“…Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained”. - James Abram Garfield (1831-1881), 20th President of United States of America.
“…Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained”. - James Abram Garfield (1831-1881), 20th President of United States of America.
On July 1st 2013 the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which is the umbrella body of all academic staff in the 74 federal and state universities in Nigeria, that was formed in 1978 as an offshoot of the Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT) established in 1965 rose from its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State and resolved to embark on another fresh round of total, comprehensive and indefinite industrial action to compel the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to honour the 2009 Agreement and 2012 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with the leadership of ASUU led by its immediate past President, Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie on funding requirements for the revitalization of Nigerian public universities as well as the payment of Earned Allowances of academic staff, university autonomy and academic freedom and myriads of other issues, has once again brought to the front burner of national discourse the issues of university education in Nigeria vis-à-vis the critical issues of funding, staff conditions of service and remuneration, administration and government attention.
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After perusing the over 50-page 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and listening to the plethora of misguided utterances and actions by some groups and the need to put the issues behind the present halt in academic activities in our campuses in proper perspective so as to avoid ambiguity, informed this write-up. For analysis sake, it is imperative to look at the background of issues which prompted ASUU to embark on this fresh round of industrial action, after less than two years of relatively stable academic calendar in Nigerian public universities after the 2011 industrial action which was suspended on February 2, 2012.
In 2001, the FGN negotiation team, according to ASUU National Treasurer, Dr. Ademola Aremu entered into an agreement with ASUU aimed at resuscitating the university system in Nigeria and saving the system from total collapse. The agreement according to him provides for re-negotiation every three (3) years for impact assessment and its implementation. The agreement was due for re-negotiation in 2004, but the FGN reneged and it didn’t take place until 2007, when the then Honourable Minister of Education Dr. (Mrs.) Obiageli Ezekwesili, on behalf of the FGN inaugurated the FGN-ASUU Re-Negotiation Committee comprising the FGN Re-Negotiation Team led by the then Pro-Chancellor University of Ibadan, Deacon Gamaliel O. Onosode (OFR), and the ASUU Re-Negotiation Team led by the then President of ASUU, Dr. Abdullahi Sule-Kano, and lasted more than two (2) years to produce the 2009 Agreement, which was freely entered into by ASUU and FGN.
Out of the 10 issues agreed on in 2009, 2 have been implemented (extension of retirement age of academic staff in professorial cadre from 65 to 70 years and staff pension clause). Of the 8 remaining issues none has caused more ruckus than the revitalization of Nigerian universities as well as the payment of Earned Allowances of academic staff totaling N1.5 trillion spread over three years, 2009-2011”. However three (3) years lapsed, he claimed without any action in this direction, necessitating the call for industrial action. The above position was confirmed by Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie immediate past president of ASUU and current Ag. VC Imo State University, Owerri and Dr. Nasir Fagge, the current ASUU President in different fora.
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In the 2013 fiscal year alone Nigeria’s annual budget profile stood at N4.9 trillion out of which N426.53 billion was allocated to the education sector representing 8.7% of our annual budget with the university sub-sector getting a paltry sum of N55.4 billion. The World Bank in its report of global education in 2012 stated that allocation to education sectors in some countries improved tremendously with Ghana = 31%, Cote d’Ivoire = 30.0%, Uganda = 27.0% South Africa = 25.8%, Swaziland = 24.6%, Kenya = 23.0%, Botswana = 19.0%, Venezuela = 23.0%, Mexico = 24.0%, United Arab Emirates (UAE) = 22.5%, Iran = 17. 1%, USA = 17.0%, Norway = 16.2%, and India = 12.7%. It is noteworthy to know that in this intervening period our annual budget allocation relative to the education sector stood at 8.4%. It is also painful and disheartening that Nigeria, which is the intellectual hub of Africa (by giving her its first Nobel Literature Laureate), could spend only 0.76% of its GDP on education, while other less endowed countries invest more of their GDP in education (Angola = 4.9%, Ghana = 4.4%, Kenya = 6.5%, South Africa = 7.9%, Malawi = 5.4% and Tanzania = 3.4%) This amount does not only fall far below the UNESCO 26% minimum benchmark for allocation to the education sector by developing countries in their annual budgets so as to meet the UN MDGs, but has also far-reaching negative implications and effects on the ability of university administrator to strategically position them to perform their traditional roles of making the university a place for teaching, learning, research and community engagement, hence threatens the realization of our national strategic vision of making Nigeria among the top 20 leading world economies in the year 2020.
The poor conditions of service of university staff, which serve as a disincentive to work, dilapidated and inadequate infrastructure in our universities, shortage of teaching aids, research laboratories, libraries, qualified and experienced lecturers and a less conducive learning environment occasioned by serious security concerns due to the increasing menace of cult activities as well as the anti-intellectual stance of the establishment led to mass exodus of generations of well trained, experienced and world class intellectuals such as Professors Chinua Achebe and Sam Okoye (of blessed memory), Wole Soyinka, Niyi Osundare, and Biodun Jeyifo and many others to Europe, North America, South Africa and Asia in search of the proverbial greener pastures leading to the brain- drain syndrome plaguing the Nigerian university system in contemporary history.
The above problems and myriads of others have to some extent, tended to accelerate or decelerate the pace and dynamics of dysfunction in the growth and development of the public university system in Nigeria and the promotion of viable intellectual culture. The problem of the university system in Nigeria was aptly captured by Prof. Peter Okebukola, former Executive Secretary National Universities Commission (NUC) in Nigerian Universities and World Ranking: Issues, Strategies and Forward Planning at the convocation ceremony of Covenant University, Otta, Ogun State and Prof. Niyi Osundare in his valedictory lecture at the University of Ibadan on July 26, 2005 titled: The Universe In The University: A Scholar Poet’s Look From Inside Out, published and serialized on the Daily Guardian newspaper of August 4 & 8, 2005.
It is a compelling paradox that Nigeria so richly endowed with human and natural resources with over 167 million people according to the National Population Commission (NPC) data of year 2012, by far the most populous country in Africa, accounting for 47% of West Africa’s population and over 2.26% of world population, placing it at 7th position according to 2010 UN estimates, with approximate land mass of one million square kilometers suitable for commercial agriculture land over 34 solid minerals, largely untapped an ranked among the top ten (10) crude oil and natural gas exporters in the world by the Vienna, Austria-based OPEC, with daily crude oil output of 2.2 mbpd and 2nd largest African economy, 6th fastest growing economy in African with real GDP of 6.9% in 2011 and nominal GDP of $280 billion as at 2011 fiscal year, hence prides itself as the giant of Africa! But the irony of it all is that with all this potential, Nigeria is still grappling with trivial issues of nation building, development and optimum harnessing of its potentials.
With less than 20 per cent of about 1.5 million candidates that applied and sat for the UTME in 2011 alone offered admission into universities, over 12 million out of-school children, 115 million adult illiterates, high unemployment rate at an all-time high of 20.1 per cent, low life expectancy, averaging 45 years for men and women and over 70 per cent of its citizens living below the poverty line, coupled with its worst economic indices of human development not only in sub-Saharan Africa region but the world at large, scoring on appalling 0.511 point and ranked 158th out of 182 countries in the UNDP HDI report for year 2009, placing Nigeria at the bottom of human development in the world. The above scenario can be rationalized by the negative effects of bad leadership, wrong policy choices, policy inconsistencies and the hydra-headed monster called corruption.
For many years successive governments have not deemed it fit to prioritize education and give it its pride of place in the scheme of things, the adoption of neo-liberal policies of the Bretton Woods Institutions - the World Bank and the IMF which prescribes the adoption of the Envelope System in budgeting, by restricting the amount of money that will be budgeted to any sector of the economy, high cost of governance where about 75% constitute recurrent expenditure of our annual budget and loss of over $500 billion in earnings to corruption between 1960-1999, according to the Human Rights Watch Report of 2007 and Global Financial Integrity Initiative Report of 2011 through fraudulent schemes like contract inflation, kickbacks, fuel subsidy schemes racketeering which are laundered in tax free havens: Liechtenstein, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Jersey etc. etc. All these factors contribute to our underdevelopment as a nation. No wonder the corruption perception index (CPI) report of German-based Transparency International ranks Nigeria as the 147th most corrupt countries in the world out of 174 countries polled in 2010.
The importance of education towards the socio-economic, political and technological development of any society cannot be overemphasized. It is the catalyst and engine room needed to drive any nation towards greatness. The implication of the above statement means that any nation that doesn’t prioritize education is bound to be under-developed and relatively backward as the statistics above reveal. The advanced nations of the world like United States of America (U.S.A), Japan and China, knowing the critical role education plays in national development annually commits the whopping sums of $282 billion, $104 billion, and $60 billion respectively towards funding Education, Science and Technology research and development (R&D) initiatives. The impact of this investment can be attested to their positions in global ranking of development competitiveness, standard and quality of life of their citizens, with over 60% of the Top 400 universities in the world coming from these countries, led by California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
In this twenty-first century, where the influence of globalization accelerated by discoveries in microelectronics, information and communication technology (ICT), space science, telecommunication, engineering, medicine, nanotechnology, trade, commerce and finance have combined to make the world a global village it makes it imperative for a paradigmatic shift in university education funding, administration and governance if we are to be taken as a serious and forward looking nation. A scenario where no Nigerian university made it to the Top 400 ranking positions of world major university ranking organizations like webometrics, Times Higher Education (THE) and 4icu.org is not only shameful and embarrassing but an indictment on our leadership and collective sense of national pride as the giant of Africa! There are two key indicators used to know how well a university is faring. These are Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI) and Public Institutions Index (PII). In GCI, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2004 ranks Nigeria 12th in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and 87th in the world. In terms of PII , Nigeria ranks 20th in SSA and 98th in the world. GCI uses hard data and survey data for ranking institutions, while PII is a composite of the contracts and laws sub index and corruption sub index. Nigeria ranks below such less endowed countries as Cameroon, Namibia, Ghana and Senegal.
In order to resolve the lingering industrial dispute in our university system which is best characterized by A. Rapoport (1974) as asymmetric and structure-oriented conflict due to its longstanding antagonistic and fractious nature which makes its resolution intractable and complicated, calls for constructive engagement on the side of both ASUU and FGN and deep reflection of ideological pragmatism rather than rigidity. The ASUU under the leadership of Dr. Nasir Fagge should as a matter of patriotism and strategic national interest call off the industrial action and return to lecture halls cross our universities in the interest of long suffering students who have been compelled to spend 4 months at home, while efforts are being intensified by well meaning Nigerians and stakeholders to compel FGN to honour its agreement and commitment with University Lecturers, so as to save the entire system from total collapse.
ASUU should listen to the calls of well-meaning Nigerians and interest groups by strongly considering using alternative dispute resolution channels and mechanisms such as the industrial arbitration panel (IAP), for their collective bargaining on remuneration and conditions of service. Moral suasion should also be deployed by ASUU leadership, by appealing to stakeholder on tertiary education through its board of trustees (BOT) led by eminent and highly influential professors Chukwuka Okonjo and Eskor Toyo as well as highly placed individuals and groups in corridors of power to favourably consider their proposal and demands for industrial harmony to prevail in our universities. ASUU should understand that strike should be used as a last resort in industrial disputes as many channels of agitation are available to them to put forward their grievance and demands without causing disruption in our academic calendar, so that the option of strike is not made ineffective as its frequent use has become counter-productive in our circumstance.
On the other hand, the FGN should as a matter of urgency figure out a more ingenious way of honouring their commitment and agreement with ASUU, through appropriation of extra budget for the education ministry through the National Assembly as we say in our local parlance, agreement is agreement! The NEEDS assessment report of the Dr. Gabriel Suswam-led committee should be implemented without further delay. This will halt further decline in the quality and standard of Nigerian university graduates. The claim by government official that meeting the demands of ASUU will lead to the collapse of the economy is ridiculous and self-serving, one wonders where government sourced over N3 trillion to bailout commercial banks in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007, N500 bn to the aviation sector and billions of Naira to the creative media industry (Nollywood). The claim by President Jonathan of politicization of the strike in his last presidential medial chat is diversionary and unfounded. The fundamental ideological difference between ASUU as a radical, progressive union and successive governments in Nigeria at the Federal level is a historical phenomenon dating back to 1988 when ASUU first organized a national strike for fair wages and university autonomy under General Ibrahim Babangida for which it was proscribed on August 7, 1988 it didn’t start with the present administration and has nothing to do fundamentally with anyone occupying the position of minister of education.
Uchechukwu Christian Arinze, is a Post Graduate student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Reach me via: [email protected] or 08066532557
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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