ASUU Strike and the many narratives. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the sole superintending body of the Academic section of Nigerian Universities, have being on a biting industrial action since July 1, 2013. The underlining issues are of public knowledge, therefore reiterating them here, would be very much unnecessary. The strike action was initially met with the characteristic lull in the system. With no one ready to quickly assume responsibility and everybody preferring to behave as if it wasn’t their business, the hope was that with time the cantankerous lecturers will return to class, leaving Nigeria and her business to continue as usual. Slowly however, the lull graduated into a quiet murmuring and before long, the floodgate of opinions was opened. Expectedly, the resulting narratives, have being a curious cacophony of all sorts, some out of sincere patriotism, some out of sheer weakness of half-educated minds, some out of dangerous ignorance mixed with utter desperation, and some others out of very familiar political thuggery cum blind riverine nepotism. Certainly, in such times and season, it can only be a matter of time before every Tom, Dick, and Harry (something my people in Yoruba-land would refer to as Taja Teran) becomes an expert on how to manage ASUU. And so it was. Before long, all and sundry began to postulate on what ASUU stands for, or should stand for, or should not stand for, or should be standing for. Whatever! Of the mix of narratives, three stands preeminent. Chief is that of the government of the day. Though fierce and forceful, it a set of narratives, that has since suffered many reverses. Some people have attributed this to a poverty of ideas. I don’t think such things bother those in this government, as much as they are bothered about rescuing a flawed election in their Anambra backyard, even if it takes abandoning their candidate at the river bank naked, and promoting the pyrrhic victory of the friendly incumbent party. This government’s set of narratives has being a matter of trying every trick that comes to the mind, and setting loose every word that comes to the mouth. Initially, the trick was to label ASUU as a gang of political contractors playing politics with students’ destinies (whatever that means). When that did not work, the tune changed to calling ASUU members greedy people who are well paid but always asking for more. Still that failed to sell. Again, out of the blues appeared a group calling itself Nigerian Market women, issuing a 7-days ultimatum to ASUU (maybe that was what those who hired them told them to do, and they didn’t bother to ask what ultimatum means). In the midst of the back and forth game of narratives, dirty politics turned the tables. The then Minister of Education, Prof. Rukayyatu Rufai was swept away in a tsunami-like political coup targeting at arresting the influence of the recalcitrant PDP G7 Governors (as the group then was). After all, it’s a man’s prerogative to choose to chase rats, even when his house is on fire. The exit of Madam Rufai politically paved the way for a fellow by the name Nyesom Wike to assume a new title of Supervising Minister (of course titles shall never end) and he immediately set to work to deploy his trademark tactics. Since then, the story has being a tale of “One week, one trouble”. The new set of narratives have ranged from the government going to media to say that ASUU is playing subversive politics to the last one in which the ASUU leadership was referred to as a group of militant minorities, all in a wave of what some have labelled as executive recklessness. Nobody knows whether Mr.Wike had the authority of his principal Mr. President, before he attempted, as he last did, to force open the Universities with Military fiat, however, with the kind of jobs Mr.Wike is strategically placed to do to ensure 2015 is a reality, the powers that be are sure ready to live with his vituperations, whether they be presidential or not. Closely on the heels of government, are the parents. It is good for us to look at what the parents have being saying. Nigeria is a unique country, if not, why would you have parents who would stoically stick to their guns that their wards must attend fast decaying colleges and would frown at any group that consistently demands that they are made better. In a country where the only symbol of societal relevance is a University degree, even when most are acquired from glorified secondary schools masquerading as a Universities, that must be the case. Let us assume, without conceding that these Parents are direct stakeholders in this matter, it would accordingly be our expectation that they hold an uncompromising view on the quality of education their wards receive and would therefore demand something commensurate to their expectation, where the reverse is the case. However, recent events appear to suggest that there may be no real expectation after all. The Parents’ narratives have being the most shocking. In the course of the strike action, a section of parents have taken to lashing out at ASUU, calling the Lecturers names, even trying to suggest that ASUU has a penchant for holding the University system hostage. All they have been screaming is that they want their wards back in School, Period! As far as they are concerned, ASUU should return to class, rotten infrastructures and half-baked education notwithstanding. This is rather unfortunate and a most shocking phenomenon, but maybe we have just been exaggerating the desire for the best that we apportion to this group of Parents all along. It is a sad truth that the average Nigerian parent today epitomises the failure of the family system in a country caught in the crossfire of moral decadence and bread & butter survivalist struggle in which children have become mere social trophies. Today, the average parent cares less about the quality of education his/her child gets, as long as he/she has a daughter as a Doctor, or a Son as a Lawyer to show off before friends and Associates as a symbol of the family success story. The primitive quest for fine social standing and acceptance has so much blinded many parents to the things of value, that these days all these parents are after is how fast the 4 years for a degree will go by, without a thought for the quality of instruction .Gone are the days of sound family values, when parents would deliberately let their wards repeat a class, just to come out better instructed in a subject. Today, it’s a question of quantity, so much so that you see parents ferrying off kids as young as 12 and 13 years of age to the University, even when such may be totally lacking in the necessary qualities needed to handle University life. They dump their wards in Universities across the country for 4years or more, without bothering to come around and see for themselves the condition in which these kids study. Some of these kids in their display of juvenile weaknesses are caught up in all manner of vices, while the Parent are also on a frolic of their own, less bothered about how their kids turn out. No wonder, the society is today burdened with thousands of graduates brandishing all sorts of degree qualifications, yet empty in substance. This is the same group of parents calling ASUU all sorts of names, having suddenly forgotten that if not for the consistent struggles of ASUU over the years, government would have succeeded in its objective of commercialising and privatising University education and most of their wards would have been shut out by now. Over the years, government has deliberately underfunded University education, with the aim of weakening these institutions and surreptitiously selling the argument that it can no longer fund them, with the ultimate ploy of privatising them, yet these are the same people some uninformed parents have chosen to call names. One may perhaps not forget those who are supposed to be raw materials in the Universities, the students. What has being their story? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Many do not even understand the issues surrounding the strike, not to talk of appreciating the good it portends. An inconsequential few who claim to know, have since become misguided, junketing from one political platform to the other, selling their birthrights to politicians. This should be shocking, but it is not. It is an all too familiar story. The endless noise about leaders of tomorrow is nothing but an over flogged clique. Even the students are not interested in being leaders tomorrow, as long as they can share whatever is left of the country today and cruise round the world their ambition is fulfilled. During the life of the current ASUU strike, students in Brazil for weeks led massive protest demanding a reversal of government cut in University funding. Same for students in Chile. In Greece, Universities have been shut for months now, while the students have been unrelenting in their protest. Same for the UK, where students took to the streets protesting unfriendly policies on University education. Back home in Africa, Egyptian students have being at the fore fronts of months of protest to force out the Military adventurers. These are students in Universities with facilities far better than ours, yet they remain unrelenting in demanding a better system. It is all predicated on the prevailing consciousness in those countries and the culture of values that the older generation have succeeded in transferring to the younger ones, a culture in which you consistently demand for that which is right. The happening here is however a reflection of the failure of the family system, as earlier discussed. Education to the Nigerian youth is nothing but an inconvenience forced on them. They would rather pursue a career in Music like Terry G, even if they do not know how to play a single musical instrument or understand the basics of harmonics, than acquiring the knowledge of dialectic reasoning or logic. While the average Chinese kid is rooted in the discipline of voracious knowledge acquisition with his counterpart in Europe, a geek tucked away in a book sanctuary trying to break new grounds, the Nigerian youth is either a Social media loafer or a football diehard, so much so that for them, a football viewing centre is a more profitable arena than the University Lecture theatre. Verily, ASUU current campaign is a struggle to rescue whatever is left of the University system from total rot. It is immaterial, if many do not appreciate this. I stand to be corrected, but if the standard of education had not fallen over the years, certainly the quality of parental thinking and behaviour on serious national issues would be different. We can safely say the same for the students. It is no longer news that we do not have a correct template of what purpose a University should serve. The rest of the world has left us behind in our mess, while we have become too comfortable in our mediocre behaviour of letting sleeping dogs lie. A visit to any of our public Universities world bring any sensible person to tears, yet these supposed stakeholders are condemning ASUU for not allowing their wards return to school. Which school, I beg to ask? When our best University here cannot compete with the least in South Africa? Even those celebrated as the new brides called private universities, are no more than profit-making ventures, save for a microscopic few committed to providing world-class infrastructure that will enhance quality teaching and research. A country that goes on to set up nine new Universities, tucking one away shamelessly in the President’s village, when the tens in operation are threatening a strike action, has obviously told the world that it does not know what it is doing. University development and funding in line with international best practices, is obviously not rocket science neither is it a matter of National dialogue, save that when clueless politicians are in power, it becomes a hard bone in a toothless mouth. Certainly, a government that does not see anything wrong in spending three-quarter of its National Budget on frivolous recurrent expenditures largely the salary of political profiteers called office holders and buying bullet-proof cars, will never see why Public Universities should get N200billion a year, even though it is still a paltry sum. It is important to set the records straight, ASUU is not on strike because it feels that Nigeria is today blessed with a government responsible enough to give us first-class University education, ASUU’s effort thus far is merely predicated on the powerful saying that, “If we fight we may win, if we do not fight, we have lost”. Certainly, ASUU will continue with its core principles, principles that have stood it out in the last 30 years. It is left for Nigerians, whether Parents or students, to determine their fate. Eventually, whatever Nigerians get is what they deserve.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:11:35 +0000
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