming in to say we will help in addressing this matter, but at the end of the day members of the National Assembly will meet and it will not be possible.
Over the weeks, we have witnessed protests where some persons have called on ASUU to go back to class or face sanctions. How are you responding to the pressure?
It’s a pity that the value of a lecturer has been made ridiculous in this country that students will now be the ones to give us ultimatum. When I was a student in the mid 80s, before our lecturers went on strike on a national policy issue it was the students that took to the street to protest. Unfortunately, the political class has destroyed the students’ union movement. What you see today are mercenaries. Our genuine students keep calling us every day and telling us not to suspend this action until we make sure that by the time we go back to school the problems would have been substantially resolved. The students are saying that the strike should go on until government implements the 2009 agreement. People are allowed to roam the streets of Abuja protesting, but when genuine students who want to protest against government come to protest the police will chase them. I got a report that the University of Abuja lecturers who came out to protest were stopped by the same Nigeria Police who allow all sorts of characters to organise rallies against ASUU. The police were there shooting teargas and all kinds of weapons at them. So there is a contradiction. One thing is important here. The police should also understand that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria grants citizens the right to peaceful protest. We do not need to take any permission from the police to protest. If the police are doing this, then we are being civil because we are enlightened. Let us not be pushed to the wall because we are exercising our fundamental rights as it is in the constitution. If the police want to be truthful to their responsibility, then they ought to be fair to all as the Police Act does not permit them to segregate between the citizens of this country. If they are stopping ASUU members from protesting publicly and peacefully, they should also stop other people from doing the same. That is what we call equity. Under this circumstance we are going to challenge them.
The President has equally accused ASUU of playing politics with the strike. With the way you have been dribbling the government, don’t you think he is right?
Well, it is the presidency that introduced politics into this issue by bringing a politician in the person of the Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, who doesn’t really understand how the university system operates, to come and implement a very serious document relating to how we are going to revitalise the university system in this country. The first thing that Governor Suswam did upon assuming the responsibility of Chairman, Implementation Committee of the NEEDS Assessment Report, was to start reviewing the document. That document considers the whole university system, that is federal and state universities, and all the universities were visited. All the document did is to make sure that the problem of the rot and decay in these universities was collated and proposals were made on how we are going to address them. The costing was brought out and, as I said, universities are considered at par. But when Suswam came in, the first thing he did was to tell us that that we are going to single out two universities according to geo-political zones. He said we will avail President Goodluck Jonathan the opportunity to go round each geo-political zone to start projects of constructing hostel accommodation in at least one university per geo-political zone. So, between ASUU and government, who is introducing politics into this issue? How can ASUU be politicised? ASUU is a policy organisation and our members also have equal rights to belong to any political party in this country. So if we have members in all the political parties in the country, how can we have leaders that would align with a political party? Can we be that stupid? We cannot make that mistake. And to make matters worse, how can government be talking about politicisation when we are talking about implementing an agreement? If government wants to confirm that the moves by ASUU is politicised or not, let it implement the agreement and let us see if this strike will not be suspended. Why can’t government do what is right? Do we have to continue in this manner? Recently, the Minister of Finance said that some people were distributing pamphlets in mosques. These pamphlets were distributed in taxis, market places and mosques. Why did she single out mosques? Just to make the issue religious. Our union has gone beyond sentiments. The political class wants to continue taking Nigerians for a ride. We cannot allow that.
A serving senator, who is a professor and former lecturer, expressed his displeasure with some aspects of the demands made by ASUU – especially the one on earned allowances – and also the agreement that lecturers should be paid for marking papers of postgraduate students. Don’t you think ASUU has crossed the line on this particular issue?
The gentleman in question kept mentioning that he had worked outside the country. I think what he needs to do is to go and read the agreement. He is a professor and a professor has the capacity to read, analyse and understand. After doing that, he should come back and talk to Nigerians. The issue here is that when did we ever get a Nigerian or a foreigner for that matter in ministerial position resigning and coming to take up appointment in a Nigerian university? When did we ever get that? Unless they are sacked from their positions, if they cannot find another option, they go back to their university. But here in Nigeria we are witnesses to the fact that a sitting minister resigned his appointment and took up job as a professor in an American University because the conditions there were favourable. They are much better than what you see here as a minister. So if the professor wants to talk, let him not single out issues. Let him bring out everything and analyse and we will believe him then… unless his stay in the National Assembly has caused his brain to become rusty in such a way that he will find it difficult to undertake research. The entire document relating to the agreement is available. If he doesn’t have copies, let him liaise with us and we will make copies available to him. Most of these documents are on the website of ASUU; let him access it.
Don’t you think this hard stance by ASUU will further affect the level of education in this county?
We are convinced that what we are doing is going to address the problem. Look, our Ghanaian counterpart during the 70s and 80s had the same problem as we are having now and they took a resolution. We moved away from taking the same resolution which we called the ‘Ghanaian Option.’ They resolved to leave the university. They closed the universities and went away. ‘When government is ready we will come back.’ That is exactly what they did. Most of them that could get appointments outside Ghana did. Many of them came to Nigeria. After two years, the Ghanaian government realised that they really needed universities. They had a direction and they agreed on what they needed to do to re-open the universities. I think that was a wise decision because now Nigerians are migrating to Ghana for their university education and the capital flight out of this country is more than N60 billion per year. We do not even have to go to that extent. Let us see how we can push government to do what is right in addressing the problems of education. We, at a point, when the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was the president made a proposal to government that if our universities were turned around they had the capacity to generate much more revenue than we are getting from crude oil. We would be in a position to attract students from other countries.
When next is ASUU meeting government?
The government will reach out to ASUU when they are good and ready for anything.
