Granted that many of our Public institutions have over the years been buffeted by fumbling and bungling through years of neglect, inadequate funding and administrative flip flop, issues which the Yar’Adua’s administration has been grappling with, but none has been so barraged to knuckle under as the academia due to many factors including the insensitivity of lecturers to, the plight of their students who bear the brunt of recurrent strikes. The result of this is the continued rail in the standard of education and any doubting ‘Thomas can apply any of the parameters to determine the level at which it has sunk and ten extrapolate dispassionate conclusion.

A few years before Chief Olusegun Obasanjo left Aso Rock he promised to give jobs to some graduates who performed creditably well in their degree examinations and as the ball was in the court of the Federal Civil Service Commission to conduct the recruitment exercise. it set a competitive examination, not just oral interview for the exercise, an examination which exposed the undies of our graduates. The performance or these graduates who was too appalling to be believable; some people who made first class and second class honours upper division scored 30 percent. Worse of it all is that even some mass communication graduates who scaled this examination hurdle and therefore adjudged to be intellectually sound can not write a publishable feature article after practicing for more that two years in media organizations.

Another invent that exposed the Achilles Heels of these graduates is a recent interactive session the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Maharazu Tsiga held with the media. Disappointed by lacluster performance of the corps members the Director General disclosed to his bewildered audience that some corps members were so educationally deficient that they could not appropriately fill the forms given to them. He said that in other to clear the doubt whether these people were not fake graduates he often enquired from relevant institutions whether the offending corps members were indeed their graduates. He said that the response was usually in the positive.

Some years ago when this writer was in the now defunct feature section of the ministry, he had a terrible experience with three of these semi-illiterate and half-baked graduates. The three of them were employed by the Federal Civil Service Commission which deployed them to the Ministry of Information. This was at a time the Government of the day was being lacerated unsparingly by the media for obnoxious policies and we needed more hands in the features section to be able to cope with the momentum of incessant media pillory. As a sequel the trio was posted to the section. The three were given a file containing news paper cuttings which were based on unfavourable comments on the government and we were faced with adverse press reports from six newspapers from where they should select for their rejoinders but after days of musing and sighing they admitted they could not react to the stories. They where bold to tell this writer that they were not mass communication majors for which I gave them topics which they should handle as term papers or projects. They fumbled and bungled the whole exercise for which they where sent packing from the section. This is the sorry state of education in spite of the fact that the universities subject ­candidates to pass the litmus test by going through a chain of examinations; the Post-UME Test after writing WAEC and NECO Examinations and above all the JAMB University matriculation examination.

Lecturers know the effect of long absence from the class room on their students yet at the slightest disagreement with the Federal Government they resort to strikes as a means of redressing their grievances and when invited to conference tables often prove intransigent thus prolonging the strike. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for the 14th time embarked on another indefinite strike which as usual paralyzed academic activities in the universities affiliated to the union. The union’s demand this time include adequate funding of the university, adequate remuneration, autonomy and extension or retirement age amongst others. Those who justify the strike on the ground that the universities are at the bottom of .both Africa and global ratings in terms of wages and fringe benefits should have a rethink when they find out that since 1993 ASUU has gone on strike for 14 times, one strike too many:-

I 993 Three months

1994 Six months

1995 Four months

1996 Seven months

1999 Five months

2000 Two months

200I Three months

2002 One week

2003 Two weeks

2005 One week

2006 Three months

2007 Two weeks

2009 Warning strike: two weeks

Present strike; since June 23rd.

To resolve the dispute a committee comprising representative or the Federal Government as well- as ASUU was set up. The federal government team comprised Deacon Gameliel Onosode, Six pro-Chancellors, Senator Abdalla Wali (a former pro-chancellor) and the Executive secretary of the educational tax fund, 11 Advisers made up of the education secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), three former Vice Chancellors, three Serving vice Chancellors, one former University registrar and one serving registrar. Government has 12 observers comprising two representatives of the Federal Ministry of Labour, one deputy executive secretary (NUCY one representative from special services in the presidency, one representative from the Federal Ministry of Education, two representatives from the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, two representatives of the Federal Ministry of Justice, one representative from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of  the Federation and two representatives of The Federal Ministry of Finance. ASUU has 28 representatives from both Federal and State Universities.

The committee was to reverse the decay in the university system …, reverse the brain drain not only by enhancing the remuneration of the academic staff … , to restore Nigeria Universities through immediate massive and sustained financial intervention and to ensure genuine University autonomy and academic freedom.

The high point of the debacle is the rejection by ASUU of the 40% salary increase accorded to it by the Federal Government. The Federal Government delegation led by Deacon Gamaliel Onosode urged the lecturers to return to the classroom before further negotiation could commence. Government insists that having met three of the four demands, ASUU should reciprocate the gesture by returning to classroom while ASUU on its own insists that the federal government should sign the agreement reached before they call off the strike.

ASUU should back pedal because it has lost the sympathy of all. The state governments support the government arguing that had the Federal Government signed the agreement it would have negated the principal of federalism. Further more both the Federal Ministry of Labour and Industrial Arbitration panel had asked ASUU to call off the strike and resume work in support of the Federal Government’s stand of no-work-no-pay. The Senate Committee on Education which was brokering a truce between the Federal Government and ASUU was not happy with the stand of ASUU as a result or which it cancelled the truce.