Asuus Position on the sack Threat by the federal Government. The threat to sack all lecturers for exercising their right to strike was made in 1993-1996 by the Generals Babangida and Abacha regimes. Professor Ben Nwabueze, who was the Minister of Education in General Babangida’s regime and who was instrumental to the military assault on the right of Nigerians to strike, is still alive. It is unfortunate that close to twenty years of national life have not taught politicians and their government the simple lesson that the job of lecturers is bound by the University statutes, which stipulate conditions for employment, promotions and dismissal of lecturers at all levels. There are, at present, in Nigeria over thirty thousand (30,000) academic staff, each of whom has certain rights that cannot be pronounced away by any government or Minister. That a Minister of Education would pronounce a threat of mass sack of academic staff is a tragedy of huge proportion for Nigeria and Africa. While ASUU has been struggling for conditions in which Nigerian students would benefit from a very much enhanced academic environment in teaching and research facilities, the Minister of Education is thinking of a thoughtless mass sack as a solution to the problems arising from Government’s non-implementation of an Agreement reached with ASUU as if Nigerian rulers have made no intellectual progress since Abacha! To be clear: Nigerian lecturers – from Graduate Assistants to Professors, are not begging anybody for jobs. It is now well known that since 2003, successive governments have told the Nigerian people, repeatedly, that the solution to Nigeria’s social and economic crises is to kill public economic and educational institutions and institute the reign of private control of the economy and education, whereas the Constitution of Nigeria states clearly that the Commanding Heights of Nigeria’s economy shall be publicly owned. The President of Nigeria in 2003, General Obasanjo told ASUU that the solution to Nigeria’s University crisis is massive privatisation. From all indication the Minister of Education, on behalf of the present Government, assisted without shame by NUC, and on behalf of Government, is set to carry out in the sphere of education what one of its predecessors did with Universities, Transcorps, and the Airways. The way is being paved for privatisation of education. Academic staff have a duty to defend the right of Nigerians to sound public education. To succumb to the present threat by the Minister of Education on behalf of Government is to give up on Nigeria. We in the academic profession have no such intention. We resisted Abacha’s dictatorship. We refused to succumb to Obasanjo/ IMF attempts to weaken public in favour of private universities. We convinced Yar’Adua to keep faith with the interests of Nigeria’s youth and desist from privatising education. We remember Obasanjo’s position that the solution to ASUU’s resistance is to flood Nigeria with private Universities. In spite of all these, stretching from ASUU’s principled resistance since the military, we have noticed with disgust how easy it is for ministers and governments to take refuge in political blackmail. We shall never succumb to this. Our country is our Union’s constituency. Nigerians should ask the Minister of Education – why did the Government not respond to ASUU’s letter expressing the Union’s understanding of the “Resolutions” of 4th November 2013? Why did the Minister of Education choose to go public to accuse ASUU of introducing new demands without first replying ASUU NEC’s response to the letter from the Ministry of Education? Did he reply ASUU’s letter to express objections to ASUU’s understanding of government’s position before going to public with gross misinterpretation and ignorance of well-known trade union laws and practices? The answer is No!, No!!, No!!!. The malice is clear. We now invite you to look at the facts. According to the Needs Assessment Reports, here are the needs of Nigerian public universities for academic staff: • There is a total of 37,504 teaching staff across all Nigerian Universities • The majority of the universities are grossly understaffed • Generally speaking, teaching staff distribution in the country, both by qualification and by rank indicates that Nigeria’s university system is in crisis of manpower. Instead of having not less than 80% of the academics with Ph.Ds only about 43% are Ph.D holders. And instead of having about 75% of academics to be between Senior Lecturers and Professors only about 44% are within the bracket while the remaining 56% are not. • Gross inadequate number of teaching staff compared to student population resulting in the production of ‘educated illiterates’ that lack the requisite skills and training to bring about the much needed development in the country as well as to take over the mantle of leadership of the country in future. Recommendation • Given the inadequacy of teaching staff in the university system, it is recommended that government shall have a deliberate policy of improving the national teacher-student ratio to 1:20 within the next two years. Using the present figures of students’ enrolment; this translates to increasing the number of full-time academic staff in Nigerian universities to 50,000. This means the recruitment of additional 23,000 lecturers on the basis of 50:50 ratio between the Federal and State universities. Does or does not the Minister of Education know all these? If he does not, that is disastrous. If he does, how serious should Nigerians take a Minister who possesses all this information yet believes he can subdue academics by threat of sack? Where does he want to get them from? How many foreign lecturers does he hope to recruit with the Conditions of Service in Nigeria, with the knowledge that they can be sacked arbitrarily? ASUU will welcome Nigerians abroad to come back and join the academic development of Nigerian universities. This will be in fit with ASUU’s struggles to reverse the brain drain. Let the Minister of Education find thousands of them to replace those he wants to sack. We shall bow only to what we as academics are convinced will serve the interest of Nigeria and its people, no matter their ethnic, religious or class origins. This is where we stand. We shall never be cowed. We call on all Nigerians who care about our country, all men and women of good will, to prevail on government to do what is just and noble as its present approach will only compound the deepening yet avoidable crises. Thank you. Nasir F. Isa, Ph.D President, for and on behalf of ASUU (Excerpts of a Press release)
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:57:04 +0000
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