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Tag: ASUU

  • ASUU strike and its many ironies

    The on-going Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, already in its third month, has come with grand ironies.

    These ironies are grand enough to evoke that famous personal rebuke from the straight-as-pin Parson, among wide-and-merry co-pilgrims to St Thomas Becket shrine at Canterbury, England, in Geoffery Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: “If gold rusts, what would iron do?”

    The Tales of Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) was a biting sarcasm of the grand hypocrisy of Middle Age Catholic England. The goodly Parson, a humble priest with modest parishioners, found himself in the midst of the flower of the English Roman Catholic, laity and clergy: the Miller whose thumb was golden with stealing his customers’ grain; the Summoner, spiritual thug and bully who made corrupt living as local papal police; the Pardoner, another unfazed spiritual racketeer who claimed he had, in his pouch, papal pardon “hot, fresh and smoking from Rome”, available at the right fee; and of course the handsome Wife of Bath, whose chaste exterior was not unlike the Biblical white sepulchre: glittering outside but rotten within.

    In the midst of such mass degeneracy, the Parson, though a moral icon, always cautioned himself, against skidding into the wide and merry way: “If gold rusts, what would iron do!”

    That was in 14th century England.

    In 21st century Nigeria, the Parson-spirit would appear totally non-existent.

    Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, PhD, was an academic totally made in Nigeria – BSc (Port Harcourt), MSc (Port Harcourt), PhD (Port Harcourt). To boot, His Excellency even reportedly had a teaching stint in a tertiary institution, before succumbing to graver matters of state: Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President, Acting President, President to complete the ill-fated Umaru Yar’Adua’s term and now President on his own first term, ogling a second!

    Yet, His Excellency cannot defend the integrity of the system that made him. He would appear not to “give a damn” about the anguish of millions of Nigerian youth, out of school for three months and still counting; simply because they have an unfeeling, insensitive and irresponsible government, which does not seem to care about their future; about the throes of former colleagues in the Academia, condemned to scrounging water from stone because the Nigerian state simply doesn’t regard education as priority; about the collapse of the university system, acutely distressed and seriously creaking!

    Indeed, how the president has handled the ASUU strike, vis-a-vis the implosion in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), paints the iron-clad difference between the politician and the statesman: Jonathan the politician would rather worry about the next election by focusing on PDP troubles, than on the next generation by suffering distractions from the ASUU strike!

    If gold rusts, what would iron do!

    Of course, if the fish is rotten in the head, what there is left of the body? Prof. Ruquayyatu Rufa’i, sacked former Education minister – sacked not for the tardy handling of the ASUU crisis but because she is an ally of Jigawa Governor, Sule Lamido: no friend of the president ahead the 2015 electoral sweepstakes – promptly declared she would head back to her desk at Bayero University, Kano (BUK).

    That prompted Citizen Obo Effanga to ask on his facebook wall: will she then join the ASUU strike? The irony was apparently totally lost on the former minister! Minister yesterday; lecturer tomorrow! Not even enlightened self-interest could make the minister defend the essence of her profession, when she had the opportunity! See, how far gone are the Nigerian state and its high officials?

    If gold rusts, what would iron do!

    You can dismiss Nyesom Wike, Education minister of state and current supervising minister. He is no gold in that sector, just a Rivers political battler moonlighting in the crucial Education ministry. No wonder: the rambler has since gone on the rumble in the Rivers jungle! Education, ASUU and allied distractions are all but fading echoes! That is proof of Jonathan’s regard for education!

    But there is every reason to worry about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy, who snorted her finance ministry had no cash to pay ASUU, even if the Federal Government had earlier signed an agreement to that effect. So, what does her ministry have cash for?

    How a brilliant woman with startling degrees from America’s Ivy League schools would volunteer such is well and truly amazing. If America had not invested in its own education, would she be so proud of her American training? And is it taboo for Nigeria to invest in its; so that its future graduates too would be a toast of the world, as America’s is today?

    But that is the point! Mrs Okonjo-Iweala would rather count the beans and declare “economic growth”, while local development indices roll back by the second. It is tribute to fuzzy thinking in high quarters that it isn’t glaring that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s economic policy is, in real terms, tailored towards underdevelopment. It must have the approving smack of Breton-Woods – and these blokes share their glory with nobody! Remember Kwame Nkrumah’s 1965 timely early warning: Neo-colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism?

    If gold rusts, what would iron do!

    It is amazing how hyper-educated Nigerians, at the acme of the Nigerian state, are education philistines; though they are living witnesses to other countries’ glorious investment in their own educational system; or even Nigeria’s past investment in this crucial sector.

    It is even more amazing that past beneficiaries of the golden age of Nigerian education, before the locust years of the military, have almost all drifted abroad for daily bread, giving their host countries a surfeit of their silky skills, while their own country bleeds – and future generation acutely thirsts.

    But the most amazing perhaps, are products of Nigerian universities who have bought into the philistinism of their misguided rulers. To them, there is absolutely no reason to fix the problem. Public universities are sheer poison; and lecturers there are nincompoops: nincompoops that drilled the now cocky former students into the present Socrateses, who now regard their former lecturers (read ASUU) as hare-brained!

    Their credo: amass enough cash, send your children or wards abroad, or to local private universities; and consign ASUU to rust with its umpteenth campaign for better funding of universities! Their Socratic formula: Flee! Typically Nigerian. But sorry, your problems will not run away from you!

    Besides, technology is not machines; but a way of life. So, if you are not in full control of your education, how do you forge a winning technology – your own niche to compete in the very unequal market the West fraudulently brandishes as “globalisation”?

    Those who abandon public universities to rust, because their children are not there, are as guilty as Jonathan’s gang of philistines. The mass thorns from public varsities will choke their own fanciful flowers from avant-garde schools here or abroad – except of course, the hope of a future Nigeria is the Diaspora!

    Nigeria has no choice but to fully fund university education. The time to start is now.

     

  • ASUU insists NUC should be scrapped

    ASUU insists NUC should be scrapped

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday reiterated its call for the scrapping or an overhaul of the National Universities Commission (NUC).

    The union restated its stand in a statement by the Chairman of its University of Ibadan (UI) chapter, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye.

    ASUU urged the National Assembly to probe the activities of NUC, adding that the commission has failed to reposition the nation’s universities as shown by the NEEDS Assessment Report carried out by genuine academics.

    The statement said this contradicted NUC’s accreditation exercises.

    The union said the NUC accreditation exercises, which gave a “controversial” clean bill of health to most universities in the country, were the result of what it called a mago-mago (unethical) accreditation.

    The union said in accountable climes, the NUC chief would have resigned, following the revelations in the NEEDS Assessment Report.

    ASUU stressed that the ongoing strike was total.

    The union said it could not be fooled again with “promissory notes” of the Federal Government, which has never worked.

    The statement, titled: Where Okojie Got It Wrong, said NUC’s Executive Secretary, Prof Julius Okojie, cannot absolve himself of the rot in the university system because he has allegedly been regulating quantity instead of ensuring quality delivery.

    Prof. Okojie, last Thursday, absolved the commission of any accreditation misdeed.

    He said ASUU members were to blame for the development.

    But Ajiboye described the statement credited to the NUC chief as “careless”.

    He alleged that Prof Okojie was using his friends for the accreditation.

    The university lecturer said the success of the 2011 elections could be attributed to the patriotic zeal and contributions of the ASUU leadership.

    According to him, it was through the ASUU leadership that the election was freer than most of the past polls.

    He said: “ASUU cannot be blamed for NUC’s mago-mago accreditations. Rather than blame the union, Prof Okojie should take full responsibility for all the deeds in the NUC, including the work and accreditations…

    “Nigerians should be proud of ASUU in its efforts at repositioning public universities. One of these major efforts is the NEEDS Assessment document. This was a product of a rigorous academic exercise carried out by dependable and credible members of our union. Unlike the numerous faulty accreditation reports, which had given these universities a clean bill of health, the NEEDS Assessment Report stands out as a classical document of reference detailing the rot and decay in public universities in Nigeria.

    ABU VC seeks divine

    The Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof Abdullahi Mustapha, has urged intending pilgrims to this year’s Hajj to pray for Allah’s intervention in the ongoing feud between the Federal Government and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
    “I want to use this opportunity of Hajj to appeal to all Nigerians, especially those embarking on this highly spiritual mission to the holy land, to pray to the Almighty Allah for the country’s unity, sustainable peace and immediate resolution of the Federal Government-ASUU dispute,” Prof Mustapha said.
    The vice chancellor, in a statement by his spokesman, Mallam Waziri Isa Gwantu, expressed concerns over the lingering dispute.
    He said the face-off is threatening to ground the universities and the entire education sector.
    The academic noted that the non-resolution of the dispute may affect Nigeria’s image in the perception of international education community.
    Prof Mustapha said if the dispute was not resolved within the shortest time, to save the universities from further degeneration, the nation may witness another unfortunate phase of mass exodus of the few intellectuals in the system to other countries in search of alternatives.

    intervention

  • ASUU strike and FG’s war on education

    SIR: It is now about three months that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike, yet the government has refused to listen to the union. Rather than engage in good faith negotiations, the government has resorted to scare and diversionary tactics, calling the union’s bluff, and asking the striking lecturers to return to the classrooms. We believe that such diversionary methods smack of nothing but cheap blackmail.

    It is instructive that while the government has refused to fully honour the 2009 commitments it made with ASUU, the government within the same given period had increased by almost 950% the emoluments of the at least 17,000 elected and appointed public officials at both the states and federal levels. These few individuals in a nation of 162.5million people earn over N1.4trillion, which is more than a third of the national budget.

    By the same token, ASUU has not been quite focused and strategic in waging this struggle. The union hasn’t been able to put the issues where they are hence the misconception that the struggle is all about the N92billion arrears in allowances owed members of the union. The real issue is government consistent refusal, year in, year out, to follow through on the release of funds for research and development of the universities.

    Virtually, all of the public universities are in dire need of facilities, which includes buildings, technology tools, laboratories, science and engineering equipments, lecture theatres, libraries (especially digital libraries), constant electricity supply, et cetera. The government since the 2009 agreement owes the public universities N400billion arrears in funding for research and development.

    There is also the question of how ASUU arrived at the N92billion arrears in allowances the government supposedly owed, for it is the management of the universities that can truly determine what the government owed and not ASUU, because ASUU is not part of the management. Indeed, our investigations reveal that not all academic staff are entitled to the money in question; the money is meant only for some category of staff that work outside teaching, such as Heads of Departments, Supervisors of Masters and PHD students, Course Advisers and Exam Officers.

    It is a sad truth that our government is yet to realise the importance of education in national development. A country that wishes to develop cannot do so without recognising the place of education and if this government really wants to make a difference, then it must radically begin to revolutionise its values and re-order its priority in so far as education is concerned.

    In today’s world, to compete effectively and integrate successfully into the global economy, education must be given the top priority it deserves. Nations all over the world including neighbouring West African countries are fast realising this, and Nigeria must be no different. This government has the rare opportunity to show that the security and welfare of the Nigerian people is its primary concern.

    In the same vein, we call on ASUU to refocus the trajectory of the struggle by looking beyond the strike option, because if the only tool you have in your toolkit is a hammer, you would keep treating every issue as a nail. ASUU must adopt other strategies if it genuinely intends to win this struggle, and the union could begin to consider other options as marches, freedom-rides, Sit-ins and Camp-outs. Imagine what could have been achieved, for instance, if the union had staged strategic marches in six key cities of the nation, including Abuja and then, capped it all, with a Sit-in, at the Education Ministry and at the National Assembly Complex for just two to three weeks!

    • Eneruvie Enakoko

    Conscience Reports, Lagos

  • We are tired of ASUU strike-NANS

    THE National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) at the weekend urged well meaning Nigerians to prevail on members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off their three-month old strike in the interest of the students.

    At a news conference in Akure, the Ondo State capital, NANS National President, Comrade Yinka Gbadebo, urged the striking lecturers to call of the strike in the interest of building intellectual capacity for national development.

    Gbadebo, who was flanked by the union’s National Financial Secretary, Comrade Timileyin Ayenuro, said it has become imperative  for the students  to call on ASUU to reconsider its present adamant stand.

    He said, “We must, as Nigerians, accept that the problem with our Universities has developed over decades. So it is unimaginable that ASUU with its present stand want these issues totally resolved within a spate of four years that this agreement was signed on.

    “We disagree with ASUU on the notion that a release of N400 billion per annum as being demanded will resolve the myriad of problems confronting the education sector in Nigeria today.

    Gbadebo said the agreement between the Federal Government and ASUU is frivolous and self-serving to the interest of the striking lecturers alone.

    He added, “While we may not want to go deep into other details of the federal government and ASUU agreement which are hitherto considered by us as frivolous and self-serving to the interest of ASUU alone, it is expected that ASUU must at this point bring to the fore the interest of Nigerian students whom they have been claiming to be fighting for by engaging the Federal Government in further dialogue while returning to class without hesitation.

    “NANS is no longer comfortable with the attendant consequence of the incessant strike on the lives of Nigerian students and the social implication on the society at large.”

     

  • ASUU: Needs Implementation Committee constitutes monitoring teams

    ASUU: Needs Implementation Committee constitutes monitoring teams

    The Needs Assessment Implementation Committee for Public Universities in Nigeria chaired by Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State has constituted monitoring teams to oversee the execution of various infrastructure projects on the campuses of the 59 federal and state universities which are beneficiaries of the N100 billion intervention fund from the Federal Government.

    The constitution of the monitoring teams was the high point of the committee’s meeting which held Thursday at the Benue Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja.

    The meeting, chaired by Governor Suswam, was attended by the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike; representatives of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Education; Dr Macjohn Nwaobiala; Permanent Secretary, Federal Minister of Education; Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission; and leaders of industrial unions in the university system(NASU, SSANU and NAATS) with the Acting Executive Secretary of TeTFund as Secretary.

    In order to effectively monitor the implementation of the projects, the committee constituted a national monitoring team with the committee’s Chairman, Governor Suswam as Chairman.

    Members of the national team include the Minister of Education; Minister of Labour; Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, representing the Senate Committee on Education; Hon Jerry Alagbaoso, representing the House of Representaives Committee on Education; Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education; Executive Secretary, NUC; Chairman, Board of TeTFund; Presidents of ASUU, NASU, SSANU and NAATS, while Mr. Ifiok Ukim, Head of Legal Services at TeTFund will serve as Secretary of the team.

    The committee constituted six monitoring teams for the six geo- political zones with responsibility to monitor project implementation in all the universities within the zones.

    The North- Central team which has Hajia Hindat Abdullahi as chairperson will monitor the projects in the zone, while Mr Oluwole Oluleye will chair the monitoring team for North- East zone. The North-West team has Mallam Aliyu Na’Iya, Acting Executive Secretary of TeTFund as Chairman with Professor Kimse Okoko, Chairman, Committee of Pro-Chancellors as Chairman of South East team.

    The South South team will be led by Dr. (Mrs) Sarah Alade, representing of CBN, while the representative of the NNPC, Dr. Dan Efebo, will chair the monitoring team for the South-West geo- political zone.

    Governor Suswam urged the various monitoring teams to take the assignment seriously, describing the exercise as a call to national service.

    He appealed to the governing councils of the 59 benefitting universities in the first phase of the intervention programme to expedite action on their procurement processes so that the actual work on the projects will commence in earnest.

    The Federal Government had last month disbursed N100billion to the public universities in the country in a bold move to redress the serious infrastructural deficit in the Nigerian university system.

  • ASUU agreement and government’s honour

    Recently the government declared that if it were to implement the ASUU/FGN 2009 agreement, it would shut down its operations.

    While this is unfortunate, it only goes to show the level of sincerity and interest government has shown on education, if not disdain.

    Apart from this assertion being economical with the truth, it does not explain why government went into the agreement wholeheartedly for the betterment of the universities and educational sector in general in the first instance. May be government needs to be reminded that when it allegedly paid trillions of naira to the so-called oil importers who never supplied a drop of petroleum products, the country was not shut down even though this amount represented about half of the entire budget for the year.

    The truth is that when it comes to education, government usually becomes reluctant even though implementing the agreements will not hamper the smooth running of government operations but rather uplift it.

    Enough of the time wasted so far and the hardliner posture of government. What this imbroglio shows is that it does not care about its own honour inherent in honouring agreements. Or are we to believe that it was a deceptive ploy to hoodwink stakeholders and Nigerian people that it was committed to uplifting the universities?

    One wonders where the interventionist spirit of the government had gone to when similar support had been offered to banking and entertainment industries as well as railways in their hour of need.

    What government does not realise or is ignoring is that the sector also voted massively for it to come to power and as it is with the dividends of democracy elsewhere, deserves to be treated fairly in the scheme of things, the least of which is the implementation of the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement which has been there even before the 2011 elections.

    President Jonathan whom the buck stops on his table must therefore as a matter of urgency treat his own kind and ‘’constituency’’ with fairness by setting up a committee to implement the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement to bring back life to the universities. After all, government’s honour is at stake.

    ByEmmanuel Tyokumbur,

    Department of Zoology,

    University of Ibadan.

  • Why FG wants ASUU strike to continue

    Nigerian universities have been buffeted with agonising months of strikes for over a decade and until now, the story is pretty much the same. Government is still unwilling to give the education sector a shot in the arm.
    Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has been on strike since June 30 and has dialogued with FG over 11 times, albeit, inconclusively.
    This underscores the lukewarm posture of government towards the striking lecturers and from ASUU’s body language and utterances,  they have made it abundantly clear to anyone who cares to listen that they are ready to continue the strike even if it takes years, insisting that their decision was adequately taken in a bid to revitalise Nigerian universities.
    The bone of contention is lucid in itself. An agreement was reached in 2009 that all federal universities would require a total sum of N1.5 trillion spread over three years (2009-2011) to address the rot and decay in the universities.
    But, in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed between the union and the government in 2012, FG decided to extend the gesture to include both federal and state universities. After the 2012 review, it was agreed that instead of N1.5 trillion, FG would infuse a total of N1.3 trillion into the universities over four years.
    Almost four years down the line, FG has refused to fulfill its end of the bargain. Rather than respond to the issues raised by the union that would ensure quick resolution to the imbroglio, government boycotted ASUU to summon a meeting with Pro-Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of universities, offering them N130 billion with a matching order to lecturers to resume work immediately.
    But the union is insisting that by throwing money at universities in that manner, government has repudiated the 2009 agreement it entered freely with the union and the 2012 MoU. ASUU is not making any fresh demand but has maintained that the 2009 agreement must be honoured.
    It is ridiculous that government officials were quoted as saying ASUU’s N1.3 trillion demand is capable of shutting down the country. No. Their insatiable and rapacious greed will.
    The private jets in the presidential fleet can fly, centenary celebrations is a priority to government, there’s enough money to pay humongous salaries and allowances to federal legislators and other political office holders, enough to forfeit to oil subsidy thieves, enough to pay militants bogus amnesty cheques and phantom contracts while they continue to bunker our crude oil like never before, there’s enough money to beg Boko Haram to accept amnesty but there is no money for law abiding Nigerian students who want to eke out a living using university education as a stepping stone. It is this kind of attitude from the government that provokes the use of brute force by some regional groups to attract government’s attention to their problems.
    Government cannot claim it has no money to fulfill this agreement. A country with 109 senators earning about N19.6 billion a year, while N51.8 billion is spent on members of House of Representatives for the same period, totaling N71.4 billion.
    This sum, N71.4 billion, represents 17.8 per cent of the N400bn yearly intervention fund recommended by the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities. Surely, our lecturers and universities where they were trained deserve more.
    When we talk of heath care, government official and the ruling elite go abroad for medical attention; we talk of bad roads, they fly private jets; we talk of power, they run their homes on 24-7 alternative electricity source; now we’re talking Education, their wards are in some of the best universities abroad. There is no way the myriad of problems bedeviling the country can be tackled if the political elite don’t feel the pangs.
    That Mr. President has taken out time from his ‘busy’ schedule to constantly parley with the warring factions of his party, PDP, but has never sat down with ASUU members to chart a course for Nigeria’s leaders of tomorrow clearly shows his priorities. Party affairs and chasing perceived enemies of his 2015 ambition around with apparatus of state are far more important things than bending over backwards to pander to the demands of the striking lecturers.
    But then, government must take into cognisance the fact that, the longer the students remain at home, chances are that they will be lured into social vices. The aftermath can be disastrous for the state.
    There are misplaced calls in some quarters for ASUU to be ‘reasonable’, accept FG’s offer and return to classrooms. Others lambast them for being self-centered and unpatriotic. It is unfortunate that Nigerians are always looking for quick fix solutions to monumental problems. Less endowed countries like Ghana, Botswana and Angola are making giant strides on all fronts because the citizenry have at one point or the other insisted that the needful be done. Here, anything thrown at us is accepted with glee.
    We must get our priorities right as a country. Government must curb its own excesses. Education must be given the attention it deserves. Education of the citizenry should not be subjected to any form of Negotiation. Negotiating the education of our leaders of tomorrow is more or less negotiating the future of the country.
    Government deliberately wants the strike to linger, first, to blackmail the opposition. There have been several unsavoury comments from the government’s divide of the negotiation table that ASUU has been infiltrated by moles from the opposition, alleging that the strike has lingered to gain political capital. That is how low this government can stoop. We have seen it before. It is an irresponsible and shameless government, one that lacks integrity and honesty that will blame the opposition for all its woes. It is unbecoming for the government of the day to continue to heap its failure on the doorstep of the opposition and ASUU strike is just another avenue to paint the opposition black before the public.
    Second, is to send a strong signal to other unions who might be contemplating similar action to have a rethink. Perhaps, government thinks by acceding to ASUU’s demands, other Labour unions might toe the same path at the slightest excuse.
    Third, the ultimate aim of government is to paint a bad image of the association to Nigerians, at least, for as long as the strike persists. The Governor Gabriel Suswan-led NEEDS Report Implementation Committee mediating on behalf of the government has unfortunately taken a position that is false, dishonest, and calculated to misinform the public and cause disaffection towards the union.
    Rather than seek cheap popularity, Governor Suswan and the rest of the FG team should tow the part of honour by asking President Goodluck Jonathan to honour the 2009 agreement. There’s no basis for turning the heat on ASUU and the campaign of calumny.
    It calls for worry, that same government that has always maintained that ‘our graduates are unemployable’ and our universities churn out ‘half-baked graduates’ find it difficult to commit the much needed funds to revamp the universities.
     Ilevbare is a public affairs commentator. He can be reached via theophilus@ilevbare.com. Engage him on twitter, @tilevbare. He blogs politics at http://ilevbare.com.

  • ASUU strike: Group urges parents to monitor children, ward

    The National President, National Council for Muslim Youths Organisations (NACOMYO), Alhaji Kamal’din Akintunde, on Wednesday urged parents to monitor the activities of their children and wards during the ongoing ASUU strike.

    He gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abeokuta

    Akintunde said that parents should ensure that their children and wards did not engage in anti-social vices during the strike of university lecturers.

    He urged parents to use the period to occupy their children and wards with activities that could be beneficial to their future.

    “If the children are left unchecked, they can be influenced by friends and the environment they live in; this could as well tarnish the family’s image.

    “Parents must ensure that the period of the strike is utilised positively by their children and wards,’’ he said.

    Akintunde said that the students must also prove that they were responsible citizens by shunning temptations and negative peer pressures, adding that they should not allow people to use them to perpetrate evil.

    He urged the students to remain committed to their studies by visiting libraries and engaging in group discussions which could be beneficial to their studies whenever the schools resumed.

    He also urged students’ religious groups to embark on fasting and prayers for the quick resolution of the crisis, which had brought academic activities in the country’s universities to a halt. (NAN)

  • ASUU berates Okoh for comment on strike

    ASUU berates Okoh for comment on strike

    •BSU lecturers call Suswam’s bluff

     

    The Academic Staff of Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday berated the former Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Rev. Nicholas Okoh, on his call that the national body of the union be disbanded.

    It described the cleric’s call as “ungodly and unholy”.

    ASUU said such utterances were least expected from “a religious leader who is supposed to integrate warring factions and not aggravate conflict”.

    In a statement by the Chairman of the University of Ibadan (UI) chapter of the union, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye, titled: Primate Okoh Goofed, ASUU ‘said it was surprised at the compromising comment credited to the Bishop.

    Dr Ajiboye said Okoh demonstrated the greatest ignorance about the union’s numerous achievements.

    The union leader averred that Nigerian universities would have totally collapsed without the constant agitation of the union.

    Okoh spoke last Thursday in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, during the Standing Committee’s meeting of the Bishops’ Conference of the church.

    He said: “The government should find a way either to privatise the universities or get ASUU to be limited to individual universities such that there will be no national ASUU body mandating, even institutions without grievances, to go on strike…”

    But Dr Ajiboye said: “As a revered man of God, it is expected that he should guard his mouth and not allow his mouth to run diarrhoea on issues as important as education, which concerns the teeming youths of our country. Primate Okoh should stop playing politics with ASUU. He should face squarely the work of his ministry and get busy with it, if he cannot be part of the solution to the logjam created by the Nigerian government in the education sector.”

    The Chairman of the Benue State University (BSU) branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Mr. David Ikoni, has said threat by Governor Gabriel Suswam not to pay the striking lecturers of the institution is a propaganda.

    Ikoni told reporters on phone yesterday in Makurdi, the state capital, that there was a huge lack of amenities in the university.

    He decried the lack of attention by the Suswam administration for the university.

    The ASUU chairman warned that if the governor implements his threat, the university teachers would begin a “no pay, no work” strike.

    He said the university’s lecturers cannot call off the strike without a directive from ASUU’s National Executive Council (NEC).

    Ikoni said: “This will not be the first time that the government would stop paying lecturers because of a strike.

     

     

     

     

  • Lagos-Ibadan is a failed road; Dead Police; Air Force Museum; UNESCO Education; CBN

    Lagos-Ibadan is a failed road; Dead Police; Air Force Museum; UNESCO Education; CBN

    After five and half hours trying to get from Ibadan to Lagos on Saturday September 14, I can declare on behalf of travelling Nigerians that the LAGOS IBADAN ROAD IS A FAILED ROAD and deserves EMERGENCY ONE WEEK REHABILITATION. Even though most Presidency bigwigs and National Assembly (NASS) members use helicopters and planes, the millions of fellow citizens who use the Lagos-Ibadan road daily demand emergency repairs to their cars and the road. A powerful, good government can cause Julius Berger and RCC to employ thousands of unemployed Nigerians to fill the potholes on the road in one or two weeks if they have any love for Nigerians and sense of national pride and urgency. October 1, Nigeria@53 is around the corner. Government should make this an EMERGENCY GIFT to Nigeria. The Lagos-Ibadan former expressway is to be fully refurbished in 24-30 months with an Infrastructure Bank loan of N167b for the 127km road. Still too long, too slow.

    Intelligent advisers should advise the President that accolades come from opening the completed road. The President should further reduce this contract to six or 12 months to be completed in his present term to attract political kudos and paparazzi. After all, who knows tomorrow or 2015? Even politicians do not live forever and must act positively when they hold power. Already Governor Segun Agagu has sadly gone, may he Rest In Peace; who next? The President should care about the millions of citizens and 100,000 vehicles suffering on the former expressway daily?

    The celebrated release of human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome and the explanations of the motivation of the captors do not justify the execution of FOUR living souls from worth but not rich families, the police men! The released lawyer should attend the funerals of each dead policeman. He should then fight for better pay and conditions for police and better compensation for victims’ families. We, SAN lawyer and policemen are all equal in the sight of God.

    Life is serious. Twenty-three killed in bridge disaster. Who will investigate the contractor and the ministry to exonerate them of corruption and incompetence in design and planning for flooding –it is, after all, a bridge? Which body will pay compensation to the victims? Folajomo Agunbiade, a student of Adekunle Ajasin University was shot in the head, for praying to God in tongues during an armed robbery that was not being resisted in her family home in Ibadan.  Her mother is abroad trying to cater for her children. God knows that Folajomo is in heaven now but will that explanation comfort the family? A five-year old Nigerian had a limb amputated abroad because of bone cancer. I saw two children with sightless eyes from beatings in school and home.  Another 10 killed this week in the ongoing Plateau Tiv and Berom farm-Fulani herder war, and we all still eat cow meat. Meanwhile politics seems more important. Shame!

    The proposed Air Force museum is better late than never, good. Ditto for museums for all other areas e.g. transport, and academic subjects. What happened to the Army museum? We know about the Yar’Adua Museum.  Where is the Aviation Museum which we begged for as the aviation authorities destroyed old planes for teaspoons and petty cash instead of giving them to the top technology universities and polytechnics and to science and aeronautical support for education, people’s museums and exhibitions? The Air Force should involve ministries of education, technology and the sciences.

    So we need UNESCO and Gordon Brown to repeat what ASUU and all Education NGOs and unions and student bodies have been saying for 40 years, before government will listen at all levels? Gordon Brown offers more money to empower wayward corrupt governments; the same governments happily divert to corruption or other projects considered more important than children’s welfare and education. Again foreign money, like DFID’s, will help bail out corrupt Nigerian leadership. The less aid we get, the more Nigerian money will be spent correctly. Aid should be in the form of software, short stay, 1-3month scholarships and equipment.

    Another 23 killed at a collapsed bridge in Katsina. No different from the thousands killed in the North this year by cow-farm violence, ‘no western book’ violence, kidnap and vehicle violence etc. Sorry, as you grieve, but look at the picture of the bridge disaster. Increasingly in the North, when we see pictures of collapsed roads, railways and bridges we see red laterite earth sometimes 20 feet deep but we see no stones, boulders, cement or iron rods supporting the laterite road. So once again the contractor, the supervising engineers, the ministries of works and finance must answer questions of culpability in these and other deaths. Rains sweep away weak, un-reinforced infrastructure. Who under-planned, under-budgeted, under-built the bridge and under-built the coupling to the immediate access structures which were dislocated from the bridge? Who has the names on the signatures on the documents? The COREN and the Nigerian Society of Civil Engineers and NGO civil rights groups need to do evaluation and soil checks just as forensic investigation is done with an air crash. Was the bridge poorly constructed for the expected rainfall?

    CBN boasts that Nigeria has the second highest African reserves. This is being economical with the truth or using creative financial accounting procedures. Did he tell you the population to funds ratio in the other countries ahead of Nigeria? Nigerians are being slapped and punched repeatedly.