So that ASUU and Nigerian University system will rise again

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By

Gbolahan Gbadamosi and Akintokunbo A. Adejumo

This piece arose from a conversation we had that dragged on and on. We have a combined experience of and exposure to university education in Nigeria and an active interest, including one of us being previously an academic staff of a federal university for a substantial time and active ASUU activist. The discussion started with a view that we do not take ASUU seriously anymore. That they have lost the essence of the struggle and that much of ASUU’s problems are self-inflicted. Many of the university leadership in Nigeria are stealing their universities blind, thus not different from the politicians they condemn. We are presently in that season of yet another ASUU strike which may shortly be called off, so it is timely to revisit this malady.

Government incompetence seems to fuel the inglorious system that we currently have in place. Yet, there is a solution to the current ASUU’s inveterate that can make the Nigerian university system stable for at least the next decade, but the government lacks the will to impose this simple and indeed democratic solution. There is need to play the game of union memberships and strikes as it is played in Europe and many other Western countries. It also requires the will to enforce our own extant laws on unions and strikes.

Presently, Nigerian government indulge ASUU by allowing academic staff to be automatically registered as members of ASUU. Let us make membership voluntary and see how it helps. Contract in, rather than contract out. So ASUU will only have people who willingly register with them and pay membership fees directly to them as members. ASUU would need to convince academic staff that there is value in their membership and the membership dues will be transparently used.

Furthermore, there must be a membership vote before any strike and majority must support the strike before it can take place. In addition, universities should not collect union dues on behalf of ASUU. ASUU must collect their own dues directly from their members. That is the standard practice worldwide. We cannot want democracy and freedom of association publicly and practice something else privately.

Once this is done, only academics convinced of the value of membership will remain members and the union will strictly be negotiating with their employers. ASUU will become restricted to the issues that affect the welfare of their members, going back to strictly trade union matters and becoming less political. Presently, ASUU seems trying to run the university system through the back door so to say. That is not their job.

Unfortunately, the government is often irresponsible. They freely enter into an agreement and often fail in their duty to comply with or implement same agreement. Government does this with impunity and often without any consultation with ASUU. If as an employer you perceive a problem with an existing freely negotiated agreement or some problems with its implementation, the fair and sensible thing to do is call a meeting to update the other partner – in this case ASUU. This would result in a modified timeline and ASUU will be well informed and would be less agitated and clearly have much less grievance. They would brief their members and would feel like serious partners in the business of higher education. When government deliberately ignore ASUU and renege on signed agreements, a fair description of their action is arrogant and irresponsible. This has been the practice since 1992 from the Babangida years when the very first serious long-term agreement to improving higher education was signed between ASUU and government.

One often wonders what exactly the senior civil servants in the relevant government ministries contribute to this failure of governance. There are some Directors and Deputy Directors and even the Permanent Secretaries of the Education and Labour ministries who must be aware of these agreements and the responsibility and obligations of government in fulfilling them. Before one call them out for blame, the real issue is do they give their principals the right advice and guidance on what is correct and appropriate? Do the relevant Ministers often ignore such advice? Politicians will come and go, and we need not argue that many of them are often more interested in the office and the money they can make from their positions than the success or indeed sustainability of government policies. Yet, the success of most Western countries lies within a strong, vibrant and highly professional civil service. Western countries often attract and retain their best brains to work for government. Nigeria used to, but not anymore. Perhaps that would even get worse before it gets better. How is our civil service positioned to support the country’s progress and development? Perhaps, like the politicians the top civil servants are also more interested in the “goodies” of office and choice properties in Abuja, London and Cape Town? But we digress!

Now back to ASUU. Every discussion between government and ASUU where the alternative funding question has been raised has been jeopardised by ASUU. ASUU is often quick to insist there is no alternative to the current way our educational system is funded, but there’s always an alternative solution to every problem. So, there is nothing new here. Different versions and suggestions of an alternative to our current system have been on the table from successive governments since 1992. We are not arguing here they have all been impressive proposals, but they are proposals nonetheless and often contain ideas we could twist, tweak and turn as we go along.

It was part of this alternative funding proposal that brought what we know today as TETFund. TETFund scheme was formed originally as a product of the Education Tax Act of 1993, now Tertiary Education Trust Fund (Establishment, etc.) Act, 2011. ASUU suggested that with a 2% education dedicated tax payable by companies, all our education problems will disappear. Several years down the line, TETFund is announcing that billions of Naira set aside for research is not being applied for year on year. The body says the money is lying fallow. Research funds never get unused in serious countries, they are never enough! What has ASUU ever done about this? Is it not a shame of some sort? Seriously, our politicians know how to use such funds. Houses will be bought in Banana Island and Asokoro to start with.

However, the governments of Presidents Jonathan and Buhari have perhaps made the most serious arguments about the need to change the funding system of higher education in Nigeria. The only reason it has not materialised is because since 1992 ASUU has consistently said NO! If any Nigerian-based academic is not familiar with ASUU’s stance on this, they need to talk to their local union. They need to ask to get full briefing. Ask why government offers, and suggestions are not tabled for full discussion at branches.

One suggestion was for government to bring in a large seed sum into higher education to jumpstart a process where students would take loans to pay fair fees and some participating banks will loan the money to students. When students begin to work, they then pay back. This system obtains in countries like the UK and South Africa but ASUU says, no – education must be free! Government proposed to give bursaries and other forms of grants and supports to indigent students, ASUU have also been suspicions of this, perhaps rightly so!

ASUU’s rather clever and commendable suggestion of 1992 has worked well to a large extent. This is what led to the 2% tax on businesses which presently funds TETFund. Businesses have been paying this tax since 1993, yet it has not solved the problems in higher education. Should ASUU not own up that there is a more fundamental change required in our educational system?

It is not rocket science to investigate and find out that Nigeria remains one of the few countries in the world where no effort has been made to tweak education funding despite our challenges. A cursory evaluation of many African countries will reveal that many have made modifications in policies they consider no longer working or meeting the challenges of contemporary times. ASUU need to reconsider its rigid stance, ASUU needs to consult more openly and more transparently with the broad membership. The dominance of ASUU’s leadership by successive hard-line leftists employing arguments and postures disguised as “radical” needs to be open to scrutiny. Succeeding ASUU leaders have been cleverly positioned to replace each other by the radical left. Gladly, both authors here are more sympathetic to the left and left leaning, but ASUU should be freed of strong accusation of being a “left cult”.

A lot of anomalies are rampant in higher education in Nigeria. Academics are often looked up to as the simple, honest, contented and trusted ones. This is what informed the choice of Vice Chancellors as Returning Officers for elections since 2015 introduced by Attahiru Jega, himself a former ASUU national president, at INEC. Yet, when one looks around reports of university leadership being arraigned in courts for all forms of fund misappropriation abounds. Many former VCs, Registrars and Bursars and other senior management team are reported very rich – often owning properties far in excess of their legitimate earnings. Nobody is asking them the source of the wealth. EFCC are too overwhelmed with cases of corruption all over every sector and section of Nigeria, they have limited personnel and resources and just cannot cope.

A change in the funding system that would make students and their sponsors have a significant financial investment in their education will change the face of higher education. If students were to pay, for example, students and their sponsors will take more active interest in monitoring the quality of the service delivery. Academics will no longer be able to miss classes unhindered, less able to harass female students or sell handouts. The existing unchecked freedom to “misbehave” will be curtailed to the benefit of tertiary education. Moreover, universities, if financially independent, will have to survive on good management. They will no longer be able to hide incompetence. There would be competition. A careful look at the more successful private universities in Nigeria will give you an indication of where we might be headed.

ASUU has always argued in favour of university autonomy. A shift in their current rigidity and support for a fundamental change on how higher education is funded will be putting their money where their mouth is. For a time after Nigeria’s Independence, the few Nigerian universities we had were semi-autonomous. They charge some fees, oversaw their individual students’ intake and were even able to appoint their own Vice Chancellors and other Principal Officers. It is true they were largely funded by government. Since the Federal Government took over these universities, their autonomy was completely lost. A change in the funding system will expose academic impunity in our universities, but it will also bring the academic freedom ASUU has always asked for. Universities will be more competitive and more transparent. Each will develop at its own pace, find its own level. But more importantly academics will be more accountable. Is this what really brings fear down the spine of ASUU officials and some academics?

There is a serious claim that ASUU leadership operates like a cult. That if they were to open up what goes on entirely at their negotiation to the membership, they will lose support and followership hence the secrecy and manipulation.

Government may soon release some money and ASUU will call off the strike. That would end this year’s “ASUU’s annual yam strike festival”. When it is time for new yam next year or the following year, they would go back on strike again. It is all in the interest of the system according to ASUU.

The view expressed thus far may be perceived as anti-ASUU and conservative, even bourgeois. Yet, we are also passionate about ASUU’s success and more importantly the success of our universities. People who hold views like these are often quickly misunderstood. To be fair being based abroad is a reason not to bother about these issues unless you have that Nigeria bug in you like some of us.

What we need more now is for Nigerian academics who are active ASUU members to begin to speak up within ASUU. Not necessarily speak up against ASUU but speak up for common sense. The emergence of a parallel body “The Congress of University Academics” (CONUA) is a proof of a need for this common-sense approach. CONUA emanated from the intransigence of ASUU leadership. We do not welcome this divisive politics at OAU, Ile-Ife; a hitherto strong bed of ASUU. ASUU need to reunite its membership and come out of this mess stronger. 

Academics are the masters of self-criticism through peer review, so they are used to critical feedback from their writings before getting published. There is a need for more ASUU members to not just face the same direction. Right now, ASUU is just facing one direction. There are always alternative ways to solving most problems.

What is needed presently is for more people to insist that we cannot destroy a system we belong to before we improve it. ASUU has become part of the problem than the solution. We need people to ask ASUU simple questions. For example: why are these prolonged strikes not happening in other countries? We are not the only African or developing country with poor funding of universities, but we are the only one with these repeated and regular prolonged rounds of strikes. We embarrass our graduates when they go abroad as they often must explain the long strikes and the impact on the quality of their education. Academics need to tell ASUU’s obstinate leadership we are better than this and certainly more intelligent than APC and PDP combined; so why are we not making progress in these fights? How can we fight it differently? University education is not the most serious problem of education we have in Nigeria. Primary and secondary education pose much more serious, more urgent and more fundamental problems. It is not suggested that academics should quit ASUU – that would be wrong. They should stay but must have a voice. They must clearly affirm that ASUU needs reform in its approach and its struggle.

Part of the rapid progress University of Ilorin made in global ranking and worldwide reputation is the stability in the academic calendar, enhanced research output, global collaborations and particularly the no strike policy of many years. In whatever list you look at, University of Ilorin is there – near the top in Nigeria. Covenant University, a private relatively new university has also recently made big advancement in global ranking. Granted the ranking has its various problems, it remains the “eyes” people use to judge universities around the world until a better option comes along.

And to be honest, there is a simple solution government can apply that will kill ASUU with a stroke of the pen. Hopefully ASUU will not force government to take that route. And one is not talking about a ban on ASUU as a ban on ASUU would be a lazy government option. Nobody needs to ban ASUU to kill it, but ASUU must reform. There is a more workable approach which we do not want government to take. Nigeria university system will rise again and ASUU will be stronger with it.

* Both writers are based in the United Kingdom. Gbolahan Gbadamosi can be reached at gbola.gbadamosi@gmail.com  and Akintokunbo A. Adejumo can be reached at akinadejum@aol.com