By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
In the first instalment last week, the response to the question whether the new FG-ASUU agreement will end strikes in our universities was ambivalent. “Yes” to some but “No” to others. “Yes” if the agreement is seen as a means to an end and not an end in itself. If it is seen as the first step that begins a journey of 1000 years, as a Chinese proverb puts it, because the task of rescuing our university system from the depth into which it has fallen will take more than the signing of an agreement to accomplish.
Certainly, this is not a tea party as China’s revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, would say. And only if the parties – the FG and ASUU – are purposefully committed to the task they have set before themselves in the agreement shall we begin to see the flickers of light at the end of a long, long tunnel.
But “No” if the hydra-headed ubiquitous Nigerian factor rears its ugly head again, in which lack of diligent prosecution trumps all manner of lofty ideas, littering the entire landscape with white-elephant projects that have turned the whole country into a graveyard of dashed promises and hopes betrayed.
Dissolve ASUU, CONUA and NAMDA
As we noted last week, aside ASUU, there are other players in the university system that must be taken into consideration; for example, CONUA and NAMDA. It makes no sense to me that the government will also have to sit down and begin to negotiate afresh with those ones.
I therefore propose that ASUU, CONUA, and NAMDA be dissolved by the government! Withdraw their certificates of registration and lock their leaders up in a conclave, like the Catholics do when electing a new pope, until they resolve their differences and merge again into one, strong union.
If the non-academic staff unions – junior and senior – play their habitual game of waiting for ASUU to strike a deal with the government before coming up with their own “we, too” campaign, peace may be far removed from the universities!
Has the problems of infrastructural decay in the universities been addressed by the FG-ASUU agreement? The universities have overshot their carrying capacities. I have it on good authority that many Senate chambers can no longer accommodate half of the professors during their mandatory meetings; not to talk of office and residential accommodation for staff members.
Lecture halls are inadequate. More percentage of students live off-campus. In my own university days the reverse was the case. Incessant power outages and crippling water shortages are sore points that cause students crises. Are these problems addressed in the new FG-ASUU agreement?
Let’s listen to more opinions of stakeholders on this critical issue. One senior professor has this to say: “We thank God for the new agreement. Although it is not comprehensive enough, it is all the same a right step in the right direction. But the government is good at signing agreements, the problem is always implementation. If they have implemented the 2009 agreement only half-way, it would have changed things tremendously. The agreement stated that the government would commit N200 billion yearly to the universities but this was achieved only once – 2009/2010! The agreement, which is to be reviewed every three years, can stop strikes if it is faithfully implemented. If the FG is not tardy on re-negotiations, there will be no need for strikes.
Nigerian lecturers still poorly paid
“All the things needed to run universities in our eco-system are in the agreement and, thank God, Nigerian lecturers are a contented lot. Before the 35% increment by Buhari, a professor was earning less than N500,000:00. The Buhari increment pushed it to slightly above N600,00:00; which is taxed. Net was about N500,000:00. With the new 40% upward review, it is still not up to $1,000 for a professor. Academics are not flamboyant. They will be contented if the government reviews regularly as at when due. To not review may be the beginning of another strike”.
The professor also spoke of the problems of over-admission of students, leading to all-round shortage of lecture theatres and halls of residence; the recruitment of lecturers without an addition to office space and residential accommodation. “As we speak, we have problems holding our Faculty meetings. A space meant to sit less than 80 Faculty members must now cope with about 200 lecturers.”
Hence, more and more universities are turning to their old students to augment yelling shortfalls.
Another senior professor had this to say: “This is not the first time the government and ASUU will sign an agreement. Often, the government will act in default. The 40% salary review has no meaning. Compared to what operates even in African countries, we are still pauperized. On sabbatical abroad, I earned in four months what I earned in five years as a professor here in Nigeria! So, the new salary structure will not stop brain drain.
“We have over 300 universities: with a single lecturer working in multiple universities (to augment their take-home) , service delivery becomes very poor.”
Accreditation system shambolic
The professor also drew attention to other problems plaguing the university system such as power outages and the sharp practices that plague the accreditation of programmes. “The accreditation of programmes system for the universities must be reviewed. What operates mostly at the moment is something like ‘I know you, you know me system; I rub your back, you rub my back’ . If proper accreditation is done, most of the courses will not meet accreditation.”
He also counselled that the universities be granted true autonomy to recruit as well as remunerate their staff. “If a lecturer is teaching only in the first semester, why should he be paid for the second semester? Salary is fixed, so you cannot attract people with special skills. Everything is based on the same salary scale).”
He added that in universities abroad, lecturers don’t earn the same salaries. “If you publish papers, you get paid for your output or productivity” So also if you attract research grants. “But here, it does not matter.”
Other factors that lead to industrial action, according to him, are poor facilities; lecturers are over-worked; embargo on employment, leading to shortage of much-needed hands; and government not uniformly interpreting and enforcing its own laid down regulations.
“To discourage strikes, the government is still owing university lectures four months pay, but the ‘no-work, no-pay’ policy has broken down on the hospitals side. Those on strike there are even getting their pay before those not on strike!
“Most of what cause strikes ordinarily should not but if you don’t go on strike, Abuja will not listen to you!
” Appointment of unpopular candidates as vice-chancellors, rectors and provosts also instigate strike actions.”
This professor then sounded a note of warning that may send shivers down the spines of his colleagues. “We have so many private universities but all of them put together may not be admitting up to 10% of admissions into our universities. By the time they are able to admit up to 50%, the government will not mind the unions any more!
“There was a time when, if the Nigerian Union of Teachers sneezes, the government catches cold – but not any more! Private primary and secondary schools have diluted the power and influence of NUT. I suspect that is the target of the FG. Private universities are still very expensive, but the cost is climbing down gradually.”
This, I dare to say, is food for thought but let us also listen to feedbacks from some of my highly esteemed readers whose comments have also shed some light on the issue:
“It is not correct to say that lecturers get paid for work not done. The reality is that governments, over time, owe lecturers for work already done in excess work-load which, essentially, is usually one of the issues in ASUU’s contention with the government. Again, it is crass ignorance on the job description of an academic to think or say that lecturers’ job on appointment consists of teaching alone, and once an academic is not in the classrooms he/she has necessarily abandoned his/her job (and), therefore, deserves not to be paid.” -Prof. Akin Onigbinde.
My response: No one can sensibly argue that teaching students is not the core responsibility of university lecturers.
Another rejoinder goes thus: “Is it really a new agreement? I really don’t think so because the items in the 2009 agreement have not been fully implemented. They are likely carried into the 2025 Agreement. Therefore, we are still dealing with the 2009 Agreement recalibrated as 2025 Agreement. I humbly submit!” – Comrade Femi Aborisade.
Blame ASUU for failure of 2009 agreement
I also received this text message from Emeritus Professor Olufemi Bamiro, one-time vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan: “I read your last Sunday article in the Tribune newspaper on the FG-ASUU agreement. I enjoyed your analysis. I happened to be a member of the Babalakin Committee, together with the late Professor Nimi Briggs. The system has not been fair to Babalakin and our committee. As I have written and also told ASUU (leaders) to their faces, they are intellectually lazy in engaging the government. Please kindly pick my call or call me for further discussion.”
I called Professor Bamiro and we had a lengthy discussion. He squarely put the blame for the failure of the 2009 FG-ASUU agreement at ASUU’s door-mouth.
He said: “In fairness to Adamu Adamu (Minister of Education), he told Babalakin to do everything possible to prevent more strikes in the system. I was VC in 2009. Myself and other persons were asked to look at the agreement. We saw that it was not implementable. ASUU can wear you out (during negotiations). And they (the FG negotiators) just signed!
“When Adamu Adamu said we should make the agreement work, we said to him that staff welfare should be top priority; especially salaries. He agreed. We proposed to him also that everyone was to contribute to the running of the university – the government, parents, etc. He said we should go ahead.
“Babalakin then said the starting point should be staff welfare. ASUU always brings their past presidents to negotiations. One of them then said, we were insulting them by starting with salaries! ‘Do you think we were here because of salaries?’ I then asked them: If you are not here because of salaries, what are you here for? They then said, if government can stop corruption…! I then said, we in the universities must also stop corruption! Ogunyemi was the ASUU president at the time. They did not allow him to speak. ASUU must stop bringing its past presidents to negotiations”
Prof. Bamiro said he had evidence of corrupt practices in the universities, especially as it pertained to how earned academic allowances were handled. “The way they have been using it is terrible”.
He listed at least five first- and second-generation universities that could not answer audit queries on the subject. “At that point, nobody could talk. One of them then suggested a break. That was how the negotiation ended. You can ask them. I led the negotiations with NASU…It was when it came to the turn of ASUU that problems came”
Bamiro said when Babalakin stopped leading the FG negotiation team, he (Bamiro) was proposed to step in but ASUU kicked against it. “Briggs (who then became the head) begged them that I should be made a member, but they said, no way!
” ASUU is not engaging the government intellectually because they don’t have, and they don’t rely on data to push their case. Let’s have the figures instead of just saying UNESCO recommends this or that percentage. They were just quoting percentages all over the place. What do you have and what are the shortfalls? We need to know the figures. You cannot manage what you cannot measure. That is the sad thing about our academics. They lacked the power of data. Let us have the figures. Needs Assessment relies on data and figures”
Asking what the 40% salary review ASUU just got translates into, Professor Bamiro said the Babalakin committee would have done far better for ASUU, “but they scuttled it. Armed with empirical and verifiable date available at the time, we looked at the average worldwide. Nigeria ranked 15 out of the 28 countries we considered. ”
Professor Bamiro said rather than simply quote UNESCO’s recommended percentages, Nigerian academics should act as one by engaging the government intellectually with foolproof data that will make their case easy to push. And rather than use Naira to US dollar exchange rate to measure and compare the salaries of Nigerian university lecturers with those of their colleagues elsewhere, a more equitable measurement is “purchasing power parity” between one country and another.
Describing education as the key to development, Professor Bamiro said with education in shambles, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
ASUU and other stakeholders’ response are welcome!