By Kehinde Yusuf
As 2023 comes to an end, a fitting tribute is to highlight some of the representative inspirational events of the year. These include the registration of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) as an alternative academic union in the Nigerian university system, the election of Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the electoral loss of Liberia’s President George Weah. These events evince courage, forbearance, focus, tenacity and resilience.
Leaving the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on 12 February, 2018 and forming a new association on the same day, was like taking on a mighty foe in the shape of the David and Goliath contest. While Goliath had all the appurtenances of war, the only thing David had was his sling and an unbending will. If forming CONUA was like a joke, seeking its registration was like a mirage. Members of the then-new union of lecturers were therefore derided by those who could not accurately gauge the depth of feelings underlying the heroic act. In fact, the formation of the union was regarded as a misadventure that would miscarry in the fullness of time. And cynical members of ASUU were reported to have said that those who formed CONUA would come back to ASUU, with their tails between their legs, to beg for forgiveness.
Indeed, there were dispiriting moments when it appeared as if all of the efforts invested in the formation of the union would be in vain and that the boat would hit a hard rock. It was at this point that the vitality and resilience of the human spirit were manifested. Sensing a weakening resolve by some members of CONUA at that time, some people flew the kite of reconciliation, which would have required folding up the union and returning to ASUU. And some members of CONUA did really chicken out. However, there was still a solid block of members who remained unshaken in their belief that the hope of reforming and truly democratising ASUU from within was delusional. Some also declared that, should CONUA fail to get registered, that would mean the end of their membership of any academic trade union for the rest of their career in the university system, since membership of a trade union was, in any case, voluntary.
On 21 September, 2022, the around four-and-a-half-year-long struggle, resilience, tenacity and focus of the members of CONUA were rewarded with the formal notification, by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, of the qualification of the union for registration and the declaration of the intention of the Ministry to register it. On 13 January, 2023, to complete the registration process, a certificate of registration was issued to CONUA and another to the Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA). However, before then, on 26 October, 2022, ASUU had challenged the registration of the two unions at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN). The union asked that the court declare the registration of CONUA and NAMDA illegal and, curiously, that the court order that the certificates of registration (issued to the unions on 13 January, 2023) be withdrawn. Note that at the time that ASUU was praying the court to withdraw the certificates, the certificates had actually not yet been issued. This raised the question, “Why did ASUU, a union with some of the most well-respected intellectuals and legal luminaries as members, demonstrate so much lack of attention to facts?”
In fact, the NICN judge declared as follows: “82. By these averments, the claimant [ASUU] put the date of the registration of the 3rd and 4th defendants [CONUA and NAMDA] as 4 October 2022. And in reliefs (3) and (4), the claimant put the registration of, and the issuing of certificate of registration to, the 3rd and 4th defendants, respectively by the 1st and 2nd defendants, as being on 4 October 2022. This, as will be shortly seen, is not correct and can be misleading.” In the 25 July, 2023 judgement of NICN, ASUU lost the case, on the basis of especially Article 2 of the International Labour Organisation Convention No. 87 which states: “Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.” So, the registration of these two unions remains a major landmark of the tenure of Dr. Chris Ngige as Minister of Labour and Employment.
The inspirational import of the CONUA experience, in particular, is that, once you have identified a noble cause, pursue it single-mindedly with all your strength. And even when fatigued, trudge on. Providence may yet unlock a clue to success. And the forces of nature may aggregate to confer on the weary enablement. As a Yoruba proverb puts it, “Eni eégún n lé kó maa ró’jú bó se n re ará ayé ló se n re ará òrun.” (‘Let the person being chased by a masquerade persevere, because as human beings get tired, so do the extra-terrestrial beings chasing them.’) Today, CONUA is on its steady match forward, and just on 12 December, 2023, the Trade Union Congress announced its acceptance of the union as one of its new affiliates.
Even more robustly inspirational is the victory of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 25 February, 2023 presidential election in Nigeria. Brick by brick for around thirty years, Tinubu built the structure for his victory in the election, in the face of daunting challenges, and undeterred by unremitting attacks by widely-acknowledged pugilists and fearsome gladiators. And the attacks were comprehensive. They ranged from acerbic questions and claims about his parentage, his education, his financial affairs, his political life and his health. And the attackers were equally wide-ranging. They included false friends, treacherous associates, distant detractors, ethnic jingoists, religious bigots, fake prophets, delusional pollsters, self-demeaning lawyers, media hatchet persons, academics contemptuous of intellectual honesty and people who were just primed to go wherever the wind blew. In the face of the overwhelming attacks, he showed unimaginable stoicism and awesome adaptability. But he was human, after all, and the barrage of attacks was starting to take its toll and generate doubt.
The 30 October, 2022 issue of ThisDay reported Asiwaju as telling Pa Reuben Fasoranti, the Head of Afenifere, as follows in Akure: “At a point, I doubted I could win APC presidential primary.” In another telling disclosure in the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja, at a thanksgiving service on 28 May, 2023, a day to his swearing-in as President, his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, said: “I can tell you, on my own, that we never believed this could happen. But thank God for giving us hope, for giving us the resilience to continue in the race of life.” Moreover, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, as Director, Media and Publicity, Tinubu/Shettima Campaign, in an interview published in The Guardian of 28 May, 2023 remarked: “[T]he campaign was almost derailed towards the end with the introduction of Naira swap and the fuel scarcity. The Naira swap, with currency shortage all over the country, was clearly aimed at him, to create deep resentment against the ruling APC. At a stage, he was so concerned about the plight of our people and he contemplated withdrawing from the race, so that Emefiele and his co-conspirators could give our people some respite.”
As his array of detractors remained implacable, Asiwaju received wondrous support from unexpected quarters. It seemed to have paid him handsomely to have lived by the Yoruba principle, “Nítorí egbìnrìn òtè la se n l’égbèrin òré; tí irinwó bá n bú’ní lo níwájú, irinwó á maa yinni bò léyìn.” (‘It is in preparation for conspiracy that we make eight hundred friends, so that when four hundred are moving ahead of us abusing us, four hundred would be coming behind us praising us.’) All in all, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu became a clear manifestation of Chapter 35, Verse 2, of the Qur’an which assures as follows: “Whatever Allah grants to people of mercy – none can withhold it; and whatever Allah withholds – none can release it thereafter.”
Liberia’s President George Weah’s political life has also been remarkably inspirational. A former slum dweller and high school dropout, the former international football star with no political experience, formed a political party, Congress for Democratic Change, just four months before the presidential elections of 2005. He contested against a Harvard-trained, former World Bank staff, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and won the majority of votes, but did not score enough votes to avoid a re-run. In the re-run, he was declared as defeated by Johnson-Sirleaf. He alleged fraud, but later withdrew the charge, in the interest of peace. James Butty of Voice of America noted on 1 July, 2011: “During the 2005 presidential election, some of Weah’s critics said he was not fit to be president because he did not have a college degree.” Ostensibly to address this deficiency, the 12 August, 2010 issue of Fox Sports reported that “Weah received a high school diploma in 2007.” He also enrolled in Devry University in Florida, U.S.A., and earned a degree in Business Management in June 2011.
Thereafter, he joined the presidential race again in 2017, won, and demonstrated how irrepressible the human spirit could be. But history repeated itself, and in the 2023 election, he won the majority vote in the first ballot, but lost narrowly in the re-run. And this is where his credentials as a true democrat were reaffirmed. Before the result was officially announced, President Weah conceded defeat and congratulated the winning candidate. In his national broadcast of 17 November, 2023, he asked his followers to resume their normal duties “tomorrow”, and “plan for our return to political leadership in 2029”. Today, President George Weah has become a rare symbol of democracy in Africa. Fittingly, he was named “Democrat of the Year” by The Nation newspaper of 17 December, 2023. It is expected that ECOWAS and the African Union would give him due honour.
It took CONUA five years of unyielding desire for freedom to get registered. It took Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu around thirty years of careful planning and sharp focus to become President of Nigeria. And it took World-acknowledged football star George Weah twelve years of courage, self-assurance, tenacity and resilience to become President of Liberia. As the African-American Civil Rights campaigner Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it beautifully, poetically, always “keep moving”: “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” As 2023 ends, let those with a positive disposition keep hope alive, and let bitter souls obsessed with negativity start anew to see the cup as half-full rather than half-empty.
