By Andrew A. Erakhrumen
It may be discomfiting, but the truth, (our truth), must be told; that many Nigerians love quick fixes! This is a reason why they (we) have been going round in circles concerning their (our) challenges!
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For instance, the tempo of stakeholders’ clamour, for Nigeria to find sustainable solutions to the underlying challenges causing industrial disharmony in the country’s public universities, subsided within two weeks after Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, suspended its strike on the October 14, 2022.
It was as if Nigerians, owing to the suspension, instantly forgot about the unresolved issues. Now, the people whose actions/inactions led to, and sustained, the painful eight-month strike in public universities are at it again – as usual!
They have stirred up a hornets’ nest in federal universities! Those ‘neonates’ engaging in infantilism and pettiness, brandishing a selectively persecuting and discriminatory “no-work-no-pay” policy have not only held on to the pittance they call seven months lecturer’s salaries but also paid for October on “pro rata” basis saying that the lecturers were paid for the number of days they worked in October!
Lecturers are now casualised? Imagine the abysmal depth anti-intellectuals can shamelessly go! Buba Marwa seems right that public office-holders should undergo an integrity drug test! It should be obvious by now… that these… crises are always concocted by those who benefit from them… Strike actions are mistakenly viewed as the problem rather than a symptom of a deeper malaise that necessitates serious treatment.
With sincerity of purpose, the issues causing industrial crises in our public universities are not unresolvable. The suspension of the strike, in these public universities, is always a pleasant news item for stakeholders, but, unfortunately, those who do not want lasting solutions to industrial crises are aiming at this through their childishly vindictive and illegal “pro rata” salary payments.
Yes, the courts ordered striking lecturers back to work, but can intellectual deliverables get to students this way? Is a lasting solution obtainable this way? No, to both questions! The negotiation table is the place to attain peace! This was buttressed by the intervention efforts of well-meaning Nigerians, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives and his team, in the crisis.
Even though the issues were not satisfactorily addressed, these efforts reinforced the fact that effective dialogue and understanding during disagreement help in bringing about solutions rather than someone turning such a sensitive public issue into a personal quarrel, as Attahiru Jega correctly stated in one of the interviews he recently granted.
Instead of chasing shadows, it is incumbent upon the “notorious agents of the ruling class” (and ‘thieving’ servants in concerned ministries) to move swiftly in taking advantage of the “low-hanging fruit” with a view to sustaining negotiations that will forestall future industrial crises in public universities.
It is noteworthy that experience has shown that ‘thieving’ uncivil servants and other faceless bureaucrats in government ministries deliberately strengthen unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks to frustrate consultations, negotiations, and the implementation of negotiated-agreements that are collectively-reached, for reason(s) best known to them!
Moving forward, the poor people who are disenfranchised from obtaining quality education from well-funded public universities should stop staying away, leaving the struggle for collective salvaging of these universities for ASUU. It is disheartening that some Nigerians wrongly blame the victim (ASUU) in the struggle to reposition the public universities!
We ask: where are the other stakeholders in public universities? Where are the rights groups? Where are the non-governmental organisations? Where are the pro-democracy groups? Where are the students’ movements? Where are the professionals? Where are the intellectuals and intelligentsia? Where are the other (Nigeria) labour unions?
Where have all the statesmen and women gone? Where are the leaders of positive thoughts? What of everybody? Will you allow “the labour of our heroes past” to be in vain? Why should we allow those that were nowhere to be found during the struggles for the restoration of civilian rule to destroy the little gains the country has achieved?
Do we need to state that many of the people in government today were the ones frolicking with yesterday’s military juntas? There is no secret about this. They are well known. Then, is there any need to look too far for the reason(s) behind their anti-democratic and anti-intellectualism posture?
It is increasingly manifesting, with their (mis)demeanour, that truly one cannot give what he/she does not have. Some people may not know this; they want to disenfranchise the children of the poor and breed another group of future oppressors among their children and protégés! This is causing clash of ideology between them and ASUU!
Painfully, many of these people (some in government) rose from the crushing ashes of poverty to where they are, today, through public-funded education but (as ingrates) are now advocating for cruel commodification and commercialization of the publicly-owned educational facilities. Nigerian governments are good at responsiveness and irresponsibility.
They demonstrate these by appropriating peanut as funding for public education sector. The bulk of this peanut, which proportionally diminishes every budget year, is spent in the ministries by the ‘thieving’ servants. Nobody is, and should be, against funding from sources different from governments’ coffers. Nonetheless, what we are clamouring for is the initial massive, well-monitored government investment that will assist in attracting other local and foreign investments.
Historically, those universities (even in Africa) that Nigerian students are now gravitating to did not get to the level they currently are without initial government funding! Access to universities may not be enough, but those interested based on merit should not be discouraged. If they have to pay more, then they must get value for their investment.
They should not be treated the way electricity consumers in Nigeria are being treated by the fraudulently-privatised power sector: where consumers pay for electric meter; they pay for electric transmission poles; they buy and maintain electric transformers; their transmission lines are consumers’ responsibility!
In fact, some people (within the same ruining elite) without any prior tangible investment took over electrical power sector to fleece Nigerians! The disaster that is unfolding in Nigeria’s “privatized” power sector is to be expected if we do not sit down and agree on clear terms that will generate sustainable funding structures for public universities now.
*Erakhrumen currently teaches at the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management, University of Benin, Benin City
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