Where ‘Enough Is Enough’ Truly Belongs

During the era of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), under the Presidency of Army General Ibrahim Babangida, the Academic Staff Union of Universities in Nigeria (ASUU) raised some alarm, pointing out the shape of things to come. Despite every clandestine effort to weaken and destroy the solidarity among lecturers then, Nigerians were given some hints that military regime was putting the future of the country in jeopardy, perhaps unwittingly, by installing a system of an oligopoly.
Without going into details of what transpired then or the hostility shown towards radical members of the academic community, the following hints were given: (1) A monopolistic or gangsteristic allocation or sale of oil and gas resources and other national assets going on then, secretly. (2) Declining value of the Nigerian currency and the precarious state of the economy and reasons or activities behind such trends (3) Structural imbalances being put in place, deliberately, for some political and economic purposes. (4) Systematic but gradual destruction of the middle class, which is usually a nation’s stabilising group. These antics were revealed by the lecturers.
Reactions of the military regime towards the alarm raised by university lecturers included an admonition that “undue radicalism” would not be tolerated from lecturers, and that they should focus on teaching what they were being paid to teach. As at that time, monthly salary of a professor was less than N20,000 whereas military officers were building 5-star hotels and other structures. “Nosy” lecturers were targets for witch hunt.
It became obvious to members of the ASUU that military regime was not interested in strengthening, but rather in weakening, the culture of higher education in Nigeria. It was not a surprise that most frequent and lingering strikes by university lecturers took place during the military era. It also became obvious to a large number of Nigerians, as late Captain Elechi Amadi said, that the society does not place any value or emphasis on naked honesty, hard work or sacrifices of individual Nigerians. What resulted from the series of anomalies created by the military regime, which included an unfair reward system, reflected in a lukewarm attitude of public servants towards labour. Patriotism declined also!
Who would want to labour throughout life and then die in penury when others can become millionaires in a few months’ time by selling oil block allocation papers? The periods of military regime characterised by frequent closures of the universities, enabled some lecturers to veer into various business ventures, including becoming taxi drivers. Despite threats of “no work, no pay”, lecturers took such threats as mere jokes, all resulting in a diminution of the zeal to serve or labour to build up the nation. Thus began the rot we know today.
When President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted recently as telling striking university lecturers that “enough is enough”, as an appeal to make them go back to the classrooms, that was not considered as anything new. Lecturers have discovered much to their chagrin that they have been wasting their energy and brain resources talking in classrooms.
If former military officers can afford to own private universities, airlines, build several houses including 5-star hotels, before the age of 60, then what would move striking lecturers about enough being enough? With the current value of the naira falling drastically as it has, is there any public servant who depends solely on salary, who is not complaining now? Since we operate a system which does not care about productivity or probity, it takes very little for any public servant to join the system or club of social parasites.  But for the fact that there are still a few Nigerians who place value on probity and integrity, the country would have been worse than it is now. Who’s fooling who?
Therefore, the “‘enough is enough” slogan from the President of Nigeria to striking lecturers, can be said to have missed the most appropriate target. Yes, to stay away from the classroom for close to six months, forcing students to be home and idle, is long enough a period to resolve the issues which resulted in the strike. For striking lecturers to be so unyielding and unmoved by threat or cajole, is quite vexatious enough. But can any impartial arbiter in the matter say that the attitude of the federal government is ideal enough? Are lecturers the sole problems?
Nigerians were introduced many years ago to the legal concept of “Imperfect Obligation” arising from the federal government’s inability to fulfil its own side of agreement reached with university lecturers. The style and attitude of the current government is not different from a re-introduction of the theory of imperfect obligation, attributable to a learned Professor, Ben Nwabueze. Today it is Dr Chris Ngige.
“Enough is enough”, like “no work, no pay” or resort to the theory of imperfect obligation, may not be a threat; but more likely the use of a hackeyed strategy of evading rather than confronting an issue in a transparent manner. To resort to the old argument that the country does not have enough money to meet the demands of ASUU, is to remind the lecturers to dig out the claims of profligacy and mis-placed priority pointed out long ago as accounting for the nation’s current plight. Was ASUU’s allegation that Nigerian senators earn about four times the wage of the President of the United States of America, wrong?
Was Senator Shehu Sani wrong when he disclosed that “every Nigerian Senator gets N13.5 million monthly as running costs, about N200 million as constituency, while the salary is about N750,000”.  Are there not several other allowances paid to political office holders, running to millions of naira monthly, all of which make striking lecturers say that education is being deliberately undermined? Certainly lecturers know a lot more than what they say in the open!
Rather than President Muhammadu Buhari telling any labour union that “enough is enough”; or any-one make a joke of some people labouring till they die, with nothing to show for their efforts, Nigerians can also tell their leaders that the masses have endured enough jolts. Nigeria may not be Sri Lanka, but the plight of a family in Kandy is not different from a family in Kano. Nigerian masses may be cowardly and security agents unfriendly, but surely a wind of change is currently blowing across the globe. There is a strong need for positive changes and less of parasitism! Enough is enough!

By: Bright Amirize

Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.