There is obviously no headway in the negotiations between
ASUU and the FG as both sides maintain the pre-strike positions? What
is really happening?
The truth is that ASUU went on strike over the fact that the federal
government refused to implement the 2009 agreement. The provisions in
the Memorandum of Understanding dictated by the Secretary to the Federal
Government of the Federation (SGF) on 24th of January 2012, and then
the Needs Assessment that was carried out in July 2012, a number of
issues were involved, and are still involved. One is funding of the
universities. The 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement was specific in terms of
reversing the rot and decay in Nigerian universities. The chairman of
the Federal Government Team that negotiated with ASUU, Deacon Gamaliel
Onosode, said he wanted to enter the history books as the chairman of a
Government Team that not only identified the key problems of Nigerian
universities but has also provided the solutions. He also said that he
would not sign any document, any agreement; any item that he knew that
government was not going to implement and that was why the negotiation
took us three years – from 2006 to July 2009.
That agreement had four sections namely; funding of universities,
conditions of service, academic freedom and university autonomy and then
other matters.
On the question of funding, the agreement provided that within a
space of three years, government will provide 1.5 trillion naira in
order to address the rot in the university system. Between 2009 and
2011, nothing happened. ASUU wrote over 200 letters to government on the
agreement, nothing happened. On the 4th of December 2011, after a
number of warning strikes, ASUU embarked upon an indefinite strike.
Then in January of 2012, the SGF apprehended the strike and called us
to meetings in his office. We went there, had discussions and the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation then dictated the
Memorandum of Understanding to the effect that on the question of
funding, instead of N1.5 trillion for the 24 federal universities that
had been captured in the 2009 agreement, government will instead provide
N1.3 trillion for 61 public universities, that is for both federal and
state universities. ASUU initially disagreed over the N1.5 trillion for
24 universities as against N1.3 trillion for 61 universities, but
eventually bent over backwards and accepted it. The Memorandum of
Understanding, which was dictated by the Secretary to the Government of
the Federation, Mr Anyim Pius Anyim, said that N100 billion was
immediately available, and that N400 billion will be provided for each
of the three years beginning in 2013 and ending in 2015 which will make a
total of N1.3 trillion. He even said while discussions were still going
on that we shouldn’t worry and that by the time government started
pumping this money into the universities, we will in fact not know what
to do with the money.
So we took that back to our members and our members were not happy
saying that we cannot trust this government, it is just on paper. I said
look, I moved the vote of thanks to Pius Anyim at the end of
negotiations. I did so because I thought he was very sincere, very
honest.
Because he told us that N100 billion was immediately available we
then said let us spend that money now, he then said no, let us do a
needs assessment, let us identify the priorities of each of the
universities. He said he didn’t want a situation where we will just be
throwing money generally at the universities. It was on that basis that
government set up a team under the leadership of the Executive Secretary
of Tertiary Education Trustfund (TETFUND), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to
go to each of the universities and identify the priorities of each of
the universities. That was done on the basis of which a report was then
made that captured the needs of individual universities and then an
integrative report dealing with all the universities was also there.
That report was then taken to the Federal Executive Council where it
was presented by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the Executive Secretary of
(TETFUND). ASUU members were also there during the presentation. When
the members of the Federal Executive Council saw the state of rot in the
universities – where students were using in their laboratories kerosene
stoves instead of Bunsen burners, where students were excreting into
polyethylene bags and throwing them through the window, where students
were standing under trees to receive lectures, where there were
laboratories without water, no electricity, where students were doing
theory of practical in Engineering and other science-based faculties.
When they saw these things, we were told; the members of the Federal
Executive Council were thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed and swore,
with President Jonathan there, that they were going to address the
problems.
The President said that that presentation was not enough, that the
Federal Executive Council is only concerned with federal universities
and that it was necessary to bring state governors into the picture.
They then scheduled another presentation for the National Economic
Council chaired by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo. That presentation
was made and all the governors were equally embarrassed by what they
saw.
At the end, they set up a technical committee with Governor Godswill
Akpabio, governor of Akwa Ibom State as chairman. The committee did its
work, brought its recommendations, they were taken to the Federal
Executive Council and the recommendations were approved and then
endorsed by the President who said they should go and implement. That
was in February of 2013.
From that time up to now nothing has happened. Since then ASUU had
interacted with the Ministry of Education, interacted with the Secretary
to the Government of the Federation pressing for the implementation of
the approved recommendations by the president and nothing happened. It
was at that stage that ASUU then went on strike; and since the strike
started, what have we heard?
We have been called by the National Assembly Committee on Education
chaired by Senator Uche Chukwumerije. Very interestingly, when we got to
the meeting with the committee at the National Assembly, it was clear
to all the members that the reason for the strike was because government
refused to implement the agreement, the Memorandum of Understanding,
and the needs assessment as approved by Mr. President.
When the Secretary to the Government of the Federation spoke, we were
shocked. When they asked him about the Memorandum of Understanding, he
acknowledged that he wrote it, he took responsibility that it is his
document but when they read that N100 billion was available to be given
to the universities in 2012, N400 billion each for the following three
years; he said: “Oh, what I meant was N100 billion and not N400
billion.” So Senator Chukwumerije then said: “SGF, you are a lawyer, you
dictated this thing; that is what you started with, that you wrote it;
how can you say that you didn’t know that N400 billion was not N100
billion?” The SGF had no answer and embarrassingly, they closed the
session.
We then had other meetings in the SGF office and at one of the
meetings he shook the MoU in the face of the then Minister of Education,
Professor Rukayattu and said sarcastically: “Look, I think they said
they want N400 billion, go and give them the N400 billion
naow”
and they laughed. The SGF ridiculed the MoU that he had dictated! ASUU
cannot have that because education is key to what a country does,
education is key to the development of a country.
Brazil said recently that any new oil field that they find, whatever
money derived from there will be used to fund education. Ghana spends
about 31 percent of its annual budget on education and if you look at
the percentage of the GDP spent on education, amongst a number of
countries, Nigeria has less than 1 percent of GDP spent on education.
Ghana spends 8.6 percent, even Republic of Benin and Togo; they have
higher levels of spending on education than Nigeria.
The fact is that government eventually of course, when we went on
strike, set up the [Governor Gabriel] Suswam Committee to deal with the
question of implementing the Needs Assessment Report but Suswam came to
that committee with a mindset. He came in order to be a contractor and
not to implement the report of the Needs Assessment Committee. Against
the N100 billion that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation
had told us was there and could be released but that we should go and do
a needs assessment report so that they will know how to disburse it,
what Suswam did was to first and foremost tell us that there is no other
kobo anywhere, that there was no money; he was just talking to us
anyhow.
The government has consistently argued, and may have
succeeded in creating the impression that all ASUU is after is money,
money and money in the form of increased pay and allowances and other
benefits and not improved university system? Don’t you think that ASUU
has not been able to convincingly respond to this impression to
drastically change popular perception of the union?
When they said that all ASUU is after is money, money, money, they
mean for example that we are after salaries, we are after the money that
comes to the pocket of ASUU but fortunately, when anybody sees the
Memorandum of Understanding, the Needs Assessment Report and also has
read the statements credited to ASUU in publications, they will know
that ASUU is after the Funding of education and not after money. In any
case, if you have worked, shouldn’t you be paid; if ASUU has worked,
shouldn’t it be paid? It is said that a labourer is worth his wages of
his labour or something like that.
What we are trying to say is that, even as at yesterday
[when the interview was held], there was an editorial in one of the
national dailies which tend to push the whole blame for going on strike
on ASUU and not the Federal Government.
Well, we know that no matter what happens, no matter how much
information people have, based upon the biases that people already have,
they will bend the information that they have to suit those biases.
ASUU’s struggles have never been about money per se, they are rather
about funding of education; we have been saying fund education. UNESCO
says fund education up to 26 percent of national budget, let the Federal
Government provide that money. We have been consistent about funding of
education.
Secondly, ASUU’s struggles have also been about conditions of
service. In the 2009 agreement, we talked about earned academic
allowances. These are allowances in relation to responsibilities, that
is, responsibility allowance; like you are a head of department,
allowances in relation to supervision, you supervise PhDs, you access
professors; allowances in respect to excess workload.
In Nigeria, the NUC said that the student-teacher ratio should be
between 1 to about 40. In some Nigerian universities, we have a
situation of one lecturer to about 500 students. In Harvard, it is about
one to three, in Yale it is one to about five, you know, the ratio
varies but in Nigeria, in our public universities, no teacher teaches a
class, on the average, that is less than 150. We teach far above and we
have consistently said that look, employ enough teachers, when you
employ enough teachers, you won’t have to pay for excess workload
because teachers are carrying more than the workload that they ought to
carry. So, staffing, not just academic staff but non-academic and all
staff of universities, they have earned allowances which government has
not been paying since 2009 and it has accumulated and come to N92
billion for both academic and non-academic staff.
ASUU, because we recognise the interconnections between the academic
staff and non-academic staff; we say pay everybody. We could have said
look, pay us the academic staff allowances and leave that of the
non-academic staff. ASUU said we work in a system; if you pay us and you
don’t pay the others, there will still be crisis; so bring the money so
that all categories of staff are paid but government is saying no, it
doesn’t have the money; it only has N30 billion. Mrs. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, [Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the
Economy] at a meeting in the office of the Secretary to the Government
of the Federation in the course of this strike told us: “I have cash; 30
billion naira cash, I am putting it on the table, take it or leave it.
if you don’t take it you can be on strike for the next two or three
years. Yes, that is what Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said!
With regard to that, there are a couple of issues to sort
out. Firstly, why don’t you believe the excuse being given by
government that it has no money? Secondly, as a former president of ASUU
and one who is still active in the system, do you think the decay in
the education sector can be resolved without necessarily addressing the
decay in the entire society?
Well, on the first question of whether the government has no money;
that is not true, government has money, we do not believe that
government has no money. As we told Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, we are a union
of intellectuals, we have economists, experts in economics, and so we
have access to the figures that government itself produces in relation
to its revenue string. Government has a lot of money. What is important
is not the question of whether government has money or does not have
money but the priorities of government in relation to spending the money
that it has. Like we told her dramatically, it is not the size of the
cake that matters but how you share the cake to the various individuals
who have a stake in it.
So government has a lot of money but how is the government applying
that money? Government spent three trillion naira bailing out the banks;
it spent 500 billion naira bailing out the airlines; it spent another
100 billion naira the textile firms; it even had money to give to
Nollywood and the Stock Exchange, private people who arrange deals, they
had money to give them, about 350 billion naira. How come when it comes
to education, government suddenly says it has no money? It is because
they have contempt for education; they want people to remain in
ignorance so that they can continue to toy with the destiny of
Nigerians. It is not that they don’t have the money; they have a lot of
money. They are now amassing money for 2015, towards the next elections.
Whether the country goes to ruin or not it doesn’t matter as long as
they can pursue their political ambitions. Yes, government has money!
Even if you look at the international oil market today; a barrel of
crude oil is selling at 109 dollars. Nigeria is producing 2.4 million
barrels per day, yes, 2.4 million barrels!. So if you multiply 109 by
2.4 million, you will know what Nigeria is making on a daily basis.
The initial proposition for Nigeria’s 2013 budget was that it should
be at 70 dollars per barrel and then the National Assembly said it
should be 97 dollars per barrel, but because the 2013 budget in fact was
not formerly approved, we do not know the figure they eventually used.
But whatever it is, they have what they called Excess Crude Account,
they have money there. There is the Sovereign Wealth Fund, there is
money there. So Nigeria has a lot of money! Nobody can say that the
country doesn’t have money, it is not true. So in terms of funding
education, it is whether government has the interest of Nigerians at
heart; whether they want to invest in the future of Nigeria. So it is
not that they don’t have money; they have a lot of money to spend if
they really want to rescue the rot, the decay in education.
On the second question about the general decay in the society; well,
there is no doubt that there is a relationship between the decay in the
Nigerian society with the decay in Nigerian universities. The decay in
Nigerian society fuels the decay in Nigerian universities and ultimately
the decay in Nigerian universities also fuels the decay in Nigerian
society.
You see, we have always made the point that if you take your
individual interests; if public schools are bad and you have children,
what do you do? You do not say because all schools are bad you will
allow your children to receive a bad education, you will employ private
teachers, isn’t it, to try and teach them? In doing so, you create
pockets of excellence and in doing that you hope that you will be able
to change the system as a whole.
So also, it is possible for the educational sector, for you to get it
right, you must spend money there to make sure that the place is
properly organised so that in turn, it will impact upon the society as a
whole.
What we have had, frankly speaking, is that the current ruling elites
in Nigeria are like the dog that is destined to get lost, it will not
hear the whistle of its master. Even in the face of overwhelming
evidence as to the catastrophe that will befall the country and
themselves, they continue on the current course, they will not see, they
will not listen. So things continue in the way that they are. The
society is bad; it is rotten! The ruling elites are shameless, they are
shameless!
I saw this thing yesterday on the front page of
The Nation
newspaper where a group of kidnappers came out and they say they were
giving the government 60 days ultimatum to grant them amnesty and they
were brandishing guns and they were hailed by the public. There is no
state in Nigeria; that is why Nigeria is described as a failing state;
the state in Nigeria has failed, yes, the state in Nigeria has failed.
All they [leaders] are interested in is providing for their own
security, no security for the public.
Frankly speaking, there has to be some radical transformation within
the ruling elite. Jonathan talked about transformation but actually they
don’t know what transformation means. Transformation is re-ordering the
governing variables of society. You change the governing variables
because you have to change from a faulty foundation; you re-arrange it
to correct the faults. That is not what they are doing; they are simply
re-arranging the dead chairs on the Titanic; that is what they are
doing. The Titanic is going to sink but you take one chair from here to
put it there so that it won’t sink but it is going to sink anyway; that
is what the Nigerian ruling elites are doing.
So, we have a responsibility, Nigerians have a responsibility to
ensure that the real transformation takes place because as long as we
continue with this crop of leaders, Nigeria is going nowhere. That is
the tragedy of the universities also.
There is also the argument that the general decay in
university education is a direct result of the low quality of academic
staff. Don’t you think this is true and if it is true, will university
autonomy or improved quality of infrastructure or salary being canvassed
by ASUU resolve the question of quality in the system?
How did they [lecturers] get there? ASUU leaders are not those who
employ the teachers; teachers come into the universities on the basis of
the processes put in place by the Vice Chancellors, by the governance
structures in the universities. ASUU members do not employ teachers;
there are levels of leadership in the universities that take
responsibility for the appointment of teachers.
In any case, where do they come from? If the quality of students that
you get is so low, where do you get the teachers from? From the same
decayed system. That is why you have teachers who cannot speak correct
English; they will tell you: “on the light”, “off the light”. They come
from the same set of students who graduated years before who were
speaking such incorrect English, who did not have proper experiments,
who had dry experiments, who didn’t have proper education; that is where
they are coming from.
That is why, frankly speaking, when I go to these big offices of some
of these big shots in government, public officers, huge big powers and I
go to their toilets, you will find out that they have big jerry cans of
water because they know that water won’t run in their toilets. They are
comfortable with it because that is what they know. They went to
university when they were doing what students call “shot put,” excreting
inside polythene bags in the classroom and throwing it outside through
the window. So in their offices, it doesn’t make a difference; that is
normal.
So when you talk about the quality of teachers, the quality of
teachers that you get will come from the quality of students that you
produce. In the olden days when we were just starting as lecturers in
the universities, we had lecturers from different parts of the world. I
was interviewed by a Professor Smith from the UK, a white man. In the
faculty then, you had professors from different parts of the world. I
can count on my fingertips the number of foreigners now in Nigerian
universities across the length and breadth of the country.
We no longer have foreign students except those who may come on some
exchange programme. That wasn’t the case but because the conditions of
service, the conditions for research have deteriorated so much that
nobody wants to take the risk of coming to Nigeria. But Nigerian
students are in Ghana, in Malaysia, they are everywhere!
The Central Bank Governor [Sanusi Lamid Sanusi] told us recently that
in one year alone Nigerians spend between 62 to 65 billion naira in
Ghana paying school fees. If the Nigerian educational system was right,
if the Nigerian universities were right, that money will not go out, it
will be here and foreign students will be coming to Nigeria to spend
that money. So things are bad. The quality of academic staff that we are
getting now is not the quality of academic staff that we had in the
past. As I said, no foreigner will come as it is so you have to get them
from within and even at that we still have a dearth of teachers at
various levels. The Needs Assessment Report showed, for example, that in
some universities, you have two or three professors among the entire
pool of staff.
Now that there seems to be a stalemate, don’t you think
that ASUU needs to re-strategise and re-negotiate the 2009 agreement as
against a strike that seems to have no end in sight?
You see, we have talked about this; members of the public have
suggested this; government itself has thrown it at us. The question is,
if you had an agreement that you negotiated for three years – from
2006-2009 – that was not implement and ASUU had to go on strike. We had a
Memorandum of Understanding that ASUU got from government, government
dictated it, which was not implemented. After that there was yet another
Memorandum of Understanding, government did not implement it. There is a
Needs Assessment Report done by government itself, presented to
government; that also was not implemented. What guarantee is there if
you go and then have another negotiation that it will be implemented?
The most rational thing for anybody, anybody, even somebody who didn’t
go to school, they will tell you, look, finish this one first, let them
implement the previous agreement, let that one be concluded then we can
start another round of negotiations.
We know that, in fact, we should have started negotiations since
2012; since last year; to re-negotiate the agreement of 2009, because it
is suppose to be every three years but we have convinced ourselves that
it is part of the sacrifice, part of that process of bending over
backwards. Let us suffer because we know that even those that we are
better than in terms of conditions of service in 2009 have overtaken us
but we are willing to stay the course. Let us get the agreement of 2009
implemented, let us get the MoU implemented, let us get the Needs
Assessment Report implemented; after that we can talk about
re-negotiating another agreement because that will then show to us how
serious government is in terms of implementing agreements.
We have told government anyway that in a situation where people do
not implement agreements will only create anarchy. When you don’t
implement agreement that you validly entered into after three years of
negotiation, collective bargaining, agreements arrived at through
collective bargaining, you don’t implement; you are simply calling for
anarchy. So, why do you go for another one?
Why don’t ASUU approach the issue of this decay by, for
instance, engaging the other unions in the education sector to campaign
for a holistic reform since the basic foundation of knowledge starts
from the lower levels – primary education and secondary education?
Agreed now that there is decay in the entire system; don’t you then
think that these layers of decay are being transferred to the
universities?
ASUU has been doing that. That is why ASUU has been calling for the
funding of education, not just the funding of university education. But
we also recognise that there are different unions in charge of different
sectors of the educational system as a whole.
While we carry the burden of speaking for the educational system as a
whole, it is also the responsibility of the unions in charge of the
other sectors to play their role. We cannot shave their hair in their
absence; that will be wrong. That is why, in the case of the university,
the government has been telling us that we should talk about our own
union issues only. There is what we call working class solidarity; so we
are speaking for NASU, we are speaking for SSANU, we are speaking for
NAATS but they must play their own part, their own roles in the process.
We are a trade union and when you expand your area of involvement to
involve the area of others, government will say that you are trying to
politicise the issues and that you are trying to bring down the
government. If we now go to engage NASU, SSANU, NAATS and NUT and all of
them to then say let us come together on this matter, government is
going to say you see, they have gone beyond what is their own, they are
now involving other unions in order to bring us down; they want to
change the government in power. That is not the design of ASUU, ASUU
wants funding for education in general and funding for universities in
particular.
In addition, ASUU has been planning an education summit that will
bring together all the interest groups in education. We have said to
ourselves that at the end of this strike all the interest groups in
education will be brought together to discuss the future of education
and hence the future of Nigeria. So you can see that ASUU is thinking at
different levels, is acting at different levels in order to address the
issues that you have just raised.
In a recent article published by one of the national
dailies on ways of funding the agreement with ASUU, there have been
suggestions that agencies of government like the Central Bank, the
Petroleum Development Fund, the National Communications Commission and
JAMB should be approached to raise the required 1.5 trillion naira to
fund the agreement. Do you see this as a viable approach?
Well, it is a viable approach. The thing about ASUU is this; ASUU
does not just present problems without also proposing solutions. When we
reached the agreement with government and then this MoU was dictated by
the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, they challenged us
and said: where will these monies come from for funding this agreement,
this MoU? They on their own also said that the money will come from both
budgetary and extra-budgetary sources and they said they know that
NNPC’s budget does not go to the National Assembly, there is money
there, CBN’s budget also does not go to the National Assembly, there is
money there, JAMB also, there is money there and other sources which are
not captured by the National Assembly, so we can get money from these
sources to fund education, to fund the agreement. And so if the money is
there why shouldn’t we use the money?
In addition, remember that the Tertiary Education Fund was the idea
of ASUU. We said look, let us have a fund because all businesses, all
institutions use the products of Nigerian universities. Just put in
place a small tax that when they pay it will then be used to support
education. It was that proposal by ASUU that led to the establishment of
the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. But when it was first established as
Education Tax Fund, even primary schools were being funded with the
money whereas what we had said was tertiary education. They have now
amended that. That, clearly, is a viable and legitimate way of funding
education.
Apart from that, we have also said the Sovereign Wealth Fund is
there, which belongs to all the three levels of government; the Excess
Crude Account is also there, which belongs to all the three levels of
government.
Very often you find them sharing money. They will gather in Abuja and
say we are sharing Excess Crude Account money; why can’t we spend from
that money to fund education?
Currently, ASUU is accusing the government of misusing
the TETFUND money. Won’t some people in turn accuse government of
flouting the mandate of these statutory institutions?
No! Let us take the case of TETFUND as an example. TETFUND is
mandated to provide high impact investments in universities and other
higher institutions. The tax that companies pay is meant for that
purpose. But you will be violating the provisions of TETFUND when you
then take money from there and on your own spending the money on behalf
of TETFUND. That is what the government has always done. The TETFUND
Board is supposed to channel the fund specifically on projects that are
suppose to generate high impact in the universities and higher
institutions. So that one is there!
Then CBN, you know, has money sitting down there. There is nothing in
the CBN act that says that that money cannot be expended on education.
There is nothing in those other agencies like the NNPC that stops
government from using money from there to fund education. For instance,
during the Obasanjo era, they took money from NNPC to fund
electioneering and we believe also that during the life of this
government under President Jonathan, they have also been taking money
from the purse of the NNPC and use it for elections. That is what
violates the Act of the NNPC; that also violates the Act of CBN. When
you use the money in terms of funding education, health and other
things, you are not violating the Acts that set up the NNPC and these
other agencies.
There was a recent advertorial on the status of
implementation of the 2009 agreement between ASUU and the Federal
Government, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation said on
the issue of transfer of Federal Government landed properties to
universities, government had made it clear that it cannot transfer
government landed property to ASUU as it has no structure to manage or
maintain such property. What is exactly at stake here?
You see, that is one of the lies that government tells. When
government started putting pressure on the universities, and that is why
I said ASUU always provides solutions, government started saying that
no, we will no longer fund university education, universities should now
be self funding. As a result, some universities have now gone into
ventures such as making “pure water.” That is not what universities are
meant for. In other countries, universities conduct research that they
in turn patent to then get a lot of money from there. Universities own
property that they get money from and not from making pure water or
creating tollgates inside universities where vehicle owners are
compelled to pay tolls.
You see, we reached an agreement with government when ASUU proposed
that since public properties were being recklessly sold – NITEL, NICON
Noga, this one, that one; they were just dashing them out – ASUU then
suggested to government to create a university holding company owned by
all the federal universities in Nigeria and then cede some of these
properties to the holding company and the profit that will derive from
its management, they will get money to fund their operations such as
research.
The government gave out all the buildings in Abuja, the ones in Lagos
such as the former Federal Secretariat in Lagos; they dashed them out.
Those properties could have been given out to the university holding
company owned by the entire federal universities in the country, not
individual universities. Under such a scenario, they will not run to
government cap in hand begging for money; they will use the profits to
run their activities.
We didn’t say give landed properties to ASUU; it is to the
universities under a holding company. We spoke to the vice chancellors
about two days ago and they were very happy about that agreement,
because it will help them but the government is not interested in going
in that direction. What they are interested in is that they will get
their friend like this power company that they just dashed out; they
want to give these things to their friends.
One may ask; where are all the monies that they have realised from
the privatisation process? It is not part of the budget, it is not
captured in the budget of the country that this is the money we have
realised. All the money they said they seized from people who stole
money, where is that money? It is not in the budget, so where is the
money? Nobody accounts for that money!
We are saying look, NICON Noga Hilton, now Transcorp Hilton, was
making a lot of money; NICON Insurance was also making a lot of money,
also NICON Luxury Hotel; they were all making a lot of money, they were
not incurring losses! Why do you take a government company that is
making a lot of money and then privatise it? Does that make sense?
For us in ASUU, instead of privatising them, give them to a public
sector universities holding company that will then generate money from
there to fund the activities of universities so that government will no
longer be under pressure to provide funds for running the universities.
That was the reason.
We also said it is inconceivable that you have foreign companies
coming to Nigeria, whether it is in oil, whether it is in communications
or wherever – they all make huge profits in Nigeria – get them to set
up research and development companies in different universities; create a
local content policy and also have a local research policy that will
require that companies set up research and development units and centres
in the different universities across the country so that when they
conduct research they patent it and on the basis of that earn money.
When they solve problems, you pay. But right now, when the companies
have problem, they run outside the country whereas we have people here
who can do that research. So there are patriotic solutions to the
problems that the country has but these ruling elites they are simply
not interested!
About two or three sister unions in the university system
are not involved in the ongoing strike by ASUU – NASU, SSANU and may be
NAATS are not involved – what in your view is responsible for this?
Secondly, since the three unions used to belong to the same national
centre, that is the NLC; don’t you think ASUU should have made more
efforts to make them become part of the ASUU struggle?
The fact is this; when our strike started, when the problem started,
we briefed the NLC on the strike and it is left to the NLC to which we
belong to then initiate a process of getting these other unions also to
be involved. And of course, like I was explaining earlier, SSANU, NASU,
they have their own separate jurisdictions and they have their own
members.
When the Needs Assessment Report of public universities was done,
there had been this big misconception which some of the university based
unions have tried to react to on the ground that ASUU wants them
retrenched. ASUU does not want anybody retrenched.
When the Needs Assessment was carried out, government panel found out
that, and the ratios are there, established from the beginning; non
academic staff are support staff; all of us go to different universities
in different parts of the world; the core business of the university is
teaching and so the number of teachers should be more than the number
of supporting staff. What has happened in the case of Nigerian
universities is that the number of non academic staff is more than the
number of academic staff; sometimes four times in some universities
where you will have sometimes 800 academic staff you will have 3,200 non
academic staff. As a result, 70 percent of the personnel cost goes to
non academic staff and 30 percent goes to academic staff. It is
lopsided. That was the finding of the Committee on the Needs Assessment
of Public Universities in Nigeria.
The committee subsequently made recommendations, for example, that in
future the process of natural attrition – when people retire, they
should no longer be replaced. In some universities, the number of senior
non academic staff – deputy registrars, assistant registrars and others
are more in number than the number of professors in the university.
That is not healthy. But what has happened is that as a result of that
report, NASU and SSANU now believe that ASUU engineered the report that
says they are too many. But that is the fact of the case. ASUU has not
said that anybody should be retrenched. Some of them have been saying
that if the Needs Assessment Report is implemented, they will go on
strike. Maybe that is why they have not been involved in the struggle
that we have been involved in.
Nonetheless, as I said, ASUU has taken it upon itself to champion
even the interest of those unions who are undermining what it is doing.
ASUU is saying these earned allowances; pay everybody, all universities’
staff and not just academic staff. Even when government is pressing us
to focus on ourselves, focus upon your 52. 2 billion naira, leave the
other ones but we said no, we don’t want a situation where ours is paid
and the others are not paid. So we expect SSANU and NASU to join in the
struggle but we won’t go and meet them and say come and join us.
As I said the government will say ooh, you are the one mobilising
other unions to come and take part in this; but we expect them, since
they know the issues involved, nobody is saying that anybody should be
sacked. We expect the NASU leadership, the SSANU leadership to join in
it and say, yes, it is our struggle. When facilities improve, their
children will benefit also so they should take the initiative; ASUU
cannot go and meet them and ask them to join; in fact they should join
on their own; after all we are all in the same university system.
Virtually all the private universities in the country
have no academic staff union or association. What has ASUU done to
correct this given that the labour laws in the country are quite union
friendly in that regard? Why has neither ASUU nor any of the other
unions unionise this category of workers?
Well, in the recent past, this was one of the problems NLC tried to
address. I know there was a programme aimed at mobilising or organising
one million new members for the NLC. This was because there are many
occupations that are not unionised and many employers make it impossible
for employees to be unionised. Right now I know of NABTEB – National
Board for Technical Education – unionisation is going on there but the
management is resisting it and sacking workers, yes, sacking workers.
There are one or two private universities where lecturers have
indicated that they want to join ASUU and we are encouraging them.
Presently we are doing different things to encourage members, academic
staff of private universities, to form unions. SSANU also has the same
problems; NASU too has the same problems. Proprietors of private
universities do not want their employees to be unionised although the
laws in the country say you cannot prevent people from joining unions;
but those laws; they can bark, they cannot bite because at the end of
the day, the labour laws are friendly to the employers; when they are
violated, nothing happens.
We are doing everything that we can but progress is slow because of
the reprisals that many managements in the universities take against
those who they see as being interested in forming unions and when they
sack them because they don’t have a union on the ground they have
difficulties in supporting them. So that is a problem but that is a
responsibility that the NLC needs to take up. The NLC needs to attack
this problem frontally like the programme which it had that was aimed at
unionising at least one million members in non unionised occupations
across the country. Let us do that and in private universities we will
be there, telecommunications, we will be there, even in banks; employees
are not unionised in many banks and because the labour movement is very
weak right now, that is also part of the reason why these things are
going on.
Against the background of dwindling funds for federal
universities was it rational or right in your view for the federal
government to have established ten new universities in 2011?
ASUU has argued against that. ASUU has said look, there is a
procedure, even, for establishing universities and that wasn’t followed.
You can expand the carrying capacity of universities that are currently
on the ground. Cairo University has over 100 thousand students. Many
universities across the world; some have 250 thousand, and if you come
to Nigerian universities, the largest one is ABU which has over 30
thousand students. So why don’t we expand the carrying capacity of
existing universities that are already on ground instead of establishing
new universities?
I think it was a political decision; government took a political
decision by establishing universities in states of the federation where
there are no federal universities as at that time. They took that
decision without consulting ASUU and they are funding them without
consulting ASUU; doing all kinds of things that are against even the due
process thing that they themselves put in place.
Corruption is said to be endemic in all spheres of our national life. How can this epidemic be tackled in the university system?
Well, I have said it before that it is not just in the university
system. Corruption is the air that members of the ruling elites breathe
in Nigeria; it is their oxygen and if you cut it off, they will die. So
they have an investment, there is nothing you can do to stem the tide of
corruption unless you remove the ruling elite; it is impossible without
that. The ruling elites, whether they are in the universities or they
are in the government, are the same, they are doing exactly the same
thing. All these laws, EFCC, ICPC, work only when those in power want
them to work and mostly against their political enemies; they don’t work
when the objective is actually to clean up the system because nobody is
interested in cleaning up the system.
In universities, ASUU, in fact our members, get into trouble for
pointing out cases of corruption. Our union leaders are harassed because
we are saying that look, let us do these things properly. Look, Suswam
is attacking ASUU now because we said he cannot build hostels at 2.1
million naira or 1.6 million naira per bed space and that in any case he
was appointed chairman of the Needs Implementation Report not to go and
award contracts but to put in place the framework for implementing the
report. What did Suswam also do? Part of the 100 billion naira they said
was available he put 1.15 billion naira aside for administrative cost;
which administrative cost?
Like PPPRA, when it was being established, I know the NLC then
opposed it and said this was going to be a bigger bureaucracy; it should
just be an ad hoc thing but the members said no, it should be
established. Again, what happened during the fuel subsidy crisis that
they were involved in a lot of the fraud that took place? So corruption
in Nigerian universities is a small cup of tea compared to the big drum,
river of corruption that you find in the government and other sectors
of the economy.
In all of this, how has the NUC fared in performing its regulatory role in the university system?
I think that the NUC, when we had twelve universities or fewer, the
NUC was far more effective; all of them were public universities. Now
you have federal universities, you have state universities, you have
private universities and there are over 100 of them, about 106 and NUC
is not able to, does not have the capacity to regulate standards across
all the universities. Remember that standards are a function of funding;
if funding is available, then standards can be established. If you have
proper conditions of service, people outside Nigeria will be motivated
to come and teach; students will also come. If funds are not there; if
facilities for research are not there; people won’t come.
What the NUC does is this; it is like deceiving itself. If it comes
to carry out accreditation, universities, many universities will rush to
borrow lecturers and facilities from other places, stock up their
libraries with books that they borrow from other places; when the NUC
team goes they return them. NUC knows this and the universities know
this. Even the quality of programmes that we have; NUC knows that there
are problems there, we don’t have teachers to teach them, but NUC has to
carry on that common deceit to society in collaboration with the
universities, in collaboration with the government in order to ensure
that you can have something they call university system in place.
In the wake of the current industrial action by ASUU,
some people have come out with the suggestion that there is the need to
segregate tertiary education from the other levels of education. Do you
see that as a viable or reasonable option?
That is part of the recommendation of the Needs Assessment Report.
The report noted that education is very, very big and that even in many
states of the federation right now, you already have Ministry for Higher
Education and Ministry for Basic Education and that the Ministry of
Education should be split into two: one, Ministry for Higher Education
and two, Ministry for Education or Lower or Basic Education; that
happens in many countries of the world but government is not interested
in that. Instead it has a Minister of State and a Minister. It has to
separate the two so that they can focus precisely on their areas of
concern.
Although you have raised this issue earlier but putting
it more bluntly, part of the contention of government is that there was a
commitment in 2012 by the SGF that 100 billion naira will be released
in 2012, then 400 billion naira in each of the three years subsequently;
the question is being asked as to why ASUU is insisting on the full
implementation of this even as we are in the second of the four years
that government agreed it was going to provide the funds?
I think the answer is clear, the answer is clear! If you have an
agreement and you don’t implement that agreement, you are creating a
situation of anarchy. Two, the agreement was based on a realistic
assessment of the needs of the universities if we are to function as
part of the global university system in the modern age except if we want
to remain where we are, then nothing should be done, we should then
continue with the way that we are.
ASUU is right to insist that government should honour the terms of
its own agreements. ASUU is saying 100 billion naira in 2012, 400
billion naira in 2013; that makes it a total of 500 billion naira – that
is the money you gave to the airlines, private airlines; you can bring
that money to fund education – between 2012 and 2013, that money should
be available; however you did it for the banks, however you did it for
the airlines; you can also do it for the universities. you can take
money from the Sovereign Wealth Fund, you can take money from the Excess
Crude Account which is what the Needs Assessment Report says. The money
is there; you can get the money and spend it on education.
In terms of the earned allowances, the 92 billion naira; that money
is also available if government has the will, if government has the
integrity to abide by its own agreements, dictated by itself, written by
itself. So ASUU is not asking for the moon! ASUU is not asking for
anything that is extraordinary! ASUU is simply saying implement an
agreement that you yourself made. It will be wrong; ASUU will be doing a
disservice to the country if it simply folded its hands after an
agreement has been made and then say don’t implement; we will be an
irresponsible body; we will be totally an irresponsible organisation
that we will not be doing justice to ourselves and the nation.
There are implications in this for other unions. You have a
collective agreement which government does not implement and then you
say it doesn’t matter whether you implement it. If they do it to ASUU,
they will do it to others.
Your tenure as ASUU President in the ’80 was marked by
series of confrontations with government. What were those issues and how
were they resolved?
They were the same issues that we are raising now – funding of
education. At that time Prof Jubril Aminu was the minister of Education
and they were not willing to fund education and he had made a number of
statements that were anti even the ministry that he headed. We then
said, look, Jubril Aminu was not fit to remain as the Minister of
Education.
We were also bothered at that time about the fact that the country
was under military rule. We believed that it was not the proper
atmosphere to develop academic and educational institutions. We were
therefore opposed to the autocracy of the military for we were seeking
for avenues that will ensure that Nigerians could exercise their rights;
ASUU was involved in the struggle with the NLC under Comrade Chiroma.
Government responded by brutalising us and said that teachers were
teaching what they were not paid to teach. They proscribed our union,
arrested me, and sacked me from the University of Benin. But we know
that ultimately government had to eat its own words because under
Attahiru Jega who took over from me, government had to make an agreement
for funding the universities. That was in 1992. After 1992, we had
another one in 1999-2001 and then again in 2009.
When government then recognised that although it could not browbeat
ASUU, although we were banned, we were still operating as a union;
government was still talking to us as a union.
Remember when ABU students were shot and Ango Abdullahi said only
four students died, we mobilised within the NLC for there to be a
nationwide demonstration against the military, that was in 1986; I was
president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, and I left Owerri
and went to Lagos for a meeting with the NLC.
While I was there, I got a letter from the late Prof. Nzimero, who
was an adviser to Babangida at the time, telling me that Babangida was a
comrade and that we should not do anything to undermine his government.
And I said if Babangida was a comrade then the slaughter of students in
ABU, the anti Nigerian policies in education and elsewhere, his total
endorsement of the IMF and World Bank policies that were then emerging
at that time would not have happened. Nigerians will march against the
callous murder of Nigerian students in ABU on June 4, 1986.
That was what led to the proscription of ASUU, the banning of the NLC
and then my subsequent sack from my job in the University of Benin. All
these were part and parcel of that. Nigerians struggled until the
military left.
Unfortunately, those who took over from the military were the same
forces that had supported the military within civil society. Those who
were most opposed, in terms of principle, to military rule were excluded
from the process because they don’t have the money and the organisation
wasn’t there.
There is one ironic trend in the education crisis in
Nigeria as majority of the ministers of education have always
traditionally been appointed from the university community. Why do you
think they usually don’t give informed advice to government?
Well, how do they get there? They were not nominated by ASUU. When
you want to go and do anything, you look for your friends, people who
think like you. When the government is looking for people to appoint
within the academia as ministers, they look for people who think like
them. We don’t pretend that everybody in the academia think in the same
way, we think in different ways. That is why Paul Baran makes the point
about the difference between an intellect worker and an intellectual.
Most of the members in ASUU, most of the leaders in ASUU are
intellectuals. A lot of our members on the other hand are intellect
workers; they don’t oppose the ruling ideas; they don’t care; they are
satisfied with the status quo; they do research to support the
continuation of the status quo. The intellectual on the other hand is
interested in unmasking the various ways in which the status quo makes
it impossible for members to realise true justice, true freedom, you
know, living in a state that truly helps in realising themselves. So
when the government wants to appoint people they look for intellect
workers, they don’t really go for intellectuals.
Saharareporters
Governor
Babangida Aliyu of Niger State has attributed the lingering strike by
the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the massive looting
of public funds by politicians and civil servants alike.
