“ASSU, FG IMPASSE: THE WAY FORWARD” – Mr. ’Rotimi Odejayi

THE STATE OF THE NATION! THE STATE OF THE NATION!!

“ASSU, FG IMPASSE: THE WAY FORWARD” – Mr. ’Rotimi Odejayi

Mr. Rotimi Odejayi is an ICT Officer at Lead City University, Ibadan.

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“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource” – John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963) A Former US President.

It is exactly one hundred days today that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSU) has been on an indefinite strike in protest of an Agreement the union entered with the Federal Government in year 2009. And there seem to be no end to this lingering impasse. Within the last one hundred days have been accusations and counter-accusations from the two parties with ASSU emphatically demanding that the Federal Government should honour the agreement they willing entered into with the union in 2009, whilst the Government is saying they do not have enough financial resources to accede to the requests of the striking lecturers. For example, it was reported in the media last week where “The President still reiterated that Government cannot afford the bill ASSU brought and he accused the striking lecturers as been used by the opposition parties to pull his administration down.” In a Splash FM Ibadan programme aired last Saturday, ASSU Chairman in U.I. Branch, Dr. Ajiboye opined that “the strike will be total, and will still continue until the Government answer us…Nigerians are even saying we should fight this to finish and never come again for any industrial action. No going back on this strike.” If this impasse is continuing as we are experiencing, what now is the way forward is the question on the lips of everyone?

Here are the comments of a Nigerian, in my exclusive chat with Mr. Opeyemi Folarin, a current-affairs analysts – “these striking lecturers are outrageous in their demands. Do they want us to ground this government in the name of increment of hand-earn allowances and salaries? Mr. President runs a government wherein he spends over 74 percent of the budget on recurrent expenditure. I am not of the opinion that we should neglect other sectors of the economy to pacify the striking lecturers. Mr. President has told them Nigeria’s economy do not have 1.3 Trillion naira they are asking for. Or should he kill himself or go to borrow money to settle them? You will recall the government in the last two months has not been able to share any financial allocation because there is no money to share. May be the country is insolvent I don’t know.”

Recall that it was in the course of this strike that the former Minister of Education was shown the exit door, although so people felt he might have been sacked because of this lingering impasse between ASSU and FG. Besides, it is noteworthy that almost every other arms of the Nigerian education sector are on strike. An example is the present down-tool by all Lecturers in Nigerian Polytechnics (since Friday October 4^th, 2013) with the Primary cum Secondary School teachers, under the auspices of NUT threatening to join the strike in solitary with their University counterparts from this Thursday, October 10, 2013. Not only that last week, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities SSANU equally started their own indefinite strike. Kehinde Alagbe, an under-graduate of FUNAB, Abeokuta in his own outburst said and I quote, “it is a pitiable dismissal that my country is not fair to her teaming youths. How will I be made to stay at home for one hundred days when I should be progressing with my studies. So sad!! Things must not continue this way. I just hope Mr. President do something fast to end this strike.”

In the result of an International Universities rating released over the weekend; we see that ours is a country where no Nigerian University is among the first four hundred universities in the world. The question is: Do we now continue to watch as the future of the education sector of the country continues to be bleak? The answer is No. We cannot continue this way, if we do not want to be backward in the development of World economies cum frontier academic researches. The truth remains that our nation is still developing because we are not giving education a top priority in this country. The reason is because the level of development of a nation cannot be greater than the level of that nation’s development in the education sector. Here is my honest recommendation on the way-forward.

“Two wrongs do not make a right.”

“I was in the University of Ibadan, Ibadan last week Friday and met the once crowded community with very scanty people. Obviously the business people therein are not enjoying the best of sales at all. Just as the salaries of the striking lecturers for two months has not been paid. Unknown to me the staff I went was not in the office, as their Union advised them to stay away from their office/work. The only way forward is for the two warring parties to go back to the negotiation table, at least for the sake of the innocent students staying at home. The incidence of the Protests called out by NANS and other concerned U.I Students on October 1^st here in Ibadan is an indication that this country is sitting on a keg of gun-powder if these students continue to be kept at home. I saw these protesting students with my eyes, how their anger halted vehicular movements, caused obstruction for pedestrians, broke down law and order with their abusive placards and inscriptions that elicit their frustration at the closure of the University since June 30, 2013. Please for Posterity sake, let the Federal Government and ASSU Representatives go back to the negotiation table and let the government accede to the request of these lecturers cum give them realistic targets to meet in return. At least it is better to jour-jour than to jourwar. In the discussions should be sincerity, readiness to shift grounds by the parties, just as the Federal Government should please honour the agreement they went into with ASSU in 2009. The reason is because an attempt to further shift the time to honour this agreement is like shifting the evil days forward. In my own opinion, I think there is no amount spent on education that is too much, as this sector if well standardize and funded should be used as a wheel to further develop the country. Drawing cue from the comment of Mr. Folarin above, it will not be out of place if we go and borrow as a country to develop infrastructures on our university cum settle our striking lecturers with a view to developing our tertiary education sector of the economy. At least we have money in the Nigerian reserves which Economists say are kept in case of eventuality. Here is an incidence of eventuality that needs a financial bail-out. I hope the advisors of the President and the Supervising Minister of Education do something fast to avert the impending closure of all our public institutions (and public schools) in the name of ‘solidarity strikes’ from all these education unions in the nation. God bless Nigeria.” – Rotimi Odejayi.  

 “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource” – John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963) A Former US President.