While the indispensability of ASUU to public varsities in Nigeria is assured, the body also needs to look within itself and address the growing concerns that have led to the lack of popular support. The body also needs to embrace effective communication to keep the public informed of its struggles. On the part of the government, ASUU’s press release of September 23rd should not be thrown into the trash basket
ON September 23rd, 2024, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) released a press statement titled “The Looming Industrial Crisis and Government’s Seeming Indifference,” with a warning to expect another strike by mid-October if its negotiations with the federal government break down. The use of strikes as a weapon by ASUU has eroded public sympathy for the Union. It has led many to question the relevance of the Union. Parents want to see positive outcomes for their children. Job recruiters think that university products are poorly trained in part because of the strikes and the alleged lack of commitment to good teaching and research. ASUU has a reputation for fighting unceasingly to improve learning environments and educational standards in Nigeria’s public universities.
ASUU’s demands for improved circumstances in Nigerian institutions are legitimate, but several strong factors suggest that a strike at this time might not be in the best interest of students, parents, lecturers, or even the country. Prolonged strikes have always had an impact on the academic calendar, which causes major learning gaps that have a lasting influence on the academic life of students. Nigeria is now dealing with several political and economic crises; a strike would only serve to accuse the Union of undermining efforts to solve urgent domestic problems like inflation and famine by arguably destabilizing the administration.
Despite the resentments directed at ASUU, I want to alert members of the public to rethink some of their positions. ASUU is not only about strikes but also about producing ideas and policy papers to transform the country. In the first week of October, ASUU will issue a set of suggestions on what is ongoing in Nigeria and what to do about the crises.
Established as a body of primarily academic staff in Nigerian universities with the core mandate to protect and preserve the future of education in the country, ASUU does not seem to enjoy popular support. This has further fueled the negative image that the body has come to be known with. One could posit that the body is akin to the proverbial hen whose feathers have prevented those outside from familiarizing themselves with her struggles. To replicate this in its original Yoruba lingo, “Adiye laa ngun, iyere ni koje ki a mo.” There have been debates and counter-debates on the genuine role of ASUU in the nation’s tertiary sector, with a large chunk of these contentions often relegating the Union’s struggles with claims that it has overstayed its existence. In fact, the Union’s roles had once struck a chord between Nigerian academics at home and those in the diaspora. The latter had argued that the Union had veered off in its overall missions and objectives, which, among a host of others, included the need to address the poor state of tertiary education in the country. A group of them argued that the Union now contributes to the plethora of challenges that it positions itself to address. Whether they are right or wrong is not the focus of this piece; however, the fact remains clear: without ASUU, the fate of Nigeria’s tertiary education is in jeopardy.
I understand the many counter-reactions that will trail my claim, but we must agree that over the years, ASUU has served as the link between universities and the government. Its demands have undoubtedly forced the Nigerian government to improve tertiary education through the implementation of effective and efficient policies. The Union has always argued that the Nigerian government seems to have no genuine interest in the educational development of the nation and that it has continually held the latter to address this concern. An expected counterclaim could argue that a huge chunk of these demands is based on the welfare of the members and may argue that the Union is member-centric and not for the students. However, we often forget that these members are lecturers and professors in universities who will, in turn, convert improved welfare into the required motivation that will further improve the teaching-learning process in the classrooms. In Nigeria, University lecturers have had to grapple with overpopulated students, dilapidated classrooms, and ill-equipped laboratories, and yet they are expected to churn out world-class scholarships under these gruesome conditions even with the fact that we cannot rule out the impact of motivated staff in classroom settings across the world.
If we are also to carry out a comparative analysis of the working conditions of academic staff in Nigeria with that of their counterparts in other African countries, we will agree that this part of the Union’s perennial demands is a valid one. The Nigerian government, on the other hand, except when nudged by ASUU, does not see a need to address this challenge. There have been concerns that, upon graduation, Nigerian students are struggling to find jobs. ASUU has been wrongly blamed for this due to their constant strike action, but upon closer inspection, the Union is exonerated. Every serious government must finance education. The lecturers and professors are not mandated to better the conditions in which they can deliver pedagogical excellence. ASUU, the much-maligned body, has been on this mandate for years.
For context: ASUU’s demands from its inception to the present have cut across the need for massive improvement of the tertiary sector to align with the realities of Nigerian societies. Nigeria has always been touted as the superpower of Africa, but since its independence, it has failed to live up to this potential. If anything, it has only sunk the ladder of underdevelopment. Education is the solution, but the tertiary education expected to churn out graduates who would rescue the nation from the abyss of underdevelopment is massively underfunded. The Nigerian government has not shown much commitment, and here is ASUU fighting tooth and nail to ensure this becomes a reality. With the characteristic indifference of the former and the fact that it does not jolt to consciousness with prolonged protests and demonstrations, one cannot blame the Union for resorting to strike actions to drive home their demands. This is because virtually every labor union in the country has used this method, which is deemed the most efficient, to force the government to the negotiation table.
We should also not forget the role of the Union in protecting the sanity of the universities during the brutal era of military dictatorship. It has been argued that the military administrators mismanaged the nation’s resources, which in turn affected the tertiary education sector. Also, the Union, at the risk of its members being incarcerated, contended with the military government to ensure that the standard of tertiary education did not decline. Unlike in this democratic setting where ASUU’s actions are welcomed, it was not the case during the military era as its members were gruesomely beaten, intimidated, and harassed. The Union was, in fact, banned during the Babangida regime in one of the desperate military measures to prune down the powers of the Union. Still, the Union did not push back in its struggles toward the revitalization of tertiary education. The military government, astonished by the resilience of the Union members, had no other choice than to heed their demands. From this event, we can adduce that ASUU has been consistent in its demand for education reforms and did not waver during the stormy win. Its resilience has recorded many successes that are now enjoyed by students today. It is, therefore, disheartening to propagate claims that a union as harassed and intimidated by the government as ASUU is the bane of tertiary education in Nigeria.
Many do not know about the contribution of the Union’s struggles towards the establishment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) in 2011, a body that has been responsible for financing critical projects in Nigerian universities. There is virtually no federal Nigerian University that does not have a TETFUND-sponsored project. Following its establishment, Nigerian academics have also been able to get funding for their research, thereby contributing the required knowledge to different sectors of the nation’s economy. This body has become another way through which the Nigerian government funds tertiary education. This would not have been possible if ASUU had not held the government to its mandate of national educational development. Undoubtedly, TETFUND has lived up to its demands; however, this has not stopped the Union from further campaigns on the need for reforming and restructuring tertiary education.
With the current structure of tertiary education in the country, one does not need a fortune teller to argue that it has been designed to fail comprehensively. Whether you accept or not, the Union has prevented what would have been the collapse of tertiary education. It should be further noted that one of the demands of ASUU forced the Nigerian government to investigate the needs of public universities in Nigeria. Some of these investigations have borne fruit, with the Nigerian government and other relevant stakeholders looking for other means of funding public universities. With less than 10% allocated to the education sector, it is expected that the federal government should up the ante. ASUU exists to ensure that the government fulfills its parts of the bargain.
In several negotiations with the Nigerian government, ASUU has suggested that the former makes public universities more autonomous as one of the ways of restructuring the tertiary education sector. With this, the government will be less involved in the administration of public universities; however, this latter has vehemently opposed it. While the indispensability of ASUU to public varsities in Nigeria is assured, the body also needs to look within itself and address the growing concerns that have led to the lack of popular support. The body also needs to embrace effective communication to keep the public informed of its struggles. On the part of the government, ASUU’s press release of September 23rd should not be thrown into the trash basket.
