Why I am againstASUU’s frequentindefinite strikes

By Douglas Anele
Once again, another
round of insensate
indefinite strike by the
Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) has
paralysed academic
activities in federal and
state universities
nationwide.
According to the union,
the decision to go on
strike stems from
government’s insincerity
and lack of seriousness,
which led to the non-
implementation of some
provisions of the 2011
agreement.
Specifically, the issue
concerns “earned
allowances,” that is,
allowances meant for the
excess workload by
lecturers, which include
teaching more students
than the recommended
number, supervision of
post-graduate
dissertations, and sundry
administrative functions
performed by lecturers.
For me, President
Goodluck Jonathan is a
great disappointment to
his former colleagues,
considering the fact that
as a former lecturer, he
should have invested
heavily and wisely in the
educational sector. When
military dictators were in
power, they put a lot of
money into defence
because that is their
primary constituency.
There is no good reason
why a former academic
should not give
preferential treatment to
the education sector,
because well-educated
human capital is the most
important factor in
national development. As
I have always argued
whenever ASUU resorts
to indefinite strike,
successive federal and
state governments have
never lived up to their
responsibilities to
institutions of higher
learning in the country.
This is because of heart-
rending corruption and
lack of deep appreciation
by political office holders
of the fundamental role
sound tertiary education
plays in national
development, especially
now that we a living in a
knowledge-driven
globalising world.
Speaking of corruption,
Jonathan’s administration
lacks the moral authority
and iron will to deal with it
decisively. Consequently,
scarce public funds that
ought to be used to
improve education and
other critical sectors of
our national life are looted
and the remainder is
wasted on the sybaritic
lifestyles of top
government functionaries.
That said, the reaction of
Prof. Julius Okojie,
Executive Secretary,
National Universities
Commission (NUC) to the
current strike is
disingenuous. According
to him, ASUU should
have persevered because
the amount it presented to
government for settling
the unpaid allowances
was huge. Prof. Okojie
ignored the fact that there
is enough money to meet
most of ASUU’s
demands, but President
Jonathan and other top
public office holders are
not managing it wisely.
Moreover, given
government’s half-hearted
implementation of
agreements with ASUU in
the past, the union is
justified in thinking that
government does not
really intend to keep its
own side of the bargain
this time around also.
Nevertheless, if indeed it is
true, as Okojie alleged,
that ASUU did not get
back to government after
its National Executive
Council meeting at Olabisi
Onabanjo University
before announcing the
strike, then the union
acted in bad faith. Why is
ASUU in a hurry to
declare an indefinite strike
just for earned
allowances, to which only
some lecturers are entitled
anyway? In my view,
considering the serious
damages to the
universities caused by
frequent indefinite strikes,
ASUU should have been a
little more patient, no
matter the level of
frustration with the
unnecessary delays by
government in paying the
allowances.
From the foregoing,
government is wrong in
failing to abide by the
terms of the agreement it
has with representatives
of the lecturers and
deserves blame for giving
ASUU an excuse to
embark on strike once
again. Yet, it would be
intellectually dishonest,
and false, not to highlight
some of the ways
lecturers have contributed
to the financial problems
in various public-owned
universities. To begin
with, university authorities
across the country, just
like politicians in
government right now,
are guilty of financial
recklessness and
mismanagement of
resources.
Government-owned
universities derive funds
from two principal
sources, namely,
government subventions
and internally generated
revenue (or IGR). In terms
of IGR, authorities of the
University of Lagos are
working very hard to
optimise the revenue-
generating potentials of
the institution. But there
are many leakages in the
financial pipelines of our
university system as a
whole which prevent
optimum utilisation of
available resources to
cater for the welfare of
lecturers. For example, it
appears that the
universities are competing
to see which one would
have the largest fleet of
redundant brand new
cars and which Vice
Chancellor would drive
the biggest and most
expensive jeeps. In
addition, the new
bureaucracies and
directorates of
questionable value to the
growth of the system
created in various
universities cost a lot of
money to maintain. We
should not fail to mention
the numerous, mostly
unnecessary, foreign trips
embarked upon by top
management staff of the
universities.
All this constitutes a huge
financial burden on the
system and prevents
university authorities from
paying lecturers what is
due to them. Why are the
local branches of ASUU
unwilling or unable to
demand accountability
and transparency from
relevant principal officers
of their various
universities? ASUU must
begin to look inwards
because several Vice
Chancellors, bursars etc.
will not survive
painstaking scientific audit
of their institutions:
corruption and
misappropriation of funds
are not the exclusive
preserve of politicians –
there are also bad eggs in
the universities.
Again, I do not support
indefinite strike because of
its negative effects on
students and other
stakeholders, including
lecturers. Frequent
disruptions in the
academic calendar
compromise academic
quality, frustrate students
and prolong the duration
of academic
programmes. The social
costs are immense too,
for both students and
their families. It is
disappointing that ASUU
does not consider it
appropriate to conduct a
thorough scientific study
of the repercussions of
frequent strikes on
various stakeholders
within and outside the
university system. As
academics, we are
supposed to manifest an
unceasing desire for
knowledge and truth.
Therefore, how can we,
seekers and custodians of
knowledge at the highest
level resort to strikes ad
nauseam without
corroborating evidence of
its overall effectiveness in
improving the system?
The mere fact that our
salaries increase after each
strike does not necessarily
mean that we have
become better lecturers
and researchers, let alone
guarantee positive change
in other variables that
determine the quality of
knowledge impartation in
the universities. Let us tell
ourselves the truth:
funding is a serious
problem militating against
high standards and best
practices in Nigerians
universities and
government is the major
culprit here. However, the
kind of students and
lecturers in our institutions
of higher learning
nowadays, I submit, is a
bigger problem. Many
students are not in school
to be educated; they just
want to get certificates as
soon as possible and join
the rat race for primitive
accumulation. On the
other hand, the spirit and
attitude of people joining
the academic profession,
especially in the last fifteen
years, is a negation of
what the spirit and attitude
of a genuine academic
should be.
Of course, teaching in a
university is
fundamentally a vocation.
Thus, anyone that
chooses it must be
prepared to put the quest
for truth above everything
else. Unfortunately, a
crowd of self-centred,
hypocritical, promotion-
intoxicated careerists who
are afraid to tell senior
colleagues that run the
system the plain truth,
especially when the latter
perform badly
increasingly dominate the
academia. Some of these
misfits are so fanatic
about strikes that they
would resort to violence
to prevent dissenters like
me from teaching,
forgetting that when
everyone is thinking and
acting alike, not much
critical thinking is going
on. CONCLUDED.
All the same, I am proud
of many colleagues that
reject the prevailing herd
mentality for their
erudition, intellectual
honesty, truthfulness and
genuine love for teaching.
This group of lecturers
must speak out against
destruction of the
university system by
colleagues who continue
to do the same thing
every time and expect a
different result each time.
CONCLUDED.