ASUU, FG: Who Is Fooling Who?

Emmanuel Ikpegbu

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls,” so said Elizabeth C. Stanton.

For some weeks now, University students have been at home without lectures owing to a disagreement between the government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over salary structure, university autonomy etc.

An inquisitive mind will always ask the unanswered question, who is fooling who? Are the parties in the crisis sincere in their arguments and claims? It is when our leaders try to answer this question that peace will return to our citadels of learning.

ASUU, a labour union of lecturers, organised its first strike action in 1992. The body was led then by Prof Esko Toyo, Prof Okonjo (the father of former Minister of Finance) and late Dr Ala Oni. The union says it can no longer fold her arms while our institutions of learning become shadows of their oldself.

During the 16 years of military dictatorship from 1983-1999, a chain of austerity programmes were in place. Education was relegated to the background.

Scholars like Omafume Onoge, Dipo Fashina, Asisi Asobie, Edwin Madunagu, Ade Ajayi, Toye Olorode, Biodun Jeyifo, Atahiru Jega, Idowu Awopetu, Mahmud Tukur, and Claude Ake, to mention but a few, made giant strides to save the system.

Sadly enough, during the period under review, corruption, profligacy and fiscal impropriety became the order of the day. Men could forge date of birth just to overstay in the civil service, add figures, short-change clients to claim public properties and literally buy degree certificates from the universities.

The painful part of the whole anormally was that the government was inconsiderate of the future of the nation. For instance, allocation to the education sector remained under 10 per cent of the countries budget leading to brain drain. As part of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), naira was devalued and public expenditures were arbitrarily cut down.

The country became so unconducive for education to thrive. While structures were dilapidating and tools wearing out, university workers watched helplessly.

One of Nigeria’s most sought-after scientists in 1999 and the hero of the computer, Philip Emegwali, captured the situation when he said.

“Devaluation restricted the amount of equipment and books that could be purchased. A University Professor that was earning $1,000 a month in 1980 now earns $50 a month and most were forced to emigrate.”

The government at that time saw education as a wasteful venture t hat could be waved aside. May be because they were not educated enough to know and understand the priceless value of education.

When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) forced Nigeria to reduce public expenditures, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida cut the education budget instead of the military budget.

At that time, both teachers and lecturers almost worked for free. The usual saying was that their reward is in heaven. Stock of unpaid salaries piled up whereas hundreds of millions of dollars, not even naira, were expended to import arms.

The sector fell into comma needing a revolutionary change to restore life back to it. Education and Health budgets in 1996 taken together, were less than the defence budgets.

A whooping N15billion was spent to maintain an 80,000-man army (while) less than 15 billion was spent to educate 60 million Nigerian school children.”

It is even more thought provoking to note that public expenditure on education was approximately 0.7 per cent in 1997. This included subsidies to the entire three-tiers of education. Primary, secondary and tertiary education got only seven per cent from the 2001 budget.

The immediate past administration of Olusegun Obasanjo spent over 80 per cent of the budget to run her incompetent bureaucracy.

The snag was not lack of fund in the country’s revenue, rather, the government was not ready to include education in its priority list. For instance, the Abuja National Stadium gulped a whooping $700 million at its completion whereas the budget on both education and health were far below that.

Unfortunately, there are fewer universities than the nation’s population. There are only 92 schools recognised by the NUC and how can these handful of varsities cater for the millions of students who seek admission yearly. No doubt, this has given rise to the everyday over-crowding nature of our schools.

Here and there, abandoned projects spread all over the campuses as the existing ones were left unattended to.

Ikpegbu wrote in from Imo State University, Owerri.

To be continued next week