Ayo Olukotun
Hopefully, the flurry of last-minute activities to stave off the looming strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities will succeed in saving the educational system and the nation another round of possibly prolonged shut down of our rapidly multiplying universities. One wished that it did not come to that: a situation where the government would do the right thing only under the pressure of a strike, but over time we have built a system that is not responsive to its own internal logic or administrative processes but only to the impulse of emergencies and naked threat. The downside of carrying on in this manner that is fumbling and wobbling is that this method tends to repeat itself to the detriment of building a healthy, stable and productive arrangement.
To make the point clear, every concession that the ASUU has gotten in the last 12 or 13 years has been through the weaponry of strikes and shows of force. If you go further back in time, you will find that previous governments responded to ASUU and indeed other workers’ unions only after they went on strike, at times extended strikes running into several months. So, we have a culture that is strife-ridden and reactive rather than structured, pro-active and is a beneficiary of long term planning. To give a random example, ASUU has let it be known that since it “suspended” its last strike late last year, there has been no movement on the fundamental issues that occasioned the strike. Resources and funds promised are reportedly sitting pretty in the central bank while a distressed educational apparatus travels from one degree of destitution to another.
At the heart of the ongoing conflict, is the failure to honour earlier agreements that were renegotiated but not given legal, administrative and political backing. The union insists, for instance, that academic staff in public universities have been on the same salary since 2009 despite several strikes, parleys, Memorandum of Understanding and Memorandum of Action. Specifically, there is contention over the attempt to force the universities into the straitjacket of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System with drastic consequences for such matters as sabbatical leaves, research grants, fellowships, exchange programs and other time tested academic practices peculiar to the Ivory Tower.
In spite of the fact that ASUU has come up with alternative software entitled University Transparency Accountability Solutions, government has thus far failed to admit the alternative for the purpose of implementation. One does not have to be an academic to recognise the peculiarities of certain organisations which make them different from the general run. It is astonishing that such an elementary principle of difference has caused so much bad blood because of a rigid insistence on uniformity. This is more so especially when you consider that there are many university graduates and academics in high positions in government who ought to have advised on the matter. That is not all, less than a decade ago, government carried out a Needs Assessment of Public Universities with a view to revitalising and upgrading run-down infrastructure. Sadly, a good deal of the recommendations from the exercise is yet to be implemented and constitutes another sore point between the union and government. Part of the problem is that government resources are spread thin over a wide and spreading number of institutions considering that federal and state governments continue to establish new universities for political reasons almost on an annual basis.
Bear in mind too that public universities are for political reasons not allowed to charge economic fees making the Ivory Tower wear the apparel of destitution riding on a begging bowl culture. Contrast this situation with what you have in South Africa which only has 26 public universities, with nine of them of world class standards as reflected in their being listed on Times’ Higher Education Survey as among the best on the globe. One of them, located in Cape Town recently made the edifying ranking of being among the best 20 in the world. As far as this columnist is aware, no Nigerian university has appeared in the first 400 positions on global rankings, yet, our political elite sees nothing wrong with setting up yet more universities while the existing ones are poorly attired, underfunded and drowning in a bedlam of strikes due to governmental apathy.
As has been widely noted, Nigeria has become the scene of unhealthy competition between universities around the globe for Nigerian students willing to study abroad. Indeed, as I have pointed out elsewhere, several countries including the United Kingdom consciously make budgetary allowances for Nigerian students fleeing the desperate conditions of our universities. Unsurprisingly, political office holders promptly dispatch their wards to overseas universities, a practice that allows them to turn a blind eye to the accumulating confusion in our institutions. Usually, a benchmark of the seriousness of a ruling elite is the attention and focus it gives to educating the much talked about leaders of tomorrow. One of the reasons for the disconnect between generations in this country is that the youths have become disillusioned about the prospect of Nigeria being rescued from successive leadership groups who promise much but deliver very little. Factor that in the last couple of years, the budget for education has not exceeded 8% of total budgetary allocations and yet we claim to aspire to build world-class universities. If the looming strike is allowed to take off, there is every possibility that it will be prolonged and result in another absent academic year. Recall, that some universities recently had to cancel a session because they had fallen behind the academic calendar. There are universities on the globe which have not been on strike for 300 years and these are the ones we claim to be in competition with.
Doubtless, Nigeria can do much better if the governing elite sets its mind to do so. The politicians are adept at fundraising and sometimes with the onset of elections can quickly raise billions of naira to finance political projects yet they are content to pay professors monthly salaries equal to the amount they easily fritter away over lunch breaks. Is this the outlook of a country going somewhere to happen or determined to carve out a niche on the world stage? It bears repetition that the developmental state of East-Asia invested deeply in educational growth at all levels which partly accounts for their rapid ascent to modernity and global prominence. The same thing goes for any country that is eager to turn the tables on the current world order by rapidly climbing to the top.
