This is a difficult conversation for me given my history of active
engagement in ASUU, especially during its formative years. My comments
might be dismissed as the words of an ASUU renegade. To attempt to
prevent this this type of response, let me start with my CV. As a young
lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University in 1980, I was already in the
progressive caucus when Biodun Jeyifo, (BJ everybody calls him), and
Uzodinma Nwala, newly elected pioneer President and Secretary of ASUU,
stormed our Samaru campus to bring the good news.
The transformation has occurred they proclaimed, by the law of 1978,
the Nigerian Association of University Teachers, then existing in the
five pioneer universities was dead and from its grave has emerged the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a trade union. We were in
exquisite excitement as BJ explained to us that intellectuals can now
join the working class struggle as trade unionists and bring our
intellectual support to the larger struggle to improve the educational
system, but even more important, make our contribution to creating a
progressive Nigeria.
I was in the team that dashed off to the Department of Electrical
Engineering to inform Buba Bajoga, the last head of the association that
a new regime has arrived. We organised elections and George Kwanashie
and Raufu Mustapha emerged as the first leadership of ASUU in ABU, the
bedrock of campus radicalism in Nigeria. We immediately engaged in
organising the first ASUU strike and in 1982, I spent months in the
Ibadan headquarters providing support for the ASUU negotiating team.
In 1983, I became the secretary of ASUU in ABU with Yahaya Abdullahi
as Chairman and the struggle continued. That was the year I defended my
masters thesis. My examiner, the late Claude Ake commended me on a good
thesis but told me off for spending five years writing a mere masters
thesis. I was upset with him and mumbled that I had been spending all my
time with the ASUU struggle and had little time for the thesis and as a
comrade; he should understand the urgency of the ASUU struggle. He
offered me an advice, get your PhD he told me, and you will be surprised
that the struggle will still be there waiting, and you will be better
equipped for it.
My Head of Department, Ibrahim Gambari, looked at me and smiled.
Shortly thereafter, Gambari called me and gave me a scholarship letter
to pack my bags and go to France for postgraduate studies. I told him
bluntly that I was not going because the ASUU struggle had reached a
critical stage and ABU was its cerebral base so I had to stay and
continue my coordination role.
Secretly in my mind, I was afraid of going to France because Mrs
Waldron, my French teacher in Barewa College had sent me out of her
class on the basis that I was incapable of learning French. God bless
Gambari, he just told me I must go or he will sack me, I succumbed to
the threat. The Caucus was of course very upset with me for jumping ship
at a time in which we believed we were successfully cornering President
Shagari to grant all our demands and finally create a university system
with full autonomy and sufficient resources. My response was that the
reason we operated in a caucus was not to depend on an individual.
I went to France, successfully learnt French and started the
postgraduate programme but came back two years later to find out we were
exactly where we were before my departure. A year later, I went back to
France to finish the doctoral programme and returned to find the ASUU
struggles was still where I had left it. The lesson for me is that our
history teaches us that there is no formula for a final resolution of
the ASUU struggle.
Through the 1990s, I continued with the ASUU struggles but with a
more realistic vision that we need to have a more incremental approach
to the struggle until I was forced out of the university system.
Subsequently, as Country Director of Global Rights, an organisation
engaged in facilitating legislative advocacy, I contacted the ASUU
caucus both during the three-month old 2001 and six-months old 2003 ASUU
strike that they should focus on the National Assembly and lobby them
for sufficient funding rather than focus on President Obasanjo.
They dismissed me as a renegade trying to dissipate their energies.
We will force Obasanjo to deliver and eventually, the deal was signed,
AND OF COURSE NOT IMPLEMENTED. We are still there today.
ASUU is strong. It has the capacity to carry out long strikes, keep
students at home and get them to pressurise their parents to pressurise
the President to sign a deal. Presidents through the ages have all been
forced to sign, but signing is the simple issue, implementation has
always been the bane of policies in Nigeria. ASUU is weak because its
too focused on grandiose victory that often yields little in real
results.
The fact of the matter is that the Nigerian Government is
irresponsible and never fully implements deals it signs. The struggle
for a responsive and accountable government is a much larger one and
goes far beyond the ASUU struggle. ASUU must go into introspection and
learn what every trade unionist knows, gains in the struggle are never
total, they are always incremental.
The key question in the faceoff is finance and financial matters are
addressed in budgets. The President proposes budget estimates but our
Constitution gives power to the National Assembly to make the budget.
Let’s reflect on Nigeria’s budgets. Budgets are laws, which our
Constitution says must be fully implemented by all governmental
agencies.
We know however that since 1999, no budget of any government
ministry, department or agency (MDA) has ever been fully implemented.
The Federal Universities are government agencies and their expectations
that the agreement they have, which is not even a law, must be fully
implemented, is correct in principle but does not reflect current
practices. It is despicable that Government signs without any intention
of full implementation but we need to start asking ourselves whether
strikes will change the course of Government business.
In 2004, President Obasanjo introduced a new fiscal policy based on
what is called the “oil price rule”. Each year, the government sets a
pre-determined price for petroleum at a level that would be certainly
lower than the market price. The government then saves the difference
between the pre-determined price and the actual price to build foreign
reserves and create confidence in the economy. Based on this criterion
of fiscal prudence, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) authorised its
Policy Support Instrument (PSI) for Nigeria in October 2005.
The agreement with the IMF on fiscal policy was done surreptitiously
and Parliament was not consulted. The Obasanjo regime therefore made
commitments on significant cuts to public expenditure without the accord
of the Nigerian people. This treacherous act of the regime in cutting
funds for social expenditure is celebrated in many IMF and World Bank
reports.
It is the on-going policy that no appropriation shall be fully
disbursed and implemented. President Goodluck Jonathan brought back a
certain Ngozi Okonjo Iweala to continue this policy. The fact of the
matter is that the macro-economic policy framework of the Presidency is
to continue to curb investment in the social sector, in particular, on
education and health. Progressives must engage this struggle with zeal
and on a wider front but its resolution cannot be the basis of
re-opening our universities.
The prognosis of the ASUU struggle is clear, Government will
eventually be forced to commit to full implementation, ASUU will go back
to work and receive arrears for the months of work not done and
Government will once again renege at the level of full implementation.
It will take ASUU two more years of massive mobilisation to get
lecturers back on strike and the cycle continues.
ASUU must start a conversation about a profound change in tactics.
More minimalist and attainable targets must be set and advocacy must be
broadened to address the National Assembly and other institutions. My
ASUU comrades, the struggle is our life but this does not mean that we
cannot get real. Did BJ not tell us in 1980 that there are two
struggles, one for the university system and another for a progressive
Nigeria?
Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim is executive director at the Co
The
National President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Abdulwaheed Omar
has stated that the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of
University (ASUU) would soon be called off even as advised security
agents to devise new strategies in tackling the security challenges
facing the country.
The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, University of
Ibadan chapter, has condemned the statement of Senate President David
Mark on the competence of those who negotiated the 2009 agreement with
ASUU on behalf of the Federal Government.
THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has overstepped the
bounds of reason. To say that most discerning Nigerians are angry with
the union is an understatement. Whoever anticipated that ASUU’s show of
shame would last this long?
Universities (ASUU) to force government to implement their
2009 agreement, some lecturers are coming out in the open to advocate
the suspension of the industrial action.
MEMBERS of Nnamdi Azikiwe University branch of the Academic Staff
Union of Universities (ASUU), came out in numbers with the university of
Nsukka branch on Tuesday in a protest aimed at enlightening Nigerians
on their reasons for the strike, saying, “we are no longer talking about
negotiations but implementation.”
UNILORIN VC appeals for dialogue
Two
hundred and sixteen Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora have signed
an online petition asking the Federal Government and the Academic Staff
Union of Universities to end the industrial dispute which has kept
public universities shut for four months.
Efforts by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to help resolve
the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)
have run into a hitch after the union’s leadership refused to grant
CAN’s request for a meeting over 
The Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU), have been urged to reconcile their differences with a view to
re-opening universities closed three months ago due to strike.
No fewer than 200 policemen stormed the campus of the Ebonyi State
University (EBSU) yesterday to prevent lecturers from staging a protest
to draw attention to their ongoing strike.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has vehemently
opposed the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of
Universities, ASUU.
According to a message posted by the group, they are protesting the
current ASUU strike which has lasted for over 100 days. The message
posted on the hacked website is quoted as follows;
Yet
the union has rarely been heard in demanding performance from its
members as part of the contract with the nation. Even when we hold
government accountable for the current state of the educational system,
ASUU has not done itself any favour by its constant recourse to the
strike option at the slightest excuse.