THE proverbial two elephants are at war now with the federal government’s failure to accede to the demands of members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the grass, in this case students, is groaning in pain. Already, end of semester examinations were disrupted at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Maiduguri and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka while lectures have stopped. But SULAIMON OLANREWAJU, in this report, writes that the pains of the students transcend the postponement of examinations and stoppage of lectures.
ACADEMIC Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is determined to make the ongoing strike the mother of all strike actions. The union is resolved not to balk; it is prepared for a long drawn battle. According to the president, Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, ASUU members would stay away from work for as long as it takes the government to decide to meet the demands of the union. To this end, the union has anticipated that the government’s immediate reaction to the strike action will be stoppage of salaries and it has prepared for it. According to Dr. Kabir Olusegun Akinyemi, ASUU chairman at the Lagos State University (LASU), the union has already set up a Coping Strategy Committee (CSC), which would offer assistance to any member of the union in dire need of it in case the government decides to stop salaries of the striking university lecturers. So, he said, thinking that ASUU members would be cowed by withholding salaries would not work.
The union embarked on a strike action Monday last week as a way of forcing the government to grant its demands. An agreement reached between the federal government and the union in 2001 states that the government ought to make adequate budgetary provision for education, improve condition of service that would check the problems of brain drain, ensure university autonomy and academic freedom.
According to ASUU, the government has failed to keep its part of the bargain. Since 2004, the issue of government honouring the agreement it entered into freely with the lecturers has been on and the government at each point has demonstrated lack of interest in the matter. To underscore its lack of commitment to the issue, the Federal Ministry of Education, which hitherto had been negotiating with the union, referred the matter to the Federal Ministry of Labour, a development which piqued the university lecturers to no end.
However, despite the fact that a majority of the people support the agitation of the ASUU, parents and students would want an early resolution of the crisis. According to Mr. Johnson Hezekiah, the earlier the matter is resolved the better it is for everybody, especially the students.
“Really, anyone who has keenly followed the issue will know that ASUU has a justified case. The lecturers are not just fighting for themselves, they are fighting for the survival of the university system,” Hezekiah, who claimed to have two children in different universities said. “ASUU is asking for better funding for the universities. The union is asking the government to improve infrastructure provision in the universities. All of these will lead to an improved university system in the country. Having all these in place would lead to an improvement in the quality of the products of our university system. This fact is well known. However, with the posture of the government, it is going to be a hard battle for the lecturers to win. ASUU has said it would not call off the strike unless the government meets its demands, if the government does not respond in one or two months does that mean that ASUU will remain on strike. What will that mean to the system? How will that help the case of the students? When you are dealing with a stiff necked government, pursuing the hard line will not help. The lecturers should fight for their entitlement but they should bear in mind the situation of their students.”
Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie,
ASUU presidentSpeaking in a similar vein, a 200 level student of medicine at the Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso, Dupe Isola, said the lecturers should take the plight of the students into consideration in making their decisions.
“No matter how long the strike lasts, even if the government refuses to pay their salaries during the strike, the lecturers cannot lose because eventually they will be paid. The losers in this imbroglio are the students,” she said. “If the strike does not go beyond two weeks, then we are lucky because it will not be too difficult for us to catch up but if it goes beyond two weeks, then it will be a real disaster.”
The medical student explained further that the leaders were not interested in developing public universities because their children were either in private universities in the country or foreign ones.
“So both the leaders and the lecturers have nothing to lose. It is the students that will lose. We are the ones who will not be able to complete our course in time. We are the ones that will not be able to go for service early enough. We are the ones that will grow old on campus while still trying to earn the first degree due to no fault of ours. It is not fair,” she said.
Another student, James Ilori, described the development as a demonstration of the heartlessness of the government and the lecturers.
“The government is not bothered about the situation because many of the officials have their wards outside the country. The same goes for our lecturers; many of them have their children in private universities or even abroad. So, why will they not decide to grind the system?”, he queried.
Ilori also explained that the strike action if not resolved early would further destroy the university system and worsen the quality of the products of the nation’s universities.
“How will any university in the country be among the first 1000 in the world? How will foreign universities not reject Nigerian university graduates for postgraduate studies when we always put our universities under lock and key at the flimsiest of excuses? The government is not serious about improving the system but are the lecturers also ready? We have to face the fact; those in authority have no intention to improve the system. The unfortunate thing is that the students are made to suffer unnecessarily. When will this change?”
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