ASUU Strike, Future Of Education And Student Loan

The judiciary which is vested with the authority to interpret the laws of our country has spoken on the industrial action embarked upon by tertiary in­stitutions lecturers in Nigeria since February 14 this year.

In it’s ruling on Wednesday, September 21,it was held that the striking lecturers must re­turn to the class rooms.

But that verdict had only helped to galva­nize the resolve of the discontented lecturers to further dig in their heels.

So,the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Abuja which ordered ASUU mem­bers back to work in discontinuation of its in­dustrial action might have done its job,but it is a no brainer for most people to realize that it is a case of barking without being able to bite.

It is therefore such a welcome relief that on Wednesday 5th October,2022, the Appeal court acted wisely by directing the parties to settle the feud out of court.

I have a hunch that the Appeal court judges might have hinged their decision to recom­mend out of court settlement as the best suit­ed option for resolving the conflict based on the dictum that we are all familiar with :you can force the horse to the river,but you can not force it to drink. Which implies that getting teachers back to work should be by persuasion not coercion.

It makes one wonder why the Federal Gov­ernment of Nigeria,FGN took the option of going to court in the first instance.

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And somehow,in light of the wisdom not to try the case by the Appeal court judges, who rather urged the litigants to resolve their dis­pute amicably outside the court system,the judicial arm of government can be said to be more sensitive to the plight of our youths who have been out of school for over seven (7)months than the executive arm of government that has failed to settle their differences with the striking teachers hence our youths,the leaders of tomorrow have literally been left in the cold and at the mercy of nefarious am­bassadors.

Having failed to succeed in trying to use the court system,the trick of divide and rule in con­flict resolution,appears to be a tactic which the FGN seems to have decided to apply via the registration of labor associations formed by break away ASUU members who have decided to form their own unions.

Despite the treachery,the spirit of ASUU members appear to have remained upbeat as reflected by their decision not to back down despite the odds being stacked against them.

It is a development which all well meaning Nigerians should be concerned about because both sides of the feuding parties seem to be set for a fight to finish without giving serious con­sideration to the long term implications of the industrial action by the lecturers which may extend beyond the more or less six (6) months remaining life span of the incumbent admin­istration.

And in a situation whereby the no-work- no-pay rule aimed at igniting the fear of hunger and starvation as a tool for getting the aggrieved lecturers back to the classrooms have failed to resolve the conflict,and the gambit of going to court to compel the lecturers to return to the classroom which is not an amicable solution by any stretch of imagination is also proving to be ineffective,how would the latest antic of sponsoring factions within ASUU to rebel and weaken it,be the panacea to the dispute ?

The underlying reason for the poser above is that having gone this far in the strike action,(7 months and counting)

the aggrieved lecturers must have adopted the strategy of no retreat ,no surrender in this strike that is turning out to be the epic battle of their professional lives.

So,l would argue that seeking an end to the crisis in the education sector via court judge­ment or sponsoring rebellion via fractional­ization of ASUU (straight out of the playbook of politicians who are wont to divide and rule) is detestable.

In fact ,the court judgement is turning out to be Pyrrhic victory for the FGN simply because the Appeal court had demurred from deliberat­ing on the matter perhaps because it considers the court forum as inauspicious for the resolu­tion of such a delicate dispute which has more moral content than legal ground.

Even if the judgement were to have been sustained at the Appeal court level,we are all familiar with what would potentially be the output of an unmotivated workforce which the lecturers would be,if FGN had succeeded in using the courts to hound them back to the classrooms.

Personally,l am appalled that after it had seemed to me that government might have concluded that it is unwise to continue with the dog fight with lecturers, hence it rescinded its earlier decision to coerce the striking lectur­ers back to the classrooms via the memo from the National Universities Commission,NUC directing vice chancellors to re-open the insti­tutions,the standoff has persisted.

And given the recent registration of rival associations in the academia,and the rhetorics from Labor minister,Chris Ngige, my initial thoughts seem to be too presumptuous.

Before the most recent development,it did not surprise me that ASUU president, profes­sor Emmanuel Osodeke in a television inter­view after the court verdict ordering the lec­turers back to the classrooms expressed the sentiment below:

“It’s a catastrophe. No country thinking about the future of its children, thinking about the health of its educational system, who be­lieve in education and whose children are in those universities will try that.”

The ASUU president’s assessment of gov­ernment’s action and the court verdict is quite scathing and damning,to say the least.

Worst still,there is even another angle to the strike action which is the likelihood that if the crisis is not resolved amicably, the dis­contented lecturers may seek greener pastures abroad where their services are highly needed due to the shortage of workers in the advanced countries in Europe and North America as a fall out of COVID 19 pandemic which led to forced closure of businesses that are now re-opening,but are facing a dearth of Human Resources supply .

Assuming our leaders prefer to easily forget the brain drain that happened in the healthcare sector which saw our best doctors and nurses migrating abroad where the pay is better and standard of living is higher,we the citizens that are bearing the brunt are frightened and can not afford to erase the memory of the exodus of our medical experts abroad, and fear that we may not survive a similar drain in the edu­cation sector,therefore we urge the authorities to thread with caution, so that our education sector which was top notch in not too distance past,but now in shambles,does not tip over.

To be clear,l am not absolving ASUU of blame,but only imploring FGN to place the issues squarely on the table for ASUU to ap­preciate the futility of hoping that the old ways of funding education are sustainable,and then propose a new pathway out of the quagmire in a manner

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that ASUU members would have confidence, and even find ways to reason together with the FGN on the way forward.

After all, it was out of the ashes of ASUU strike that Education Trust Fund, TetFund- a critical source of funding support for higher education arose via creative thinking by the eggheads.

Before proceeding further,and to put the issues being contended in context,it is appro­priate that we take a cursory look at the relief that the FGN went to seek in court.

Basically,FG prayed for the order of court for ASUU to call off its seven-month-old strike and it is further asking the court to determine the extent of ASUU’s demands by the government since the 2020 Memorandum of Action (MOA) that the union signed with the government.

These include the funding for revitalisation of public universities as per the 2009 agree­ment,Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) payments,state universities proliferation and constitution of visitation panels and release of white paper on the report of the visitation panels.

Also included are the reconstitution of the government renegotiation team for renegoti­ation of 2009 agreement, which was renegoti­ated 2013/2014, due for renegotiation 2018/2019 and the migration of ASUU members from IPPIS to its own UTAS, which is currently on test at NITDA.

The intention of the FGN appears to me as if it wants an order of the court for ASUU members to resume work in their various uni­versities while the issues in dispute are being addressed by the NICN which is in consonance with the provisions of Section 18 (I) (b) of the TDA Cap T8. LFN 2004.

Now,that the FG has had its way,at least in the lower court,and as earlier stated,even if the Appeal court were to sustain the judgement and the Supreme Court also had affirmed it ,would the FGN be able to fulfill its part of the bargain which is basically about funding the education sector?

I think not,simply because the FGN is broke and can not afford to continue to bear the bur­den of high cost of university education .

As such,the earlier FGN admits that reality, the better for the distressed education sector in particular and the nation in general.

Even the blind can tell that our country is currently in financial dire straits and there­fore anaemic as its life blood-crude oil is being illegal sapped from the pipelines by oil theft cartels. And it would not be lost on any discern­ible observer that the FGN is inclined to once again,as it had been doing since 2009, literally ‘kick the can down the Road’ as Americans like to describe postponing the evil day in the manner that the removal of petrol subsidy has also been postponed to June 2023, which is a couple of days after the end of the tenure of the incumbent regime.

Why not confront the demon hobbling the education sector in Nigeria right now,once and for all by facing up to the reality that the challenge can not be wished away or be eliminated by sheer intimidation of lecturers via weaponization of their welfare with the no-work,no-pay policy, procurement of court judgement against them and the deployment of divide and rule antics via sponsoring of rival labour unions such as Congress of Nigerian University Academics CONUA,and Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics, NAMDA-both of which are newly registered trade associations in the academia?