by Kayode Komolafe

It is sad to imagine the thought-process that would lead any one in   government to make the sort of statements coming out of Abuja on the ASUU strike in this day and age.

It was indeed a spectacle watching education minister, Mr. Nyesom Wike, on television last week as he issued an ultimatum to university teachers on strike to resume work today or lose their jobs. The combative tone of the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, as he defends the national scandal is even more horrifying.  These hawks in Abuja want to sack university teachers en masse and place advertisements to replace them just like that! To ensure a smooth operation of breaking the strike government is reportedly planning to draft police to the campuses. To imagine that this is the government’s strategy for resolving the crisis bedeviling education sector! And this is happening in 2013 Nigeria in which the President and Commander-in-Chief holds a Ph.D. from a Nigerian university.

Is the matter as simple as these combatants in power are putting it in a reckless display of arrogance of power?  Wike and Okupe are, perhaps, not conscious of the fact that they are dealing with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the best organised and most disciplined union in the land and an exemplar of internal democracy. Those bent on humiliating ASUU should ask their predecessors in government who worked for military regimes for lessons of history on how not suppress ASUU’s agitation for a reform of the university system. ASUU has proved to be consistent and rational in its approach.

Nothing less, of course, should be expected from an organisation of intellectuals.

Meanwhile, we should be worried about the mindset of these presidential aides as we think seriously about the crisis of public education. This sort of official response to a crisis is a great disservice to policy and that is putting it mildly. Those appointed into public offices to serve the people have no moral basis to talk down on the same people in the manner these gentlemen are carrying on in Abuja.

It is sad to imagine the thought-process that would lead any one in   government to make the sort of statements coming out of Abuja on the ASUU strike in this day and age. Is any one in Abuja bothered about the full implications of such a statement for the university system that is already in a poor condition? Here, we are talking of a system that is yet to recover from the debilitating effects of decades of continuous brain drains!

It was clear that the overwhelming majority of the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were simply going to ignore Wike’s threat. Although the ultimatum was extended yesterday till next Monday, the minister’s demeanour on that unfortunate occasion should make any rational observer feel distressed about the future of the education sector. Doubtless, asking Wike to supervise the education ministry is a measure of how seriously President Goodluck Jonathan takes the sector.  No nation that is serious about developing a knowledge economy will permit officials talking down on those responsible for the production of knowledge in the manner Wike spoke on that day.  By the way, it is important to note that it has been alleged that this tough-talking minister was even absent during the hours when some of the crucial agreements were reached in the 13 –hour meeting the President had with ASUU.

In an egregious amplification of Wike’s threat, Okupe has described the strike as “an evil design”, “a subversion” and “ a calculated treacherous plot”. He has elected to reserve the roughest edges of his tongue for the university teachers especially their union leaders. When reminded that the government’s posture amounted to intimidation of ASUU, Okupe retorted: “who is the ASUU president that President Jonathan would intimidate?” And for effect, he was particularly harsh on the president of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Issa-Fagge.  Okupe accused Issa-Fagge of disrespect to Jonathan by refusing to call off the strike after a long meeting with the President of the Federal Republic. Okupe spoke as if Jonathan did Issa-Fagge a favour by meeting with ASUU. In the view of Okupe,  “no child watching the ASUU president would see him as a role model”.

Yet all Issa-Fagge has done is to lead a protest to draw attention to the decay in the university system caused by decades of official neglect and which no one has denied. It does not matter to Okupe that Issa-Fagge and many of his colleagues have their own children in the same universities paralysed by the strike unlike some government officials who can afford to pay for the education of their wards in foreign universities.

Furthermore, the medical doctor-turned propagandist has wondered: “what do they take the government to be?” and that “government cannot fold its hands” while ASUU continues with the strike. You wonder if those in power are super humans. Pray, are those in government more than fellow citizens who for now have the huge responsibility for governance?  To justify the sack threat, Okupe borrows a most inappropriate historical parallel: President Ronald Reagan sacked air traffic controllers in the United States in 1981 at the expiration of an ultimatum. So, should the anti-labour stance of an extreme right-wing government in the US over 30 years ago be the model for Jonathan in resolving the crisis crippling the university system in the Nigeria of 2013?  The passing reference he made to the tragic death of Professor Festus Iyayi is even more chilling to ponder.

The funeral activities to honour the memory of the patriot and former president of ASUU begin today, the day Wike’s ultimatum should have expired but for the extension.  Iyayi was killed by the convoy of Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State while he was travelling to Kano to attend an ASUU meeting on the resolution of the five-month old strike. In response to this tragic coincidence, Okupe said that ASUU should not continue with the crisis “because somebody died” without even mentioning Iyayi’s name! Now, this is utterly insensitive. It cannot be a decent culture of conducting public affairs in the name of a President.

Ironically, the President himself has sounded more conciliatory in this matter than those who speak for him. Former Bayelsa Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseiga pleaded with the President in Yenagoa at the weekend to note the sensitivity of the deadline expiring today, which is also the beginning of the rights of passage for Iyayi.  Although the President also unfortunately accused ASUU of “subversion”, he, however, promised to “consult” on the deadline. In fact, the President said: “We didn’t give them ultimatum; it was the Committee of Vice Chancellors that took the decision, the Supervising Minister of Education only passed on the decision…” Little surprise, therefore, that the statement of mitigation by Professor Julius Okogie of NUC came yesterday extending the ultimatum in an acknowledgement of the sensitivity of the coincidence:  the expiration of the ultimatum and the beginning of funeral activities in memory of Iyayi.  That is at least a relatively more decent response from government.

The greater tragedy in this matter is that the reckless pronouncements of Wike and Okupe are essentially a distraction from the real issues. Despite the unwarranted heat so far generated, neither the hawk in government nor ASUU is the issue. You may legitimately disagree with ASUU’s perspective and strategy on the problem, but that does not in any way make the union the problem as Wikes and Okupes of the world want us to believe.  The question to which this nation needs to find an efficacious answer ultimately is this: how do we fund university education? The question is urgent especially in the interest of qualified students from poor homes who could only access public institutions   and who are also entitled to quality university education. It is a question that should be answered in the interest of genuine national development. The search for the answer would obviously transcend the current strike. The national conversation on this central question of development will continue and divergent perspectives will emerge based on ideological convictions. Market forces fundamentalists who see education just as another commodity are not going to agree with those of us who insist that education is in the social education for development reasons. It is a debate that is not likely going to end with the new deadline of December 9, 2013 for university teachers to go back to classes. For it is undeniable that even in Africa, Nigeria is ranked very low in the funding of university education. Nigeria has to make a policy choice of making funding of education a priority, as the arguments to the contrary are simply anti-development.
It is unhelpful to give this government a tough image by humiliating those whose job is the production of knowledge. There is nothing   infra dig in the President engaging the university teachers as long as possible in finding answers to the questions that keep troubling the system. Our latter-day hawks in government should at least ponder on the advice of former President Ibrahim Babangida in this respect. The former military ruler said that the threat of sack might not solve the problem. Instead of threat, Babangida is proposing the application of “knowledge and tact”.  Babangida once wielded maximum power in this land, so he should know what he is talking about. What is more, Babangida dealt with ASUU when some those insisting on crucifying ASUU now were not yet undergraduates.

In any case, it is contradictory to aspire to be one of the most developed economies in the world in seven years time on the one hand, and on the other hand, as a matter of policy, you kick your academics around because they protest the poor conditions of the university system. This government should not talk tough when it comes to intimidating university teachers. It should rather be tough on official corruption, oil theft, and glaring incompetence in governance, youth unemployment, violent crimes and mass poverty plaguing the land. What is expected from Abuja is not tough talk against those who society should hold in the highest esteem, what is needed is the urgent tough action to ensure that the fire of the university idea is not extinguished on the Nigerian campuses.

 

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