Still on the ASUU strike
By Muyiwa Awodiya

THE people who are prolonging the current strike of all the three staff unions of Nigerian Universities (ASUU, SSANU and NASU) are Gamaliel Onosode, Sam Egwu, Julius Okojie and Adetokunbo Kayode. They are the ones who are misinforming the Vice-President and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; they are the ones manipulating the government negotiating team and rebranding falsehood as truth for the consumption of the Nigerian public! They are the ones who are directly responsible for unnecessarily elongating the current crisis and thereby keeping the innocent Nigerian students at home. They are the ones who Reuben Abati referred to in his brilliant write-up as "The enemies of Nigerian Universities" in The Guardian of August 28 (P.51).

They are the ones who are unilaterally changing the framework of negotiations after negotiations had ended and now ordering that "negotiations were to be concluded by individual University Councils". They all know too well that there is no University Governing Council in Nigeria that either has the wherewithal or is capable of generating the funds needed to pay workers, finance teaching, quality research and infrastructural development. They are the people who mischievously introduced "percentages" into the lexicography of the negotiating team that ASUU demanded 109 per cent salary increment. They are the people who illegitimately repudiated the mandate to sign an Agreement after over two years of negotiation!

These same enemies of Nigerian Universities are the ones misleading the Federal Government to take ASUU for a ride for over two years of futile negotiation and later made an arbitrary award of 40 per cent salary increment. They are the evil agents hell bent on sabotaging the government in signing the Agreement. But in the end these agents of evil and enemies of the Nigerian Universities who had worsened the crisis will definitely fail woefully again. Similar evils were plotted against the Universities during the Abacha regime; they did not work. The plotters failed awfully. These current plotters of evil against the Universities in Nigeria shall fail wretchedly; indeed, the harder they plot, the harder they will fall shamefully.

There is no doubt that Nigerian leaders are averse to proper funding of education as they are afraid of its intrinsic qualities of civilisation, development, utilitarian relevance in nation building and human capital development. For this reason, the desire of Nigerian leaders is to perpetually suppress enlightenment of the people by forsaking them as dunces, fools, ignoramuses, know-nothings and holding them down forever in ignorance, poverty and disease. This is why they are planning to destroy the universities as they see them as baston of knowledge, repository of progress and development and citadel of civilisation.

As a result of deliberate gross underfunding, Nigerian Universities are bereft of good lecture theatres, libraries equipped with latest books and current journals, modern laboratory equipment, good arts theatres for humanity students, adequate classrooms and sufficient hostels for teeming students' population. No more excellent facilities for teaching, research, learning and development.

There is also the problem of decaying infrastructures, brain drain to greener pastures and lack of the establishment of internationally competitive academic standards in a conducive university environment. Yet our leaders trudge on in absolute deception, hypocrisy, fraud with inefficiency in governance and in public offices and government-owned establishments as if nothing is amiss and everything is going on well when students are idling away at home now for almost three months! There is lack of concern for the people as Nigerian leaders are very far and distant from the people they rule.

It is not democratic or honourable for a government not to sign on agreement in which its negotiators actively participated for well over two years! This is the snobbery and contempt that makes every ASUU member livid with anger. In addition, ASUU believes that Nigerian leaders do not have regard for university lecturers because of government's apparent low rating of the functions and relevance of the lecturers in the country. This is glaringly reflected by the abysmally low payment of the lecturers vis-ˆ-vis other public service workers like in the Civil Service where a permanent secretary now earns N1,885,742.81k per month and a University Professor earns about N320,000.00 per month. Whereas as a Senior Lecturer in 1987, my monthly Salary was higher than that of a Permanent Secretary, my monthly salary as an Associate Professor for eight years now is under N300,000.00. Similarly in 1987, a Professor was earning the same salary as Justice of the Court of Appeal and Chief Judge of a state.

Both of them have since left a University Professor behind now in terms of their monthly salary which stands at N2,743,716.50k! Thus in the current Agreement which the government is hesitant to sign, ASUU is erroneously demanding the sum of N525,010.00 as monthly salary for a Professor instead of them to rightfully claim N2,743,716.50 from the Federal Government as a monthly salary for its Professor! The half a million naira monthly salary mistakenly being demanded by ASUU has now been overtaken by event of government's refusal to sign the Agreement. Consequently, ASUU ought to be claiming as a right the sum of N2,743,716.50k as monthly salary for a University Professor.

In a country of lopsided societal values, inefficient and ineffective leadership, and a topsy-turvy, harp hazard and arbitrary system of remuneration in which the talented, gifted, qualified and most highly trained brains are callously rewarded with penurious salaries, much is left to be desired in regard to university workers and their starvation wages. Meanwhile, a Senator gets N3,066,666.67 a month and each House of Assembly member receives N2,991,666.67 a month outside their fat allowances. Local Government Councillor gets N1,129,647.92 a month while Local Government chairman receives N1,154,324.60 a month! Every time government surreptitiously increases the salary and emoluments of the civil service, it would exclude the university workers from the largesse. For example, the Civil Service and other Public Service workers had been enjoying monetisation since 2003. It took the university workers six years later to get paid, not without protesting and embarking on industrial strike before they were paid in July, 2009! Even now, not every one has been paid!

Our political leaders and pseudo-technocrats who call themselves government negotiators should be ashamed and cover their faces in disgrace as there is no Nigerian University among the best 6000 universities in the world! In the latest Webometrics World University Ranking released in July 2009, other African Universities are clearly far ahead of Nigeria's. They include universities from smaller countries like Kenya (No 6 in Africa and 2,795 in the world), Uganda (No 20 in Africa and 3,653 in the world), Ethiopia (No 22 in Africa and 4,055 in the world), Namibia (No 26 in Africa and 4,467 in the world), Ghana (30 in Africa and 4,479 in the world), Mauritius (32 in Africa and 4,559 in the world), Botswana (34 in Africa and 4,633 in the world), Zimbabwe (30 in Africa and 4,754 in the world), Zambia (51 in Africa and 5,875 in the world), Rwanda (52 in Africa and 5,888 in the world), Sudan (59 in Africa and 6,556 in the world). In Nigeria, University of Benin comes first with (61 in Africa and 6,602 in the world), University of Ilorin (77 in Africa and 7,902 in the world), Obafemi Awolowo University (78 in Africa and 8,034 in the world), University of Lagos (95 in Africa and 8,871 in the world). In Africa, South African Universities comfortably occupy the first 15 positions while the top 10 best Universities in the world come from America, according to the ranking.

Indeed, ASUU should continue its fight against the forces of retrogression, darkness and the anti-people policies of the Federal Government of Nigeria as education remains one of the strongest pillars of democracy as it touches almost every home in the country. According to Abati, "ASUU should mobilise civil society groups to support its strike action and compel the Federal Government to return to the negotiating table". In the same way, Sunny Awhefeada urges the "Nigerian people to stand up strongly on the side of ASUU or forever remain eternally marginalised by the neo-colonialists in native garbs (The Guardian, September 2 2009, P. 51).

ASUU will continue to fight for increased funding of the universities and better conditions of service for all categories of workers in the university system. They have been marginalised and systematically neglected by a government that spends 80 per cent of its revenue on politics and political office holders at the expense of important democratic institutions that would deepen and strengthen democracy like power, roads, healthcare, education, agriculture, pipe-borne water, transportation. ASUU and all Nigerians should rise up against Nigerian government's position of spending all revenues on politics and nothing remains for developmental purposes as in when the elephant eats, no food is left for the antelope; or when the buffalo drinks, no water remains for the tad-pole.

copied from: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article02//indexn3_html?pdate=210909&ptitle=Still%20on%20the%20ASUU%20strike&cpdate=210909