Opinion
ASUU Strike: Time For Truce
The usual parents’ prayer or wish that their children should not go through the same ordeal as them is certainly not being answered in the issue of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)’s strike in Nigeria. Every parent would wish that their children have a better life devoid of many hiccups. While that may work in other areas of life, it hasn’t been so when it comes to having an uninterrupted academic calendar in our universities and, if care is not taken, in years to come, the desired answer to that prayer request may not materialise.
Many of us parents spent extra months or years in universities due to no faults of ours but because of perennial dispute between ASUU and the government. Painfully today, our children in public universities in the country are having the same bitter experience. Since March 17th, they have been out of school as ASUU embarked on yet another industrial action to compel the federal government to grant their demands.
Incidentally, the demands have remained the same for decades. They ask for improved salaries and welfare; adequate funding for all university programmes and activities; equipping laboratories and libraries with relevant materials and others. As far back as 2009 agreements were signed by both the government and the university unions over the implementation of some of these demands, followed by further talks that led to the 2019 Memorandum of Action. Government is said to have reneged on these agreements.
So the current strike, according to the university lecturers, is a fight over government’s none upholding of agreements acceded to and signed to uphold coupled with their rejection of the payment platform, Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) which incidentally, has been an issue as far back as 2013. According to ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the current strike is because of the government’s insensitivity to university education “because there are plans to make education inaccessible to children of the poor.”
A visit to some of our universities will prove that ASUU may not be asking for too much especially with regards to improved facilities on the campuses, staff and students’ welfare. The pitiable state of some facilities in these institutions is no longer news. A few months back, reports on the sorry state of students’ hostels in University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was on virtually every social media platform and the traditional media. Students were said to be living like refugees or inmates of an internally displaced persons’ camp. Overcrowded rooms, leaking roofs, as abandoned hostels, where snakes, lizards, rats and other rodents and wild animals compete for space; filthy environment were some of the issues the student had to contend with. Some of the abandoned hostels were turned to lavatories by the students, where they answered the call of nature.
The story is not different in many other public universities in the country and our leaders know it. An ASUU member in one of the foremost federal universities recently narrated how the institution’s convocation arena has practically been turned into a lecture hall as no classroom can contain the large number of students, especially for general courses. He said that, at a given time, there can be two or more classes going on simultaneously at different corners of the arena with the lecturers each using a microphone to make their voices heard.
There is certainly no way we can continue like this and expect the future of the nation to be better. The United Nations recommends 26 per cent of the national budget for education; but here we are budgeting merely 5.6 per cent for education, including primary, secondary, tertiary and others in the 2021 budget. Yet we budget billions of naira for elections, the National Assembly and other things that interest the powers that be. It is a clear indication of our priorities as a nation.
In the words of Malcom X, “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” It then stands to reason that if we want a better future for the country, we should begin to invest more on education. There is no doubt that if the government made deliberate efforts to implement previous agreements with ASUU on funding of our universities the country would have been better off for it and the current quagmire would have been avoided.
Blaming past governments for signing the agreement as the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, recently did, threatening fire and brimstone as the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, has a penchant for, is definitely not the way to go. It will only keep the gates to our universities shut for a longer period. What we need is practical, honest and sincere steps on how to improve education in the country in the interest of all, particularly the children of the poor who cannot afford private or oversea universities and are relying on public universities to become somebody in the future.
No one is oblivious of the economic hardship caused by Covid-19 pandemic both in Nigeria and across the globe but if we make education our top priority, we will find a way of keeping the sector running.
On the issue of IPPIS, in the interest of the students who are tired of staying at home, the government should listen to ASUU which has presented very sound reasons why they should not join the payment plan. They say the IPPIS does not address their peculiarities and that it can turn universities into the civil service. The alternative, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) presented by the academic union may be considered. As some other concerned people have suggested, the issue of the payment platform must be resolved before the strike is called off so that there should not be a reason for the lecturers to down tools in the nearest future.
ASUU should also be reminded that going into a negotiation, you cannot expect to get all you want. So they should be ready to shift their grounds in the interest of the students and the education system they protect. They should also think of other alternatives from strike so that the vicious cycle of truncated academic calendar will not continue just as they find a way of dealing with the issues of ghost salary earners, corruption and poor utilization of funds associated with the university system in Nigeria.
By: Calista Ezeaku
Opinion
Truce With Terrorists, Toast To Atrocities
The attrocities of criminal bandits across northern Nigeria have lasted for too long to be pampered any longer”.
Some northern elders have cautioned the federal government against moves that suggest that President Ahmed Tinubu is considering reconciliation with notorious bandits, especially, Bello Turji and his gangs, who are reportedly alleged to have inflicted so much atrocities on many communities in the North-West and North-Central regions of Nigeria. Earlier, a video of the notorious bandit kingpin, Bello Turji, had appeared on social media, calling for reconcilliation, when the previous day, same Turji was seen accusing some communities of killing particular tribe and their livestocks, and threatening retaliations for the killings, and that this season, “You will not harvest your farms. If you dare to, you will die. No farming this time around.”
Speaking in a statement under the aegis of the Arewa Elders Progressive Group, the North-west chairman of the group, Alhaji Mustafa Dutsinma, warned that falling for the antics of those who pretend to be ready for reconciliation when it suits them to do so, would “undermine government’s efforts at combating banditry.” Such moves only end up in boosting the morale of lawless elements who see themselves as parallel authorities. The Zamfara State Government in 2019, under the leadership of former Governor Bello Matawalle, the current Minister of State for Defence, negotiated and signed a peace agreement with bandits, but the pact failed as bandits reverted to their games. Similar attempts have also failed in other regions.
The instability in the north has metamorphosed into organised, heinous criminality, from years of tribal conflicts over land resources between pastoral Fulanis on one hand, and several other tribes across the vast swathes of the North-West, North-East and North-Central, and have trailed the paths of herders as they led their merchandise of herds further south of Nigeria. The complexity and terror in the conflicts intensify and change almost continuously, in campaigns that have drawn-in cross-border militia, and masked the boundries between religious ideologies, politics of domination and sheer tribalism, with recriminations from both sides leading to arms running, banditry, livestock rustling, arsons, abductions, kidnappings and ransome racketeering, and the near collapse of Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
While tackling these conflicts has become intractable and a huge burden on the federal, state and local governments, one of the currently most notorious and dreaded figures behind the mayhems in the North-West and North-Central terrains, is Bello Turji reportedly known to have deftly engaged communities and the military in shrewd gamesmanship. In a span of one year alone in Zamfara, the epicenter of recent onslaughts in the north, between July, 2023 and June, 2024, about 1,639 victims have been abducted in 132 cases. Many traditional heads across the North have also fallen victims of terror, alongside so many unaccountable others. To count just a few, this year in March, Garba Badamosi, the village head of Rirvwai in Lame district of Toro LGA in Bauchi was killed.
In June, the chief of Gidan Usman village, Auwal Wali, was also killed at his residence in Karim Lamido LGA of Taraba, while in July, the traditional ruler of Chanchanji in Takum LGA of Taraba State, KumbiyaTanimu, and his son were killed while returning from a funeral. The most heart-breaking of all yet, was that of the Emir of Gobir in Gawata town of Sokoto State, Isah Bawa, who was tied-up and paraded in a viral video in August while pleading with government to pay the ransom for his release, but was later killed after three weeks in captivity, without releasing his corpse for burial. It was on this backdrop of heavy heart that soldiers from the Nigerian Army 1 Brigade in Gusau, stationed at Zurmi LGA of Zamfara State, acting on intelligence that a large number and different camps of bandits, comprising those of Bello Turji, Sani Black, Na Dutsen Kura, Dan Dogo, Nasanda, and Dankarami, were attending a meeting in a forest in the Kwashabawa area of the LGA, decided to lunch an offensive on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
Unfortunately, either by bad weather due heavy rains, a compromise, poor inter-military agencies co-ordination, or sheer bad fortune, the operation failed, with the army being forced to abandon two pricely Mines Resistant Armoured Personnel (MRAP) vehicles, stuck in a water-logged terrain. Those MRAPs, worth between $0.5m and $1.0m each, were the equipment captured, celebrated and burnt on Saturday August 31, 2024, by Bello Turji and his comrades in arms. That same day, bandits rounded-up travellers in mass abductions in the state. An eye witness posted on social media that, “A few hours ago, bandits blocked the Damri to Bakura road in Zamfara State, abducting all passengers from two fully loaded vehicles. It’s alarming that terrorists can put a blockade on a road in broad daylight without any fear.
The northwest region of Nigeria has become a web of terror,” all which may have prompted the Presidency, penultimate Sunday, being September 1, 2024, to issue matching orders to Nigeria’s Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, to immediately relocate to Sokoto State with the military chiefs, to flush out rampaging bandits ravaging the country’s North. With the renewed military momentum now against bandits across the north, the suden reconciliatory tone of the likes of Turji is provocative and should not be entertained. The attrocities of criminal bandits across northern Nigeria have lasted for too long to be pampered any longer, with so many sheded innocent blood crying out for justice, mineral resources plundered and communities enslaved or displaced, while our national agriculture is laid desolate, to wit hunger and desperation have become the other of the day.
It therefore serves Nigeria’s national interests better that criminals are taken head-on, subdued, rounded-up and brought to justice, to restore confidence in our nationhood. Besides, the capture and burning of prime military equipment for whatever excuse, is a national humiliation of which the military needs to assuage.The failure of inter-military agency co-ordination that led to the military humiliation at Zurmi LGA, rather than a successful offensive that would have reduced insecurity on the Zamfara axis, should be investigated with a view at achieving better synergy between the Army and the Air Force especially, coupled with other agencies.The federal government may also consider applying the wisdom of ancient cities in the cordoning-off of cities with walls against foreign intrusions. Gaint walls along Nigeria’s borders, with eyelets of tightly controlled passages, would help ward-off cross-border militias who are alleged to invade Nigerian communities in fraternal responses to tribal conflicts.
In the mean time, the matching orders of Mr President to the military establishments to the effect that criminal elements operating across the north, and in deed everywhere else in the country, be wiped out, should be sacrosact and conclusively a done deal, without any rooms for negotiations. Any slack in the fight against criminality would only grant dangerous time to the bandits to recuperate, reorganise and reinvent their evil antics.
Joseph Nwankwor
Opinion
Respecting Traditional Institution
The traditional institution is as old as human society. It predates the advent of modern and organized society. Before the emergence of political system of administration, the traditional institution has existed long ago. In fact, it was so revered and regarded as sacred because of the mythological conviction that it was the “stool of the ancestors”. In most African societies before invasion of the Christian Faith, and consequent christening of the traditional stools in many communities in recent time, ascent to the traditional institution was a function of a traditional method of selection. It was believed that the gods make the selection. To this end, whoever emerges from the divination processes eventually is crowned as the king of the people after performing the associated rituals.Whoever lacked the legitimacy to sit on the throne but wanted to take it forcefully, traditionalists believed died mysteriously or untimely.
Traditional rulers wielded much influence and power because of the authority inherent in the stool, the age of the person sitting on the stool notwithstanding. The word of the king was a law, embodied power. Kings so selected were forthright, accountable, transparent, men of integrity, who did not speak from both sides of the mouth, and could not be induced with pecuniary benefits to pervert justice, they feared the god of their ancestors and were consecrated holistically for the purpose dictated by the pre and post coronation rituals. Some of those crowned kings were very young in those days, but they ruled the people well with the fear of the gods. There was no contention over who was qualified to sit or who was not qualified, it was outrightly the prerogative of the gods. It so believed and upheld with sacroscance. Kings were natural rulers, so they remained untouchable and could not be removed by political governments.
If a king committed an offense he was arrested and prosecuted according to the provision of the law. But they have immunity from sack or being dethroned because they are not political appointees. However, the people on whose behest he became king reserved the power to remove him if found guilty of violating oath of stool.The traditional institution is actually the system of governance nearest to the people and kings were the chief security officers of their communities. So indispensable are the roles of kings and traditional rulers to the peaceful co-existence of their people, ensuring that government policies and programmes were seamlessly spread to the people that many people are clamouring for the inclusion of definitive roles in the constitution for the traditional institution.Traditional rulers are fathers to every member of their domain.
So they are not expected to discriminate, show favouritism. By their fatherly position, traditional rulers though can’t be apolitical, are also expected to be immune from partisan politics. This is because as one who presides over a great house where people of different political divide or interest belong, an open interest for a political party means ostracisation of other members of the family which could lead to disrespect, conflict of interest, wrangling and anarchy. Traditional rulers are supposed to be selfless, preferring the interest of their people above their personal interests following the consciousness that they are stewards whose emergence remains the prerogative of the people. The position is essentially for service and not for personal aggrandizement and ego massaging. So they should hold the resources of the people in trust.
However, in recent past the traditional institution has suffered denigration because of unnecessary emotional attachment to political parties and political leaders. Some traditional rulers and kings have shown complete disregard to the principle of neutrality because of filthy lucre and pecuniary gains, at the expense of the stool and people they lead. Sadly some traditional rulers have been influenced to pervert justice: giving justice to the offender who is rich against the poor. Traditional leaders should be reminded that the “throne is preserved by righteousness”, not by political chauvinism, favouritism, or materialism. Traditional rulers should earn their deserved respect from political leaders by refusing the pressure to be subservient, beggarly, sycophantic and docile.
They should be partners with every administration in power and should not be tied to the apron string of past leaders whose activities are aversive to the incumbent administration and thereby constituting a clog in the development of the State and the community they are to woo infrastructure development to. It is unpardonable error for a traditional ruler to have his conscience mortgaged for benefits he gets inordinately from any government.It is necessary to encourage kings and traditional rulers to not play the roles of stooges and clowns for the privileged few, political leaders. Political leaders are products of the people, even as every government derives its legitimacy from the people. Today, Sir Siminalayi Fubara is in the saddle of the administration in Rivers State. Kings, traditional rulers, chiefs and entire people of Rivers State should give unalloyed and unflinching support and loyalty to the Executive Governor.
The resources with which successive administrations served belong to the people so no past leader should be deified. It is unacceptable to attempt to make a god out of anyone. Leadership is transient so is life.
Igbiki Benibo
Opinion
Subsidy Is Dead, Long Live Subsidy
Before the 2023 presidential elections, acres of print space and hours of airtime were expended by armies of well-paid publicists and media influencers to sell home the fact that candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the real deal among the three presidential candidates running in the election. The narrative ran that Tinubu had in his ken, the ability to turn Nigeria’s flagging economy and transform it like he did as Governor of Lagos State when he oversaw an unprecedented level of development at the centre of excellence.
Last week, a major dent to that well packaged façade of President Tinubu was inadvertently revealed when it emerged that the cardinal economic measure of the administration, removal of subsidies on petroleum products, have all along been an elaborate deception. Before nervous and embarrassed Tinubu administration officials disclaimed it, the story that subsidy payments totalling N5trillion had been making the rounds.
To the utter consternation of Nigerians, the question was howbeit that a government that said it had ended subsidy payments is now having to pay more than two times the Buhari government which was paying over N2trillion on subsidies?
The case of petroleum subsidy payments has been mired in a crisis of clarity and truth. When some petroleum economists questioned the claim that subsidy had been removed with empirical facts, mum was the word from the President who announced the measure in the first place and who doubles as substantive Petroleum Minister. The minister of State in the same Ministry, Heineken Lokpobiri without providing contravening facts pointedly denied that subsidy was being paid. The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Mele Kyari also said what amounted to the same thing as the minister of state. His explanation was that in the past subsidies arose out of the necessity to license contractors to import and distribute petroleum products in the country as a result of non-functioning of the refineries. In the current dispensation however as the NNNCL had been given the sole responsibility of that task, there was no need for subsidies as he said ‘’NNPCL (through its ways, I presume) had the mechanism to cover the costs’’ of the task of importing and distributing the commodity without subsidy.
But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were not convinced. Let us not forget that the twin institutions are the authors and supervisors of the Tinubu administration’s economic policies. And what they say in their assessment of the economic policies of the administration cannot be far from the truth. Whereas the GMD’s explanation was more on the side of contrived sophistry intended to deflect embarrassing enquiry, the statements from the IMF and World Bank on subsidies were decidedly factual. The World Bank’s Country Director in Nigeria connected the variables of the oil importation and distribution monopoly of the NNPCL to arrive at the conclusion that subsidy was indeed being paid. These include; the rate at which the NNPCL procures the dollar for the transaction; the cost of the commodity at point of procurement; cost of freight and insurance; landing and distribution costs in Nigeria. Where there is a difference in the actual cost of one or all of the variables, this then establishes the fact of subsidy. The World Bank knew that NNPCL was getting foreign exchange preferentially at the official rate which is below the market rate. And from that stage right up to the landing stage and distribution in Nigeria, the subsidy graduates at every point leading inevitably and factually to the conclusion that subsidy was being paid.
The IMF on its part pointedly said that taking all the points together, the fact that the pump price of the petroleum products all things being equal should be somewhere between 700 and 800 naira per litre and not the 680 naira per litre that it is being sold presently. The fact that it is not being sold at those rates is the clearest indicator that the difference in pricing is the subsidy. Kyari’s explanation that the NNPCL is covering the cost is a vague indication that the conglomerate is paying the cost differentials to the local oil marketers to distribute the cost locally after it had imported the commodity to the country.
Let us not pussy foot about it; subsidy is indeed being paid by the Tinubu administration. The only difference here is that unlike in the past where the subsidy payment was a bazaar for all comers, in this particular dispensation, it is the NNPCL that exclusively warehouses the subsidy. And it is by connecting and calculating all the dots on the entire chain of NNPCL’s oil importation monopoly that the World Bank concluded that there was indeed subsidy in the process. So in reality, Mele Kyari’s explanation that NNPCL had the means to cover the cost of oil importation task was merely half the story and it does not convincingly disprove that oil subsidy was not being paid.
If walks and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Much as it strenuously tries to deny that there is no subsidy, discerning Nigerians know for a fact that subsidy is indeed being paid by the administration. The truth however is that because the payment goes to a single source, the NNPCL which buries the payments in its labyrinthine maze of creative accounting it is not readily discernible as it was in the past subsidy dispensation.
That perhaps explains why from the President who is the substantive Minister of Petroleum to Lokpobiri the State Minister and the GMD of NNPCL, they all can put up a face and say that there are no subsidies. They are able to say so because they are secure in the knowledge that the NNPCL which is at the nexus and custody of the entire process of oil importation into the country can obfuscate the truth about it all with a wink and a nod as it is now doing.
Gadu, is a prolific writer and online communicator.
By: Iliyasu Gadu
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