ASUU: Accolades for Adams Oshiomhole
By Bola Bolawole
Gov. Adam Oshiomhole
Finally, the ASUU
strike is over.
Hurrah! The agreement between the teachers’ union and the Federal Government, which had been the bone of contention, was signed last week. For years and only God knows how many Governments in between, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the umbrella organization of University teachers in the country, and their employers, represented by the Federal Government, have waged relentless and endless battles around issues surrounding university education in Nigeria.
Appropriate remuneration for university lecturers, adequate funding for the universities, university autonomy, enabling environment for learning and for research were some of the issues that had become hard nuts to crack for negotiators representing the two opposing groups. As with the saying that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers, hapless students and parents had borne the brunt of the fight of the two elephants (i.e. ASUU and the FG) but beyond this, society as a whole has been the greatest loser.
Incessant strikes by ASUU to force the issues identified above not only led to the disruption of university school calendar again and again, leading to the outright cancellation of whole semesters and sessions in some universities, it also has been held responsible for the abyss into which standards have fallen in our universities. Inadequate funding and overbearing intervention by Government complete the rot.
Certificates from many of our universities these days are not worth the papers on which they are written, even from the so-called first-generation universities that once were centres of excellence recognized worldwide, not to now talk of the plethora of state and private universities that are, at best, caricatures of what universities are meant to be. I once read the interview of a well-placed Nigerian who said she cried when graduates from our universities clutching first class degrees failed simple spelling tests that kindergartens from good nursery schools would pass. It is that bad.
Getting to recruit good hands for jobs today is a big headache; yet we have tens if not hundreds of thousands of “graduates” roaming about the street in search of jobs. The challenge that confronts every right –thinking Nigerian is how to reposition these “graduates” many of whom take umbrage whenever their inadequacies are pointed out to them. Employers of labour may deny it publicly, but the truth of the matter is that there is a high preference for foreign certificates now than those issued by our local institutions of higher learning. Many parents caught in the web are finding a way out of the dilemma: if you can afford it you quickly arrange for your child to have a master’s degree outside the country (Ghana, even Lesotho or Botswana will do) to shore up his first degree certificate obtained locally. It has become that bad.
Which was why the last strike by ASUU got me really nauseated: were these people oblivious of the tragedy that had befallen university education or is it that they couldn’t care a hoot? What is the pride of universities no longer able to perform the mandate of producing competent labour force for the society? The last strike was one strike too many but we would not be right to put all the blames on the teachers. How about the Government that has allowed the Ivory Towers become mere shadows unable to help the society re-generate itself? How on earth will such a Government meet its often-touted developmental goals?
Which was also why I heaved a sigh of relief last week as I watched ASUU and FG put pen on paper on an agreement that, hopefully, would end all ASUU strikes in Nigeria and usher in an era of re-building and re-generation of the universities so they could retrieve at least a portion of their lost glory. This is hoping that the last strike was the mother of all strikes that ended strikes by university lecturers in the country. Although full details of the agreement are yet to be made public, the hope is that each core area of ASUU’S disagreements with the Government had been adequately taken care of: the teachers’ welfare; adequate funding, clipping the government’s meddlesomeness in the Ivory Towers, to mention but a few.
That being so, now is the time to settle down to serious business. Government must not go to sleep after initiating the agreements with the lecturers but must promptly set off the machinery for full and unfettered implementation of the agreements reached. The lecturers, on their part, have a daunting task, perhaps even more so than the Government. Commitment to the best ideals of the university system is now demanded of them; so also is uncommon devotion to duty.
Divided loyalty and unprofessional conduct should have no place in the Ivory Towers if we are to positively turn around the university system and give university education and the certificates we award the respect and integrity that they deserve. Henceforth, we must work hard at making our universities the centres of excellence that they once were, recognized and cultivated all over the world. Before long, we should begin to see our universities appear among the best 1000 universities in the world.
For helping to broker peace between ASUU and the FG, we owe the Executive Governor of Edo State, Comrade-Governor Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, a world of gratitude. God Bless you, Sir. Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called the children of God. I shudder to think of what would have happened if the Governor had not stepped into this matter and if we have not had the privilege of an Oshiomhole who is capable of wearing two caps one and same time i.e. as part of Government and also as part of organized labour.
As the immediate past President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), a very active and popular one for that matter, Oshiomhole and the ASUU leaders were once comrades who marched side by side, storming the Bastilles as it were, and manned the trenches together. So, they understood each other’s body language very well. As a state Governor, Oshiomhole also now has joined them, I mean the “other side”, i.e. Government, so he now also has a better understanding of how Government thinks and works. His being a Governor and member of the National Council of State who has unfettered access to Mr. President must have assisted the rapprochement between ASUU and the FG a lot.
This is saying that we need more of Adams Oshiomholes in government; not only the system but the people and society as a whole will benefit from it. Let us have more pro-masses leaders in the three tiers of Government i.e, Local, State and Federal and we shall all be the happier for it.
There is another group of people or process that we need to appropriate for the breakthrough in the ASUU/FG imbroglio – the Niger Delta militants/Amnesty deal group. If there had been no militants’ surrender, which has now given rise to the possibility of the country exporting more crude oil and earning more money, I doubt it whether the FG would have been encouraged to sign the pact it did with ASUU. It is when a man has sufficient money in his pocket that he can confidently say, “Yes, I am listening to you”. The amnesty deal might be the hidden key and stimulus/incentive that unlocked the ASUU/FG traffic jam.
Which means that we must keep amnesty on track. My suspicion is that there are many more critical issues that we will be better able to resolve if the Niger Delta issue is resolved – power supply, for instance, if uninterrupted flow of gas can be guaranteed. With more money in - even if we always fear that our pockets leak badly – more can still be done, especially if we appreciate the fact that dwindling resources only make matters worse for us and never really improves them. This is why we need full disclosures at all time on the amnesty deal. One thing I have noticed about Governments is that they keep too much information “classified”, and that has helped neither themselves nor anyone. Another is that the real people who should know make less, even insignificant, input into the decision-making process. We must strive to avoid these pitfalls this time around.
The people desire – and deserve – to know what their leaders are doing on their behalf at all time; they also need – and should be encouraged – to make informed input into the decision-making process. That way, we can forge ahead together for the betterment of our society and the progress and prosperity of coming generations of Nigerians.
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