According to a wise saying, the greatest need of every human being is the need for appreciation. It is just normal with all human beings to be elated whenever they are appreciated. Yours sincerely had the same feeling few days ago.
Honestly, even before I went to university, I have this urge to write on things I feel strongly about, but the lazy person I am, I realise writing may not be my cup of tea after all. However, sometimes, I couldn’t resist the urge to put my thought into writing on some of the things I feel strongly about. Some I sent to media houses for publication and recently, with the advent of social media, I post my thought in some online groups I belong to.
I never thought my writings makes sense and are being appreciated until recently when a senior colleague commended me and ask me to write about my trip to India which I am yet to oblige. Another good friend, a senior colleague also and an academician, queried me some few days back, asking why I decided to keep my pen away while ASUU is on strike. I viewed what he said as complement and also a call on me to say something on the ongoing ASUU strike and that is what I set to do here.
Well, in early part of my university days, I was a diehard supporter of ASUU in their struggle to better our education system. Notwithstanding the eight month we spent at home courtesy of ASUU strike, my faith in them remained unshakable. I once told a friend that I won’t mind spending two years at home if at the end of the day the strike could lead to a better University system. It was my strong opinion that the essence of coming to University is not only to have a paper qualification but a qualitative paper qualification which the can be justified at any time by the grandaunts. I use to say that student and parent must support ASUU and view the stay at home as part of the sacrifice the student have to make in the struggle.
To say our Universities are in decay is to say the least. The problems are to many, ranging from infrastructural decay, underfunding, overcrowded classes and hostels as well as some lazy, unfit and ungodly lecturers. That is why many of us hold paper qualification which in all honesty we cannot defend. That was why I identified with ASUU struggle and always argue that it was we the students that ought to go on strike not the lecturers.
A situation where university students sleep in mosque certainly is very alarming and very unfortunate. But characteristics of Nigerians, the students seem to have resigned to fate and have accepted that as a norm. Lecturers don’t undertake any research because (for the honest and hard working among them) the equipments for that are not there, therefore they cannot make any discovery in the field of knowledge. Simple access to internet all the time is rare among our lecturers.
I think that was why to me, ASUU struggle was commendable since it was aimed at making the system a better one. Unfortunately, there seems to be a loss of confidence and lack of support to ASUU in its struggle. Rightly or wrongly, majority of students and parent view ASUU strike mainly as struggle by the lecturers to earn more pay nothing more. Nobody seems to be talking about the other demand of ASUU such as increase funding of education up 26%, FG assistance to state universities, illegal dissolution of governing council etc which are of less direct economic benefit to the lecturers but the system.
To me, three factors might have contributed to reaffirm the above belief that that ASUU strike is not about making the system better but for its members economic benefit alone.
One, the government have been very effective in its use of media propagating the idea that ASUU strike was all about salary increase. This is the belief of majority of Nigerians and I think ASUU knowingly or unknowingly, helped in promoting this belief. As teachers one expects them to know the power of media in shaping the way people thinks, but they have been complacent without enlighten the general public about their cause. Even in class, ASUU members seem to have taken the feelings of the students for granted. They hardly say anything to the students about their pact with government. Sometimes I even wonder if really apart from the ASUU officials, the rest of ASUU members knew the content of any agreement sign with the government. Also comment by ASUU like legislators are earning N24 Million a month (which I don’t think is correct) helps to affirm the people’s belief that the strike is all about money kawai.
Two, there is this debasement of our value system which has made the society to attached monetary motive to any act, has contributed also. Today our society have lost morals so much so that whatever good one does or says, it is never taken to have been said or done for the benefit of the society. So whenever ASUU goes on strike, the general thinking is that is because of money shikenan.
Three, ASUU lackadaisical attitude towards toward the actions and or inactions of its members reaffirm the belief among people that ASUU’s struggle was not at all about rescuing our university system from collapse. Here, let me use personal experience to buttress my point.
I had the privilege of serving as member of Students Representative Assembly (SRA) during my university days. There was this student who was expelled from the school for exam malpractice and he wrote a petition to the House. According to him there was a lecturer who wanted to have an affair with a female student and the lady gave him a condition that he can only agree if he allowed someone to write his course’s examination for her which he agreed. Somewhere along the line, the lecturer (whom I know personally) sensed that the lady was trying to be smarter, so he exposed the examination writer on the examination day. After investigation the two students were expelled from the school while the lecturer was never sanctioned. At that time I opposed those who wanted the Union to get involved in the case my reason being he had committed the offence. Later I had the opportunity of taking up the issue with the then Secretary of ASUU local branch. He told me that he was aware of the case, but went further to say that “on principle, ASUU will not go against its member…” but he had advise the boy to go to court and he promised to assist him with up to one hundred and fifty thousand Naira to pursue the case. That encounter has really changed my perception about ASUU totally. I have come to realise that all along I have been wrong in thinking that ASUU was for championing the cause of education not that of its members. I felt betrayed that I was really pool to have always argued in support of ASUU during the eight months old strike during which we stayed at home. I came to realise that all the rhetoric by ASUU that all what it was doing was to salvage the system was after all a ruse.
In Bayero University, Kano, I know of a prominent ASUU member who had his education up to PHd in mathematics, but now teaches in Faculty of Information Technology. Please forgive my ignorance, is just that I can’t see how such person can fit into the field of computer science. I may be wrong any way, but I know it will sound awkward if today I am told that a lecturer in Islamic Studies have now changed to faculty of law just because BUK offers Common and Islamic Law. I don’t even think it is possible but I don’t know I might be wrong. Perhaps it is acceptable in University system and is a way to make our education rich. That is why it is being done without any rebuff from ASUU.
And I also know someone who did his MSc. and he told me that there was one lecturer who was to take them a course each in first and second semester respectively, but by Allah he never taught them even for once and he graded them for the two courses. Now with things like this happening in our universities, and ASUU’s acquiescence how do you think people will believe ASUU is fighting the cause of education? They say action speaks lauder than voice.
Many lecturers teach in more than two or three universities at the same time and some of them are even active members of ASUU. They hardly teach student half of what they ought to teach because of greediness and ASUU is doing nothing about it. They give too much of their time to private practice of their profession while at the same time being paid from the public fund for supposed teaching that they have relegated. They are busy abusing politician for illegal accumulation of wealth, forgetting that whoever takesa salary for a teaching he has not rendered, that salary is also haram. So mene banbacinsu da wadanda suke zagi kullum a gaban dalidansu?
When the recent case of sexual harassment against a professor was in the news, I can’t remember seeing any condemnation of his act from ASUU. Neither does it commend the Police and Judiciary for apprehending and punishing the culprit, nor ABU council for sacking him.
So ASUU needs to sit up and do the right thing if it needs the support of the people. Let ASUU be seeing as champion of a good University system even if it means going against its member. You can’t earn the confidence of the populace if you are morally bankrupt. And I am sorry to say many ASUU members are misfits.
By Sunusi Musa