THE Academic Staff Union of Universities has once again taken labour activism to absurd lengths by embarking on a nationwide solidarity strike over a purely local issue. In an age when higher institutions in progressive countries are leading agents of research and development, ASUU has succeeded in turning our citadels of learning into centres of puerile unionism. This has to stop.
The grouse of ASUU this time is the reappointment of Prof. Barineme Fakae as the Vice-Chancellor of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology by the Visitor to the university, Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State. According to the union, Amaechi did not follow due process in the reappointment. He was said to have assured the local chapter of the union that he would not reappoint Fakae, but later reneged on his promise. Too bad.
But then, why should that warrant a nationwide strike? The dons, in solidarity with the local chapter of the union in RSUST, did not only bring activities in the universities across the country to a standstill in a warning strike on August 30, 2012, they also threatened to embark on a protracted battle if the matter was not resolved in their favour. At the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, ASUU members reportedly boycotted the university's 69th inaugural lecture and other activities. The Lagos State University even had to postpone all examinations due to the strike. The local chapter of the union in RSUST had started its own action early August and it is still on strike.
Our concern is not about the propriety or otherwise of the VC's reappointment, but the frequent disruptions to academic programmes in our universities for both genuine and flimsy reasons. Between December last year and February this year, ASUU members were on strike to force the government to accede to their sundry demands. State-owned universities in the South-East lost the entire 2009/2010 academic session to strikes because the state governments could not pay the salary scale the lecturers demanded. Last year, the union went to the ridiculous extent of threatening strike over the reappointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the Minister of Finance while also threatening a solidarity strike with the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress to force some state governments to pay N18, 000 per month as minimum wage. Over the years, it has been one strike after another. To say the least, such frequent recourse to the strike weapon is ignoble, irresponsible and anachronistic.
The union has not demonstrated serious commitment to driving up academic standards. Indeed, these strikes have contributed largely to the fall in the standard of education in Nigeria. These days, affluent parents prefer to send their children to universities abroad. Those who cannot sponsor their wards to Europe or America send them to some other African countries or the nation's private universities where, at least, there will not be any disruption to academic programmes.
In the world's universities ranking, Nigerian universities are nowhere close to the first 1,000. A report by Webometrics, a world tertiary education ranking organisation, in January this year, indicated that only three universities in Nigeria made the list of the first 100 best universities in Africa. In the world, our best university ranked 1,639th. Compared to the previous rankings, there was a significant drop in the standard of our education as eight institutions made the list of the first 100 best in Africa in the 2011 report.
This is not surprising, as most of our universities lack the basic infrastructure necessary for academic excellence. Libraries are stocked with antiquated books; laboratories do not have the necessary equipment; teaching and research have given way to handouts. Some lecturers engage in other business even as some demand money and sex from female students to be able to pass their exams. These students come out to become big burdens on employers who have to spend much time and resources to retrain them.
Rather than seek ways of redressing these abnormalities, our dons prefer to compete with bodies such as the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers and tanker drivers in frequently embarking on frivolous strikes. The issue at stake here concerns a state university, and if that university chapter of ASUU feels strongly about a particular issue, it should declare an industrial action without dragging the entire university system in the country into the fray. It is perhaps only in Nigeria that professors prefer the trenches of labour unionism to the pursuit of academic excellence.
In any case, strike should be a last option in the quest by lecturers to press home their demands. There are many avenues open to them to get what they want. They should first engage the authorities in a series of dialogue. If that fails, they could go to court to seek redress.
There must be a renewal of what universities stand for. It is said that universities have four objectives: instruction in skills, promotion of the general powers of the mind, advancement of learning, and transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship. Universities are also supposed to be beacons of the highest standards expected of any society. But when dons begin to exhibit a mob mentality that is incongruent with their learning and calling, when they fail to rise above the students they are expected to train, and when citizens cannot see any difference in behaviour between market women associations and an academic staff union, then nobody will want to sponsor research programmes in such higher institutions.
ASUU has lost its bearings. It should retrace its steps in order to salvage what is remaining of its reputation and our higher institutions.
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