ASUU OR FGN? By Sunny-Star Ikhanoba E. (UNIBEN) He wakes up every morning with dejection and despair written all over his face. “This has taken unnecessarily too long,” he says to himself. His confidence has been battered, the pace of his aspirations are now rather on a downward trajectory and he has absolutely no cause of optimism left in him. Idleness has become an ally; he is devoid of the usual lively, inspiring and motivating ambience of his noble institution. His parents have grown tired of the whole situation and his prolonged presence at home seems to constitute more of nuisance than companionship to them. “To hell with ASUU and the Federal Government of Nigeria, bunch of greedy and inconsiderate criminals that will all die as a result of their rampaging selfish interests”, he prays daily. Obviously, he is extremely perplexed and hopeless. Isn’t he? This is a tip of the iceberg case of one of the numerous Nigeria Varsities’ students who have grown frustrated and disillusioned over the seemingly unending tug-of-war between the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN, and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. Every University students in this country of ours has been subjected to various degrees of emotional torture in more or less the same manner as the student discussed above. Deservedly so, they vent their spleens on either ASUU or FGN while a good number channel their misgivings towards both. Hitherto, I am proudly a Nigeria student; in as much as I can easily fault both parties, I would be laying claims in this article on why I think one of the two sides have the “real” interest of Nigeria students at heart and why we should collectively as students pile-up pressure on the other side so that this mayhem called ASUU Strike would come to an end soonest. I really hope you see reasons with me. What do ASUU really need? As a matter of fact, it has been an open secret that ASUU and FGN arrived at what some call a “simple gentle man agreement” in 2009 after a long strike action. We all know that some key parts of that agreement were implemented almost immediately; most notable of them being the retirement age and increased earnings. Now, fast forward to the present day Nigeria, 2013, ASUU are back on strike (over two months old strike action as at the time of this writing) for what they claim to be the failure of the Federal Government to implement the remaining part of the 2009 agreement. According to ASUU, the FGN have failed to address the issues of increased budgetary allocation to education up to 26 per cent, payment of Earned Academic Allowances to lecturers, and provision of critical infrastructures to Universities. You will agree with me that much of the controversies have been centered on the last two issues. During an interview on AIT News Hour, the ASUU President, Dr. Nasir Fagge frowned at the 130billion naira offer made by the FGN which is aimed at addressing the bone of contention between both factions. DR. Fagge insisted that 130billion naira is too small a part of ASUU’s total demands which he claimed was about 800billion naira. My eyebrows were immediately well raised and it dawned on me that it’s not going to be joke as usual. Dr. Fagge asserted that the Union will not go back to the classroom until this agreement is fully implemented. This was always going to take longer than usual, right? The Federal Government may have erred for failing to fulfill the whole 2009 agreement, but in addition to the 130bn naira offer, they promised ASUU of further injection of funds into tertiary education system with time. Would ASUU take this? The answer is definitely no; otherwise, I would have been writing on a different topic. In truth, there has been a massive and unusual injection of funds into some Nigeria Universities since 2010. This is very evident in the level of infrastructures that have been raised in these schools over the period of last three years. For instance, I am a living witness to many of the projects that were carried out in my school (UNIBEN) during this spell; in fact, so many other projects are still going on right now. Little wonder that the FGN had laid claims to completion of 37 projects in the University of Benin. My friends in other Universities like UNIPORT, UNILAG, UNIJOS, UNILORIN to mention but a few equally have similar stories to tell. One can easily infer from all these that the FGN didn’t totally neglect the infrastructural aspect of that agreement, albeit , approached it at a much slower pace if one was to be fair to ASUU on this. I don’t think Dr. Fagge and his colleagues put all these into consideration when estimating an outrageous sum of 800billion as what the Union needs to call off the strike. Do you? If I am to digress a little bit and delve into other sectors of the Nigeria Economy, it would easily come to mind that the Federal Government of Nigeria in July 2013 secured a $1.1billion Chinese low interest loan to develop airports and hydro power plants. My point here is that, in spite of our foreign reserves, we still go borrowing. This should pass the simple message to every right thinking Nigerian that our economy isn’t yet stable and that spending without caution could have drastic effects in our present day and future economies. Those against the aforementioned claims will always point their fingers to the corrupt nature of Nigeria’s public sector as well as the bumper salaries and allowances earned by Government officials. In as much as I am not a fan of corruption and over paid politicians, it would be foolhardy of me to think that getting politicians to reduce their earnings ( this is another big problem on its own) and stalling corruption (almost impossible) would provide urgent funds to meet ASUU’s demands. If a borrowing country can squeeze out 130 billion naira to meet part of a certain demand with a tenacious promise of seeing out the remaining part in due course, I therefore see no reason why ASUU are still holding on to their several week long strike action. It’s well known to all Nigerians that huge funds had been channeled to tackle the burgeoning insecurity state of the nation as well as restoring normalcy to recently flooded environments and victims alike. Phenomena of this kind are always bound to occur and it is very important that a nation is able to tackle these calibres of problems without so much restriction. Similarly, there are so many other sectors of the economy that are in dire need of bit part transformations if not total transformations. If all of them were to hold FGN to ransom and if all their demands were to be met, the economy will definitely shut down. The implication of FGN meeting all of ASUU’s demands if feasible is that, other stagnating sectors will tend to follow suit and the effects of this to the economy won’t be farfetched. I can state without fear of contradiction that majority of this problems didn’t originate in the present day government but they are trying to carry all sectors along, albeit gradually. The more reason why I think ASUU should make do with what they currently have at hand. Assuming the FGN meet all these demands, where will FGN run to incase of emergencies and natural disasters? Do we want to get to a stage in this country that all the money we earn is used to pay salaries and allowances? Finally, I will like to end my arguments on the political scene. It is no longer hidden that the Presidency would be running for re- election in 2015. It is equally very true that the student community would form a respectable section of the electorate come 2015. So, why on earth would a government seeking re-election subject the students to this kind of harsh conditions when they outrightly know that the students may come handy as regards their ambitions? I obviously don’t have answers for that but it passes the simple messages that implementing the full ASUU demands is beyond the government, at least for now. Consequently, I beseech every Nigeria student and parents alike, who may have seen reasons with me to join me in passionately appealing to ASUU to consider the offer the FGN had placed on ground so that we can go back to our various classrooms and dormitories. We are the future of this Great Nation and we deserve to be pampered with care so as to enable us achieve our goals in optimal conditions. We are tired of staying at home, we are sick of idleness and we really want all parties involved to trigger the clause that would restore us to normalcy. I hope this will not be too much to ask. I advocate a better Nigeria. 08085562525 etesunnystar@gmail
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 17:18:54 +0000
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