By Abraham Ogbodo
You see, my approach to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)/FG imbroglio is very different. I guess ASUU was formed in 1978. Or for the sake of this analysis, let’s take that as a base year. That means the union has lived for 44 years. It is also to say the union is older than many of its current members. Are you following me? Ok, let’s move forward. Since formation, I want to know if ASUU has used any other approach outside strike to engage government on all issues including the underfunding of university education in Nigeria.
I am asking because there are many older lecturers who may have deeper and a more robust history of the union. The answer is NO in capital and bold letters even as I offer myself for correction. I am trying actually to establish the value and material difference between ASUU and the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE). Both use incessant strikes as perpetual tools for engaging their employers on all issues. Maybe we are missing out on the definition of ASUU. Academic, I repeat, ACADEMIC (NOT ARTESIAN) Staff Union of Universities. Or better still, we are not getting to appreciate the full meaning of a university, which is also called ivory tower!
It is the citadel, headquarters of learning. It is not for nothing that a university is so named. Everything beyond it, including research institutions, is only an attribute of its own universality and comprehensiveness. It also means any human problem that cannot be cracked in the university system can only be taken to God for determination. That is my understanding of a university. Are we on the same page? For 44 years, ASUU has applied the same strategy and waited for different results. And what do we call such in dialectics? Exhibition of insanity! That is even at one level.
At another level, this same ASUU has over the decades massively infiltrated government, such that, we can hardly draw a sharp line between Government and ASUU as at today.
And wait for this. Your incumbent Vice President is an ASUU member. His name is Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) and was a teacher of Law at the University of Lagos before moving on to become the VP in 2015. Or have you people forgotten? That is not all. Two past Presidents, namely, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan were ASUU members. Ministers of Education in the last 10 years have been ASUU members. As I speak, there are more professors and academic doctors in government at the federal and state levels than there are in the university system!
And so what is actually the issue that ASUU is less able to use its members in government to affect positively official policies on tertiary education in Nigeria? The shame is solely theirs. Prof Ben Nwabueze, while as Secretary (Minister) of Education, defended government against ASUU, his primary constituency, with all his intellectual might. He had described one of the many duly signed agreements between government and ASUU as a deal “extracted from a harassed government” and that it was “an agreement of imperfect obligations.” Can you imagine that? Truth is that since Prof. Atahiru Jega made leading ASUU on strike the shortest route to stardom, every ASUU President after him, has pursued strike by university teachers as a fundamental objective and duty. Whether you agree or not, I can boldly conclude, that the issue with ASUU is less of cash and more of character.
