Again, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), after a march on the National Assembly, has called out its members on strike € the university lecture halls across the country have been silent. Students, some of whom resumed just a few weeks back, will be agitated that they cannot learn. We are expecting that any time from now, following the collapse of the negotiations between the Federal Government and ASUU, universities will be shut again.
Of course, not surprisingly, the Federal Government has issued a warning of €˜no work, no pay€„¢! This trivializes the issues at stake.
It is surprising the Yar€„¢Adua administration is behaving in the same manner as the governments before it. It was thought that President Umaru Musa Yar€„¢Adua, himself a graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, would do things differently. Why not? His deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is also a graduate, a former lecturer and presumably a former member of the ASUU.
Besides, Yar€„¢Adua has often spoken passionately about education, and boasted a few times of how much he spent on education when he was Governor of Katsina State. He even established a university there.
It is becoming obvious that either his much talked about interest in education is fake, or he has been taken hostage by the forces of retrogression whose sole desire is personal gain € and ego trips. In this instance, the personal egos of some few individuals close to government appear more important than the fate of hundreds of thousands of students who, without a resolution of the current crisis, would be heading back to their villages.
What are the issues at stake? A few years back, academic staff went on strike and as part of the resolution of the crisis, before the strike was called off, it was mutually agreed between government and the lecturers that no lecturer would be sacked as a result of the strike. The University of Ilorin authorities thought otherwise. Forty lecturers were sacked. The lecturers went to court and the courts ruled that they should be given back their jobs.
Even President Yar€„¢Adua himself had given indication to the ASUU that he would reinstate the sacked lecturers.
Some forces in government, and at the University of Ilorin, have been opposed to sorting out the matter in favour of the lecturers. Even the intervention of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na€„¢Abba, could not sway them. They argue that some of the sacked lecturers had already been employed elsewhere and that the positions of the sacked lecturers had already been filled. After all, they further argue, since the lecturers had gone to the courts, the courts should settle the matter.
ASUU argues that it has not gone to court € and would not betray its members who obeyed its order to go on strike. In any case, why should the University of Ilorin breach the agreement that led to the calling off of the strike?
I am surprised the issue has lingered on for so long. Does the Nigerian education system need these lecturers or not? Haven€„¢t governments urged people to withdraw cases from courts so that settlements could be made? Why has the University of Ilorin been so adamant in refusing to have the lecturers back? Is it not because of some petty internal politics that government should not have tolerated in the first place? Or should the Federal Government have agreed to take this side of a faction and still have peace in the university system? Shouldn€„¢t the government be a father to all?
While I expect that former President Olusegun Obasanjo could be so petty, I am surprised that President Yar€„¢Adua would condescend so low to allow the university system go through another round of crisis because of some egocentric consideration completely devoid of public good and interest. Does he (Yar€„¢Adua) know that God will require from his hands the blood of any student who dies as a result of this crisis? By the way, this same Yar€„¢Adua asked civil/public servants relieved of jobs by Obasanjo to take back their jobs € and would not let these lecturers take back theirs. What is so special about the University of Ilorin? The biggest and most important legacy Yar€„¢Adua would leave is education and honesty in public dealings. It is dangerous for him to allow himself to be cornered by sectarian interests. The ASUU gave him the benefit of the doubt when he was sworn in € and, I am surprised he is not extending the same to them.
Once Yar€„¢Adua recalls the 49 lecturers, peace, relative peace, at least for a season, would return to the universities.
Time it is, for Yar€„¢Adua and Jonathan to prove that as beneficiaries of the university system, they would approach issues in a more civilized way. After all, they are civilians € university bred for that matter.