₦airaland Forum

Samakus:
That's Nigerians for you! Even when you do the calculations for them, show them every proof, they will still argue. Ask them to bring evidence and facts to buttress their argument, they will accuse you of thinking that you know too much.

Humblezick:
I read this news story on The Nation and I became confused on what is happening.
It's today's edition of The Nation.


Let’s starve lecturers to death!
by Alao Abiodun 18 hours agouh




By Alade Fawole
Let me state it very plainly: I subscribe to President Muhammadu Buhari’s government’s policy that Nigerian university scholars need to be starved to death! I am so strongly persuaded, and I urge you to be patient as I explain.

First of all, and unambiguously, this nation does not need universities! What does a rent-collecting state that depends wholly on proceeds of oil and gas being exploited by fraudulent and thieving foreign oil corporations need universities for? What functions will they perform in a nation that does not desire development? Frankly, they are totally irrelevant, if you ask me. Unfortunately, we have deluded ourselves and established several universities with public funds, that should ordinarily have ended up in the bank accounts of our leaders, and now we are saddled with them as a national headache. Any wonder why governments have always turned a deaf ear to the irritating demands of the university lecturers?


Since the government may not be able to totally erase these inconvenient institutions we call universities by stroke of the pen, the easiest way to destroy them is to begin by slowly and incrementally starving the lecturers to death. By this the government would succeed in ridding itself of this singularly irritating sector, so that it can focus on other more pressing issues. And there would also be more money for our sybaritic elites to spend. I encourage President Buhari to help Nigeria get rid of its scholars who are nothing but a pain in the neck. They are arrogant, pushy, opinionated and make demands on the government as if they and their universities are the only responsibility the government has. I mean, why should we continue to tolerate their monotonous agitation for adequate funding of the universities? When will they ever get it into their thick skulls that funding the universities will mean less money to satisfy the hedonistic lifestyles of elected and appointed government officials and their families? One would expect that with all their researches and intellectual exertions, they would have realized that this nation does not need them.

The main preoccupation of the ruling class elites is to plunder the national patrimony. And whenever they want their usually disastrous offspring to attend universities, they send them abroad, or to private universities at home to be awarded unearned degrees. I say ‘unearned degrees’ not necessarily because their children are unwilling to learn, although it is true that many are not, but because in these poorly staffed and ill-equipped, profit-oriented business enterprises called private universities, degrees can actually be purchased without much academic exertion. For example, the Department of Chemistry of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, alone parades more professors than the total number in some private universities. Even though many of these private universities which the children of the elites attend, have very few students, they also comparatively award the highest number of first class honours per capita. For them, awarding first class honours is a marketing strategy.

Even though private universities outnumber public (federal and state) universities, yet they collectively, according to the NUC Executive Secretary Professor Abubakar Rasheed, have less than six percent of the overall undergraduate population of about two million as of 2018. And their share is dwindling as avenues for official corruption are closing against treasury looters. Again, according to the Executive Secretary, the intake into the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in one year is more than the numbers that all the private universities combined enrolled in four years! The implication is that these same poorly funded public universities, whose lecturers the government would rather starve to death over a disagreement, have more 90 percent of the entire undergraduate student population!

If only Nigerians have been paying attention to these disturbing statistics, they would have come to the reality that it is the future of their own children that the ruling class is destroying by not funding the universities and by starving their lecturers. Regrettably, Nigerians always wrongly blame the lecturers and uncritically support whatever strong-arm tactics the government employs against them. Many do so out of sheer inferiority complex, believing that university academics are too arrogant and pushy, thus deserving to be pulled down from their high horses. Others are simply ignorant about what universities are, equating them with secondary schools, and thus failing to see what makes lecturers different from other teachers. And, of course, there are the members of the ruling class who love to hold the nation in darkness and ignorance while their mindless accumulation of illicit wealth from the national patrimony goes on unhindered.

Pardon the digression. Now back to the issue of starvation at hand. Salaries of public university lecturers have been punitively stopped for two months now, and the nation’s business continues as usual. Salaries have been stopped by the federal government allegedly because of the lecturers’ refusal to be forcefully migrated unto a payment platform that has been convincingly proved to be highly defective, that violates university autonomy (as enacted and signed into law) and provisions of subsisting negotiated agreements which the government has bluntly refused to implement, among others. Sadly, not even the parents and guardians whose offspring and wards would suffer the adverse consequences of this policy seem perturbed by it. At least no protest from any quarters. All is well and good, after all it is only lecturers. They can be dispensed with anyway.

Punitive salary stoppage and other strong-arm methods have been the veritable means of addressing industrial disputes and disagreements since the early 1970s. The starvation that comes with it is the potent means for Nigerian governments, military and civilian alike, to deal particularly with protesting university academics. Whenever government policies and actions push the university teachers to strike as the only remaining option, governments characteristically revert to this default setting: salary stoppage! I can personally remember my salary having been stopped no fewer than 13 times, sometimes up to six months at a time, in the 37 years that I have been a university teacher. In case you are wondering why government officials are never mindful of how counterproductive this method is, it is because the nation does not need universities. Unfortunately, though, the same nation will turn around to blame the universities for not contributing to national development, and parents will expect starved and starving teachers who cannot feed their own families to work magic, while their family members are advised to wait till heaven for their rewards.

My honest and heartfelt advice to the federal government on the current face-off with the universities: let us totally ignore the lecturers and whatever fate may befall their families even as the raging coronavirus pandemic continue to wreak havoc on the nation. Nigeria will be better off if we starve to death the nuisance called lecturers even if the coronavirus pandemic may spare many of them. It is the quickest and permanent way to rid this nation of the headache that universities and lecturers have become. And we don’t have to look for fancy explanation for the mass extermination of irritating academics since the coronavirus pandemic is available to be blamed. This is the best time to execute the final solution, one Hitler himself would be immensely proud of.

Prof Fawole writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

onyxo76:
bro anything is possible o, I read it too this morning...

Samakus:
This update is fake!! NMW has been paid.

taibat61:
NMW means what?

Humblezick:
I read this news story on The Nation and I became confused on what is happening.
It's today's edition of The Nation.


Let’s starve lecturers to death!
by Alao Abiodun 18 hours ago




By Alade Fawole
Let me state it very plainly: I subscribe to President Muhammadu Buhari’s government’s policy that Nigerian university scholars need to be starved to death! I am so strongly persuaded, and I urge you to be patient as I explain.

First of all, and unambiguously, this nation does not need universities! What does a rent-collecting state that depends wholly on proceeds of oil and gas being exploited by fraudulent and thieving foreign oil corporations need universities for? What functions will they perform in a nation that does not desire development? Frankly, they are totally irrelevant, if you ask me. Unfortunately, we have deluded ourselves and established several universities with public funds, that should ordinarily have ended up in the bank accounts of our leaders, and now we are saddled with them as a national headache. Any wonder why governments have always turned a deaf ear to the irritating demands of the university lecturers?


Since the government may not be able to totally erase these inconvenient institutions we call universities by stroke of the pen, the easiest way to destroy them is to begin by slowly and incrementally starving the lecturers to death. By this the government would succeed in ridding itself of this singularly irritating sector, so that it can focus on other more pressing issues. And there would also be more money for our sybaritic elites to spend. I encourage President Buhari to help Nigeria get rid of its scholars who are nothing but a pain in the neck. They are arrogant, pushy, opinionated and make demands on the government as if they and their universities are the only responsibility the government has. I mean, why should we continue to tolerate their monotonous agitation for adequate funding of the universities? When will they ever get it into their thick skulls that funding the universities will mean less money to satisfy the hedonistic lifestyles of elected and appointed government officials and their families? One would expect that with all their researches and intellectual exertions, they would have realized that this nation does not need them.

The main preoccupation of the ruling class elites is to plunder the national patrimony. And whenever they want their usually disastrous offspring to attend universities, they send them abroad, or to private universities at home to be awarded unearned degrees. I say ‘unearned degrees’ not necessarily because their children are unwilling to learn, although it is true that many are not, but because in these poorly staffed and ill-equipped, profit-oriented business enterprises called private universities, degrees can actually be purchased without much academic exertion. For example, the Department of Chemistry of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, alone parades more professors than the total number in some private universities. Even though many of these private universities which the children of the elites attend, have very few students, they also comparatively award the highest number of first class honours per capita. For them, awarding first class honours is a marketing strategy.

Even though private universities outnumber public (federal and state) universities, yet they collectively, according to the NUC Executive Secretary Professor Abubakar Rasheed, have less than six percent of the overall undergraduate population of about two million as of 2018. And their share is dwindling as avenues for official corruption are closing against treasury looters. Again, according to the Executive Secretary, the intake into the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in one year is more than the numbers that all the private universities combined enrolled in four years! The implication is that these same poorly funded public universities, whose lecturers the government would rather starve to death over a disagreement, have more 90 percent of the entire undergraduate student population!

If only Nigerians have been paying attention to these disturbing statistics, they would have come to the reality that it is the future of their own children that the ruling class is destroying by not funding the universities and by starving their lecturers. Regrettably, Nigerians always wrongly blame the lecturers and uncritically support whatever strong-arm tactics the government employs against them. Many do so out of sheer inferiority complex, believing that university academics are too arrogant and pushy, thus deserving to be pulled down from their high horses. Others are simply ignorant about what universities are, equating them with secondary schools, and thus failing to see what makes lecturers different from other teachers. And, of course, there are the members of the ruling class who love to hold the nation in darkness and ignorance while their mindless accumulation of illicit wealth from the national patrimony goes on unhindered.

Pardon the digression. Now back to the issue of starvation at hand. Salaries of public university lecturers have been punitively stopped for two months now, and the nation’s business continues as usual. Salaries have been stopped by the federal government allegedly because of the lecturers’ refusal to be forcefully migrated unto a payment platform that has been convincingly proved to be highly defective, that violates university autonomy (as enacted and signed into law) and provisions of subsisting negotiated agreements which the government has bluntly refused to implement, among others. Sadly, not even the parents and guardians whose offspring and wards would suffer the adverse consequences of this policy seem perturbed by it. At least no protest from any quarters. All is well and good, after all it is only lecturers. They can be dispensed with anyway.

Punitive salary stoppage and other strong-arm methods have been the veritable means of addressing industrial disputes and disagreements since the early 1970s. The starvation that comes with it is the potent means for Nigerian governments, military and civilian alike, to deal particularly with protesting university academics. Whenever government policies and actions push the university teachers to strike as the only remaining option, governments characteristically revert to this default setting: salary stoppage! I can personally remember my salary having been stopped no fewer than 13 times, sometimes up to six months at a time, in the 37 years that I have been a university teacher. In case you are wondering why government officials are never mindful of how counterproductive this method is, it is because the nation does not need universities. Unfortunately, though, the same nation will turn around to blame the universities for not contributing to national development, and parents will expect starved and starving teachers who cannot feed their own families to work magic, while their family members are advised to wait till heaven for their rewards.

My honest and heartfelt advice to the federal government on the current face-off with the universities: let us totally ignore the lecturers and whatever fate may befall their families even as the raging coronavirus pandemic continue to wreak havoc on the nation. Nigeria will be better off if we starve to death the nuisance called lecturers even if the coronavirus pandemic may spare many of them. It is the quickest and permanent way to rid this nation of the headache that universities and lecturers have become. And we don’t have to look for fancy explanation for the mass extermination of irritating academics since the coronavirus pandemic is available to be blamed. This is the best time to execute the final solution, one Hitler himself would be immensely proud of.

Prof Fawole writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

dollext:
‘Wht is university contribution to national development?’ Wht if Govt decide to ignore dem and pay more attention to other sectors who have contributed immensely to national development and in the long run polytechnics graduates and private university students would be employed to feel d current vacancy? Let’s continue watching in a 3D television.

LibrarianD:
I am really surprised that you work in one, you can as well resign. I'll try to increase your knowledge a little, while you read up on the rest during this stay-at-home.

Universities provide the required highlevel manpower for all the sectors of the Nigerian economy. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic frontline Medical personnel in testing and treatment in Lagos, includes substantially academics from CMUL/LUTH and other tertiary health facilities. This is seen as community service. This is in addition to the teaching and research functions. Compare the fatality rates of Nigeria to that of the first nations. There you have your answer. Stop being myopic, selfish, think beyond your take home.

I've read a lot of selfish post like yours and I'll point out certain facts. You benefitted from a highly subsidised tertiary education and also employed in one, with your meagre scale from Contiss 8 - 15, can you successfully train 3 of your wards in the private institutions? Your guess is as good as mine. I've followed ASUU for a long period and I know they always get the government back to the negotiating table, how they do it I don't know. I only hope members of other unions would not proceed on strike after an agreement between them (just like we read about the EA wahala).

I think I agree with with ASUU that the strike is beyond IPPIS, it's for the survival of public tertiary institutions for those that are poor (and the rich). The end game of government is to privatise public universities which would make it unaffordable for majority of Nigerians cos right now Ngr is the poverty capital of the world.

This is not the first time that salaries of ASUU members are withheld by NGR leaders. It may not even be the last. It's better you take it in now that ASUU is a top notch union with strong ideology of cheap access to tertiary education as a fundamental right of qualified students. It's always disheartening when I see other unions in tertiary institutions working against ASUU when they've done next to nothing to in this regard. Government sees university unions as one and ASUU as the intellectual leader that sees through the deceit of politicians.

The politics of this higher education unions tire me. You can always sense the hidden disdain for ASUU in their comments. When you ask them what they've done to improve the system...that's a $1B question

dollext:
‘Wht is university contribution to national development?’ Wht if Govt decide to ignore dem and pay more attention to other sectors who have contributed immensely to national development and in the long run polytechnics graduates and private university students would be employed to feel d current vacancy? Let’s continue watching in a 3D television.

onyxo76:
bro anything is possible o, I read it too this morning...

LibrarianD:
I am really surprised that you work in one, you can as well resign. I'll try to increase your knowledge a little, while you read up on the rest during this stay-at-home.

Universities provide the required highlevel manpower for all the sectors of the Nigerian economy. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic frontline Medical personnel in testing and treatment in Lagos, includes substantially academics from CMUL/LUTH and other tertiary health facilities. This is seen as community service. This is in addition to the teaching and research functions. Compare the fatality rates of Nigeria to that of the first nations. There you have your answer. Stop being myopic, selfish, think beyond your take home.

I've read a lot of selfish post like yours and I'll point out certain facts. You benefitted from a highly subsidised tertiary education and also employed in one, with your meagre scale from Contiss 8 - 15, can you successfully train 3 of your wards in the private institutions? Your guess is as good as mine. I've followed ASUU for a long period and I know they always get the government back to the negotiating table, how they do it I don't know. I only hope members of other unions would not proceed on strike after an agreement between them (just like we read about the EA wahala).

I think I agree with with ASUU that the strike is beyond IPPIS, it's for the survival of public tertiary institutions for those that are poor (and the rich). The end game of government is to privatise public universities which would make it unaffordable for majority of Nigerians cos right now Ngr is the poverty capital of the world.

This is not the first time that salaries of ASUU members are withheld by NGR leaders. It may not even be the last. It's better you take it in now that ASUU is a top notch union with strong ideology of cheap access to tertiary education as a fundamental right of qualified students. It's always disheartening when I see other unions in tertiary institutions working against ASUU when they've done next to nothing to in this regard. Government sees university unions as one and ASUU as the intellectual leader that sees through the deceit of politicians.

The politics of this higher education unions tire me. You can always sense the hidden disdain for ASUU in their comments. When you ask them what they've done to improve the system...that's a $1B question

dollext:
�

roman1755:
And to even think they are working in educational institutions where they suppose to exhibit greater knowledge

dollext:
‘Wht is university contribution to national development?’ Wht if Govt decide to ignore dem and pay more attention to other sectors who have contributed immensely to national development and in the long run polytechnics graduates and private university students would be employed to feel d current vacancy? Let’s continue watching in a 3D television.

Guzel:
How many Nigerians can afford 800k fees for private institutions. How many private tertiary institutions can employ full time staff, promote them and pay their full entitlements. Most of them rely on lecturers from public institutions.
Government subsidized education in Nigeria, so they should be ready to fund institutions.
My concern for tertiary institutions is their inability to source for foreign funding for projects and poor IGR despite the huge population in our campuses.
Governing councils employ just to favour family and friends not because their is vacancy. 5 staff are lined up to do what a staff should do in sane societies.
If you are a staff of any tertiary institution, apparently you are one of the problems we have in the system. You are not there to solve a problem but for employment sake.

Guzel:
How many Nigerians can afford 800k fees for private institutions. How many private tertiary institutions can employ full time staff, promote them and pay their full entitlements. Most of them rely on lecturers from public institutions.
Government subsidized education in Nigeria, so they should be ready to fund institutions.
My concern for tertiary institutions is their inability to source for foreign funding for projects and poor IGR despite the huge population in our campuses.
Governing councils employ just to favour family and friends not because their is vacancy. 5 staff are lined up to do what a staff should do in sane societies.
If you are a staff of any tertiary institution, apparently you are one of the problems we have in the system. You are not there to solve a problem but for employment sake and “FEEL” vacancy.

suzystores:
So playfully we are entering next week without salary.This is pure wickedness.

Guzel:
How many Nigerians can afford 800k fees for private institutions. How many private tertiary institutions can employ full time staff, promote them and pay their full entitlements. Most of them rely on lecturers from public institutions.
Government subsidized education in Nigeria, so they should be ready to fund institutions.
My concern for tertiary institutions is their inability to source for foreign funding for projects and poor IGR despite the huge population in our campuses.
Governing councils employ just to favour family and friends not because their is vacancy. 5 staff are lined up to do what a staff should do in sane societies.
If you are a staff of any tertiary institution, apparently you are one of the problems we have in the system. You are not there to solve a problem but for employment sake and “FEEL” vacancy.

Samakus:
Oga, let me take you to the canvass. You're blaming government, our environment, non teaching staff, school management, but you fail to apportion the right blame to those 'certificate- holding, overly corrupt, thieving bunch of alter egos' you call lecturers. How convenient for a 'lecturer'?

For you, lecturers are not the problem! Well, news flash! They're the major problem in our education system! As an academic, how many inventions have you made? How many unplagiarised work with meaningful impact on the Nigerian society have you written? Aba traders are developing Nigerian made face masks to be distributed to Nigerians; what has our 'researchers' done? Nothing. Our 'researchers couldn't even research about how to create locally made masks, let alone find a cure for the current pandemic! If you ask me, majority of Nigerian lecturers are empty brains with very little knowledge to impact. I know how many I give materials and create online presence for, for effective teaching and learning. Bunch of obsoletes!

I work in an academic environment and I see the rot academics create. The number of girls they sodomize. The uncountable number of 'sorting' they sanction. The wickedness they met out to those that refuse or are incapacitated to 'comply'. I see the number of bright minds they made depressed.

You lots are worse! Stop the blame game! We're all in this together. Every facet of our national life is affected by this malaise called 'corruption'. The earlier we tackle it collectively without looking for whom to blame, the better for all of us. Even with all the fundings in this world, corruption won't allow us develop. Stop exonerating yourself from the decay because you're no better. You, most definitely, are not!

Samakus:
Oga, let me take you to the canvass. You're blaming government, our environment, non teaching staff, school management, but you fail to apportion the right blame to those 'certificate- holding, overly corrupt, thieving bunch of alter egos' you call lecturers. How convenient for a 'lecturer'?

For you, lecturers are not the problem! Well, news flash! They're the major problem in our education system! As an academic, how many inventions have you made? How many unplagiarised work with meaningful impact on the Nigerian society have you written? Aba traders are developing Nigerian made face masks to be distributed to Nigerians; what has our 'researchers' done? Nothing. Our 'researchers couldn't even research about how to create locally made masks, let alone find a cure for the current pandemic! If you ask me, majority of Nigerian lecturers are empty brains with very little knowledge to impact. I know how many I give materials and create online presence for, for effective teaching and learning. Bunch of obsoletes!

I work in an academic environment and I see the rot academics create. The number of girls they sodomize. The uncountable number of 'sorting' they sanction. The wickedness they met out to those that refuse or are incapacitated to 'comply'. I see the number of bright minds they made depressed.

You lots are worse! Stop the blame game! We're all in this together. Every facet of our national life is affected by this malaise called 'corruption'. The earlier we tackle it collectively without looking for whom to blame, the better for all of us. Even with all the fundings in this world, corruption won't allow us develop. Stop exonerating yourself from the decay because you're no better. You, most definitely, are not!

oshiox:
OK since lecturers are the worse. It's simple then the government should shut down Universities. It's ASUU that made the government not to build adequate hospitals, no roads, electricity et al.

How much do lecturers earn here compared to other climes?

As for research in my University inn the last 3 years they have made major breakthroughs in Agriculture and Medicine.... Did the government sponsor? No they did not.

I have a research work currently going on nobody is interested here guess who's interested? a school in Poland.

There are so many research work done in various universities that many are not aware of even when they go public no form of encouragement.

I remember a prof who worked on agriculture here and that research took him to Brazil. A work on Nigeria was implemented in Brazil.

So lets keep on throwing stones at ourselves here. Let the government continue having a swell time since they're paying us millions as salaries.

ASUU is at fault let the government that are saints shut Universities down.

Guzel:
I stopped reading reading after your description of lecturers in your institution because I know better to engage you in a senseless teaching / non teaching war going on in our institutions.
Obviously comprehension could be rocket science for some, i apportioned blame to everyone. I stated that our inability to attract foreign funding is a problem. By that, I meant academics as non teaching staff don’t engage in projects except the technologists.

awele186:
Oh please, what are Nigerian universities doing right now in terms of research and development. Universities in saner climes are developing prototypes of ventilators and ASUU is going on strike because of ippis. We know Nigerians don't know how lectures squander all the reserch grants given to them by Tetfund. It's just pathetic sha, they can't come up with ways to develop their igr, can't get research grants from ngos, can't generate their own electricity, can't develop or research anything. Just obsolete if you ask me. The only set of people government should not joke with are health practitioners and those in university teaching hospitals.


The politics of this higher education unions tire me. You can always sense the hidden disdain for ASUU in their comments. When you ask them what they've done to improve the system...that's a $1B question