I have tried all along to refrain from reacting to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), either publicly or in private. This is because I have tremendous respect for university lecturers, and like Boxer in the Animal Farm, I always consider their demands as just and reasonable, no matter how seemingly untenable and egocentrically-construed. But the dispassionate and uncompromising stand of the government should be of great concern to any well-meaning citizen of this country. The resultant debilitating effects of past strikes on the system are those we are contending with presently in all spheres of our national life.Arguably, lecturers have every right to demand for funding. There is no way anybody can function effectively in an environment that is lacking in basic essentials for proper functioning. The situation of our lecturers can be likened to a fish forced to be living on dry land. They have been disabled professionally. Therefore, they have every right to fight with the last breath in them, and also deserve our support. These, we had generously given in the past, which had unfortunately yielded little or no result. There is no way one would not be frustrated, and I want to believe that the current crisis is one of the resultant effects of such frustration.We should really commend ASUU members for their resilience. We need a body like ASUU, where government appears to be insensitive and unconcerned, abdicating its responsibilities irresponsibly. It is not only our tertiary institutions that have been consciously neglected, but the educational system as a whole. Besides, all aspect of Nigeria's economy has been completely destroyed by successive governments - health, transport, energy, aviation and until relatively recently, telecommunications.But ASUU needs to do more. First of all, it needs to realise that the university is part of a whole, and does not exist in isolation. Whatever steps taken while agitating for a cause must take into cognisance other related and directly connected parts. Comparatively, the commendable efforts of the ASUU years back had made the university system a little bit better than the primary and secondary schools system. ASUU or any other union in our universities agitating for improved university funding should not pretend not to know that the whole education system has collapsed in Nigeria. University will not source for inputs from space, it selects its intakes from the already deteriorating secondary education and the latter derives its own from the totally decadent primary education system. Therefore, even if ASUU and NASU succeeds this time, the whole system will collapse again, because it will amount to building something on nothing, which invariably will not stand.To convince us that ASUU is being patriotic and its demands are altruistic and not ego driven, its demands for now should not include improvement, upward adjustment or whatever name is given to salary increase. We are not oblivious of the fact that once government accedes to an increase in the salary of its members, ASUU will immediately call off its strike and patiently wait for arrears to be paid. This would now ignite a chain of reactions from non-academic unions, leading to another round of paralysing strikes. Government, so blackmailed, would cave in and the vicious cycle continues.Through incessant strikes, ASUU has succeeded in securing a salary structure that makes those working in tertiary institutions disproportionately earn well above others. A driver earns far more than a principal of a secondary school and even, a level 08 officer (even not an academic staff) earns more than a level 16 officer in the Civil Service. Such indefensible and inexplicable disproportionality is a recipe for crisis, but for the docility of the Civil Service. We all know the reasons for inactivity of the Civil Service along that line, but that will be a topic for another day. In a simple expression, ASUU, in whatever guise should not contemplate including upward review of salary, either directly or indirectly in its demand and negotiation. But, if ASUU, as usual, includes or insists on this, government should, for the sake of industrial harmony, ignore this completely. Our lawmakers, at both national and state levels should assist government appropriately.Another issue ASUU should take a look at dispassionately is the retirement age. This again is self-serving. Although we need the experience of these egg-heads, the situation in the country makes upward review of retirement age less compelling and practicable now. Also, the current arrangement, where some of them are being engaged on contract basis or other forms of arrangement after retirement is enough. Services of all of them will not be required for a lifetime. Afterall, those professors must have replicated themselves; they should allow those ones to contribute their quota too. Then, if they have more to offer, we have many private universities where they can be engaged. ASUU should live, and let others live. ASUU should realise that other unions will not fold arms, while they are Metuselahising their own years in service. What will be the fate of teeming employable unemployed youths roaming the streets'The Federal Government should remain resolute and the National Assembly should give total support in acceding to those demands that will improve the rating of our universities in global educational market and not those that will massage the ego of individuals, making them superbeings among already traumatised and economically-battered masses.At this juncture, it is apposite to admonish the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to be more circumspect, analytic and rational in declaring its support to any of its affiliates while on strike. Many well-meaning people commended the NLC for the role played in calling off the recent strike embarked on by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) workers. Similar approach should be replicated on the current ASUU strike, and it may even bring appropriate check on incessant strikes as a means of securing approval for its demands from government. Once again, I am not saying and not supposed to be understood by saying that ASUU strikes are condemnable, but the issues of salary and retirement age are like a bile that should not be allowed to go with the meat.What is expected of ASUU now is a conscious revision of its approach and style. In conjunction with the NLC, it may mobilise the stakeholders and lobby the National Assembly. If that fails to stir our stone-hearted rulers to action, both (NLC and ASUU) may now mobilise all other unions and the entire nation into 'total, comprehensive and indefinite strike,' and such strike will not be seen as a ploy by the people that ASUU members are using the whole country sentimentally to feather their own nests.Meanwhile, let ASUU call off its current strike, revise the list of its requests to accommodate all other sectors of our education system, especially primary and secondary schools; encourage other tertiary institutions to follow suit, and let our agitation on revamping education become more collective and coordinated, thus making our call louder, strident and penetrating.Ayoola wrote in from Ogbomoso, Oyo State.
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