Students say they are facing a bleak future as labour deadlock between the government and professors continues.
On a hot December afternoon in this southeastern town, a dry, dusty wind blows over the main entrance gate of the University of Nigeria campus.
Only a few cars and a handful of people are trickling in and out. Six motorcycle taxi drivers are bantering, their bikes parked in upright positions nearby. There are few clients today.
In an off-campus neighbourhood about 2km from the gate, third-year university student John Chukwu sits on his mattress in a single room in a rundown tenement. Reclining against the wall, he occasionally glances at sheets of paper on the bed as he makes notes. He is trying to solve ordinary differential equations.
But his room isn't where he should be, at least not in the opening weeks of the semester.
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"I honestly feel terrible," Chukwu, a 25-year-old student of mathematics, said. "The strike by university lecturers is affecting me and other students because nothing is happening on campus."
On November 4, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the union of Nigerian university lecturers, announced it would be going on strike just a year after it suspended its last industrial action.
"This strike will be total, comprehensive and indefinite," ASUU national president, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, was quoted by local media as saying.
"Our members shall withdraw their services until the government fully implements all outstanding issues as contained in the memorandum of action of 2017 and concludes the renegotiation of the 2009 agreements."
Public universities
Nigeria's young daughters are sold as 'money wives' (3:31) With this declaration came the closure of more than 90 public universities in Nigeria. For nearly two decades now, the union and the central government have been at loggerheads over several issues including funding, salaries, university autonomy and academic freedom.
Though the government has continually entered into agreements with the union since 2001, university professors say implementation of the terms is slow and, in most cases, their requests are totally ignored.
Nigerian students bear the brunt of this long-standing battle between both parties, which fills parents and students alike with dread. At any time, it could mean anything between one week to five months of no education.
When Precious Mbah gained admission to study English and literature at the University of Nigeria in October, she was overjoyed. She travelled from the commercial city of Lagos on a 10-hour bus journey to Nsukka, a town in the southeastern Nigerian state of Enugu.
"I was excited and I look forward to seeing what the lecture hall will look like, what kind of classmates I will be meeting, what my lecturers will teach me and even how the campus environment looked," Mbah said.
The next day she spruced herself up and walked to the Faculty of Arts complex. "My first day as a student began with the news that there was a strike by lecturers, and I was like what I have been hearing about has finally happened to me," the 18-year-old freshman said.
Helplessness Asked how her she feels about the situation, freshman student of music Linda Okwor struggled to rein in her emotions.
"I hate to say that my excitement reduced drastically when I found out that ASUU had gone on strike," Okwor, 19, said. "I felt helpless and for the first time I hated this country."
Anger and frustration among students can translate into outbursts of indignation towards university staff.
Okwor added: "Couldn't ASUU have waited for us, freshmen students at least, to know what it actually feels like to be an undergraduate? Is this the 'welcome' they were supposed to tell us?"
But the chairman of ASUU branch at the University of Nigeria, Ifeanyichukwu Abada, told Al Jazeera that university employees also have children in public universities who are home because of the industrial action.
"If you look at the items ASUU is pushing for the government to implement they are of immense benefit to members of the public, not only to ASUU," said Abada, also head of the University of Nigeria's political science department.
"Strikes are not the best option but since we have irresponsible leaders who do not honour agreements it is the only language they understand."
As long as the government continues to renege on its agreement with university teachers, strikes will continue to be a reality for Nigerian students, the union says.
Overcrowded and unhealthy These disagreements forced the government to constitute an inter-ministerial committee to travel around the country to conduct an assessment of the issues raised by ASUU. In its report in November 2012, the committee found facilities for teaching and learning were, in its words "inadequate, dilapidated, overstretched or overcrowded" and in some cases improvised.
The report also revealed just 43 percent of Nigeria's 37,504 university lecturers have PhDs. It noted that accommodation facilities for students were overcrowded and unhealthy.
"These conditions, coupled with the general condition of the universities, produce graduates that lack confidence and sometimes even self-worth," the report noted.
The immediate impacts on students include a disruption of academic activities and a disjointed academic calendar. Once a strike is called off, students have to complete all coursework within a shortened timeframe, meaning they have less time to attend classes and study. Students who should ordinarily spend four to five years in the university sometimes end up staying an extra year or more because of the labour strife.
Government authorities have a penchant of threatening to sack lecturers who fail to return to work during industrial action. This often exacerbates tensions between academics and public officials.
Poor working conditions for academic staff have led to a brain drain since the 1980s. Some lecturers have been forced to moonlight as visiting professors in several universities at a time, making them less available.
The lack of trust in the university system has also fuelled growth in private institutions. At present, there are about 75 of them, mostly owned by churches, businessmen, politicians and wealthy individuals. But most are costly and out of reach for millions of Nigerians.
More students travel to neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Togo and Benin where they are sure to graduate within the timeframe required for their fields. Some even head to the United States or the United Kingdom.
In 2017, out of 37,735 African students studying in the US, 11,710 were Nigerian - representing 31 percent of the continent's students there - the highest number from an African country.
WATCH00:00 I remember the day … I designed the Nigerian flag Low pay University staff have, as far back as 1973, demanded better wages.
University staff had enjoyed better salaries in the past. However, after the military entered and dominated the political space starting in 1966, things began to change. Military rulers meddled heavily in university affairs, lecturers left the country for better working conditions, causing learning and research to deteriorate.
ASUU was formed in 1978 when the brain drain was gaining as much steam as the struggle for university autonomy and academic freedom. In 1988, it organised its first strike, asking the government to address the issue and provide more funding. The military government proscribed the union and tortured and detained some of its leaders.
Though the ban on the ASUU was lifted in 1990, the repressive measures to rein in union members, perhaps, made some more strong-willed. From 1992 until 2013, ASUU has embarked on industrial action nearly every year. The longest strike lasted from July 1 to December 17, 2013.
That action was a result of the failure of the government to implement a 2009 agreement stating it would improve funding and conditions of service and promote greater university autonomy and academic freedom.
One of the major issues in the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 with the federal government involved a yearly fund of $687.5m to be deposited into a special account at the central bank to develop public universities. This was meant to happen every year until the end of 2018.
The central government has not kept its promise since 2013.
In September, the federal government approved $62.5m to develop public universities, falling short of the 2013 agreement.
Math student John Chukwu worries the seeming inability of the government to reach an agreement with ASUU could dismantle the new semester.
"I made plans on how to go about my lectures, personal study and recess hours," he said. "But as it stands now, all of that has got to change owing to the strike."
abduljabbar4: Their brains are too weak for that kind of knowledge. It is namdi kanu and pdp that reason for them thats why they are the perfect zombies
Nice one. Pay them what's due. They (Lawmakers) are earning 14 million Naira monthly, but their aids are not being paid even the chicken change salary.
curfew: Yet this so called group have failed to address a single evidence out of many raised by MNK. How is Buhari now shorter than his former self? A simple question, but they'll start beating about the bush. psychiatric , mental, cloning, and all sorts of rubbish.
Address just one evidence, they can't.
Let me see the alledged picture of buhari being shorter than his former self.
yjgm: Most of you chanting islamization or an Islamic bank don't know how the bank function that's why. Ask those that are banking with it including the Christians, and you will want to join asap
The first customer to open account in Ja'iz bank is a Christian.
georgecso: Wow... You can't even clone a baby not to talk of a 75yrs old man... Infact l prefer the cloned Buhari if at all it even exist.. The so-called real humans have wasted 16yrs doing nothing except looting and raping our treasury...
You can clone anybody but it has to develop from cell and spend all the time required for normal human being.
olujastro: Your response only reechoed the arrogance typical of ASUU members. You only succeeded in emphasising the importance of university education which is known the world over.
To show you the arrogance of ASUU, educational institutions at the primary and secondary levels don't embark on strike actions, unlike ASUU that has equated itself to a demigod body in Nigeria.
As if funding will 100% guarantee quality in the same Nigeria where some VCs have been charged for looting of public funds meant for improving university education.
You guys simply wanted to cash in on NLC planned strike then and the upcoming elections to arm-twist the govt.
I was a victim of your needless strike actions for 5yrs turned almost 6yrs at the University. I stand with government on this. Go back to work or go look for another "perfectly funded sector" to work with.
God bless you. But I heard the circular of no work no pay have been withdrawn.
abduljabbar4: That shows that you are an honest person who means well for the country. I do not insult him the way others do ( fool, idiot, etc).
I think i should have said i insult his actions. For example, i find it irritating when he blames past governments (even though he is right, i think a good leader should take responsibility) and so i find myself saying things like
"this is a very irresponsible statements"
"this is dissappointing, etc"
Yeah. But my own is more to infrastructural development. There is not a single project known 2me in northwest Nigeria (Buhari hometown) apart from so called on going road rehabilitation or dualization that started from OBJ regime.
Anyways this is not thread for that (I will send you a link then we continue from there). For some reasons I have decided not to post the link here.
abduljabbar4: That may be the way you live your life but as for me, i will always speak out. Thats why i acknowledged that i read his tips. Infact i like one particular topic he made about compliments being used to enslave people but i am not a buttlicker and i will never be. Even buhari that i support recieves insults from me when i think he deserves it.
I develope special interest in the bolded part of the text. But quite different from the approach you adopt. I don't actually insult him but I criticize and condemn him to the extent I throw open challenge the pro Apc Nairalanders.
But they all evaded the thread including those nairaland northerners whom the thread has affected most. They simply read and hypocritically move out of the thread because it goes against Buhari action or inaction.
Only fk001 is sincere enough when it comes to issues that involve MBuhari. Perhaps you would have say something better but then you're nowhere to be found.
Managing Director, Ja’iz Bank PLC, Hassan Usman, has revealed that the bank is now standing on the whopping sum of N15 billion capital base.
Speaking to newsmen at the 39th Kano State Trade Fair on Thursday, Mr Usman said the bank, being widely recoginized as an Islamic financial institution, had grown from strength to strength.
While recalling how the bank started its business with a stipulated capital of N5 billion, Mr Usman pointed out that the bank is now operating in two geo-political zones in the country, North-west and the North-east.
According to him, the position of Ja’iz Bank in the competitive banking industry is robust, promising and formidable despite the hurdles faced while working shoulder to shoulder with conventional banks.
He noted that for the bank to be more pronounced and its operations widely accepted, it has to also strive to spread its tentacles to other parts of the country.
According to him, millions of Nigerians needed comprehend the logic and importance of SUKUK, an Islamic bond that could adequately guarantee the safety of a depositor’s assets.
“No bank in this country that could ever operate without a treasury bond and that the present capital base of Ja’iz is enough to convince everyone that it has gotten the support of the Central Bank to wax stronger since it came into being in the past six years.
“I am, however, optimistic that with the priority attention our bank has accorded to areas of key strategic objectives, the future would be rosy,” he said.
The MD pointed out that the issue of good management and constant supervision of its day to day operations was what were most needed for certain lapses to be avoided.
Mr Usman also pointed out that effecting such a giant stride entailed the commitment and resilience of those directly entrusted with such a tasking responsibility and the support of stakeholders.
He described Kano state as the ‘umbilical cord’ of the bank’s operations, considering its concept as a financial institution guided by the teachings of Islam.
He also described the participation of the bank at the on-going International Trade Fair in the state as a manifestation of its resolve to expose the benefits inherent in dealing with the Islamic financial institutions.
He, therefore, stressed that the safety of depositors’ assets and money was part of the bank’s cardinal objective.
Let me wade into the issue of degree qualification or no qualification.
My level hundred general studies lecturer give us a story about his journey to lecturing. He was a successful businessman who travels to Dubai, Germany and other places around the world to earn a living.
Suddenly along the line something goes wrong. He experienced economic thunderstorm/meltdown and has no cash anymore. He was back to square zero at home lying jobless. A one's successful businessman is now a poor man.
Luckily for him he has a masters degree in political science which he had never used before. He applied for lecturing job in a Federal University & the rest is history.
In summary: The point I'm trying to make is basically simple "No knowledge is waste." Just because you have not or perhaps you cannot have (a degree), is not a reason 2 discourage others from acquiring one.
Lalasticlala Mynd44 & Seun you're disappointing me with thread title these days. The girl in question is a ghanian, then why involve the whole African continent in the crime. I have never see u did the same when it involve a Nigerian.
A woman should not use her husband name at all but her father name. Once your father he remains ur father forever and ever. You can get married to another husband but you can never get born for the second time to another father.
Despite Dedicating 13 Pages Of His Book To Corruption, Jonathan Avoids Dasuki Like A Plague.
But in a book wholly dedicated to repairing the battered image of the former President, his cabinet and his party, it was expected that Jonathan would not attempt to describe his administration as less corrupt than Muhammadu Buhari’s without addressing, however slightly, the biggest corruption scandal of his reign.
However, throughout the ‘13 corruption pages’, and in fact for the whole of the 194-page book, neither Dasuki nor the matter featured. The only time the accused was mentioned, it was in passing, and simply as ‘NSA’. That was on Page 66, in the third paragraph, where Jonathan listed the people he met with before reaching the decision to shift the 2015 elections by six weeks.
spite dedicating 13 pages of his new book, ‘My Transition Hours’, to proving that his administration was not as corrupt as thought, former President Goodluck Jonathan passed up an opportunity to say a thing or two about the alleged $2.2billion arms deal scandal for which his National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, has been in detention since 2015.
Buhari ordered Dasuki’s arrest in November 2015 after receiving the preliminary report of a 13-man investigative committee he set up to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the armed forces and defence sector from 2007 to date.
The committee had stated thus: “The committee also discovered that payments to the tune of Three Billion, Eight Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N3,850,000,000.00) were made to a single company by the former NSA without documented evidence of contractual agreements or fulfilment of tax obligations to the FGN.
“Further findings revealed that between March 2012 and March 2015, the erstwhile NSA, Lt Col MS Dasuki (rtd) awarded fictitious and phantom contracts to the tune of N2,219,188,609.50, $1,671,742,613.58 and €9,905,477.00. The contracts, which were said to be for the purchase of 4 Alpha Jets, 12 helicopters, bombs and ammunition, were not executed and the equipment were never supplied to the Nigerian Air Force, neither are they in its inventory.
“Even more disturbing was the discovery that out of these figures, 2 companies were awarded contracts to the tune of N350,000,000.00, $1,661,670,469.71 and €9,905,477.00 alone. This was without prejudice to the consistent non-performance of the companies in the previous contracts awarded.
“Additionally, it was discovered that the former NSA directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to transfer the sum of $132,050,486.97 and €9,905,473.55 to the accounts of Societe D’equipmente Internationaux in West Africa, United Kingdom and United States of America for un-ascertained purposes, without any contract documents to explain the transactions.
“The findings made so far are extremely worrying considering that the interventions were granted within the same period that our troops fighting the insurgency in the North East were in desperate need of platforms, military equipment and ammunition. Had the funds siphoned to these non performing companies been properly used for the purpose they were meant for, thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided.”
Since then, Jonathan has largely avoided discussing the matter, although he did say in October 2016, while responding to questions after his lecture on Youth Entrepreneurship at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom: “They said the National Security Adviser (Sambo Dasuki) stole $2.2billion. I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion.
“We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth and you are still saying 2.2 billion, so where did we get the money to buy all those things?
“Yes, there were some issues. Yes, there are still corruption issues but some of it were over blown. I’d say exaggerated and they give a very bad impression about our nation. You cannot say the national security adviser stole $2.2billion. It is not just possible.”
He was asked the question outright; that was why he responded. But in a book wholly dedicated to repairing the battered image of the former President, his cabinet and his party, it was expected that Jonathan would not attempt to describe his administration as less corrupt than Muhammadu Buhari’s without addressing, however slightly, the biggest corruption scandal of his reign.
However, throughout the ‘13 corruption pages’, and in fact for the whole of the 194-page book, neither Dasuki nor the matter featured. The only time the accused was mentioned, it was in passing, and simply as ‘NSA’. That was on Page 66, in the third paragraph, where Jonathan listed the people he met with before reaching the decision to shift the 2015 elections by six weeks.
In foresight, Jonathan’s defence would be that the case is in court, and it would be sub judice for him to comment on it. But the case was already in court when he briefly commented on it in the UK in 2016. Also, the sub judice talk is often exaggerated. The law clearly leaves some gap for public discussions of matters in court. According to S.33 of Rules of Professional Conduct, 2007, “a lawyer or law firm engaged in or associated with the prosecution or defence of a criminal matter, or associated with a civil action shall not, while litigation is anticipated or pending in the matter, make or participate in making any extra-judicial statement that is calculated to prejudice or interfere with, or is reasonably capable of prejudicing or interfering with, the fair trial of the matter or the judgment or sentence thereon”.
So, Jonathan could have discussed the matter, at least vaguely, without breaking the law. If he did this, he could have done some bit in repairing his image in relation to corruption, especially as documents seen after Dasuki’s arrest allegedly show that Jonathan indeed approved the transactions for which Dasuki is in detention.
Education › ASUU Strike A Misery For Students - Alljazeera by FriendNG(op): 1:38pm On Dec 06, 2018
