The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government of Nigeria have, for over two months been locked in disputes over the conditions of service for lecturers. ASUU National President, Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, in this interview with Joke Kujenya, blames the federal government saying there will be no resolution until the agreements reached are implemented

All of a sudden since the dawn of the on-going strike and talks with the government; ASUU decided to abruptly draw the curtains on conferring with the go

vernment. Why this?

No, we didn't say no-more talks with the government. We never said so! In fact, I was surprised to see that in one of the dailies. We gave some advice, but at the national level; we never said no more talks. That is like saying we didn't want our demands to be met. What we said was that we are ready to go back to the negotiating table. But the government too must have some conditions to meet. What we said in totality is that there is no way this matter can be resolved without going back to the negotiating board. However, what we are saying is that having been once beaten; we are now twice shy. When we go to these meetings, what we found out is that, government treats it like a jamboree. And we are saying that when we go to this parley bench, government acts as if they have pulled out of this negotiation.

So if we go back to that same table, we want them to come with the full mandate. Because by the letter of July 10, 2009, presented by Gamaliel Onosode; they have stated that they are no more gathering for central collective bargaining that they want to utilise university bargaining. But we know that that is not possible because that is in contradiction of the principal collective bargaining.

And therefore, if they are willing to come back to the negotiating table; they must have a new mandate from their principal that they can negotiate within the framework of the collective bargaining that has been established at the centralised, national level. And we would all sign the agreement at the end of the negotiation. That is our position.

ASSU said it was prepared to release a list of the names of top government officials that have their children schooling abroad. Do you have facts on the top notch bureaucrats with their wards overseas?

Well, we don't need to mix words on that. But there have been lots on pleas from some of our members and other Nigerians that we should not fight like they (the government) representatives are fighting. Even though there are a lot of other people who are saying that 'release the list'; let us know what they are paying on their children in foreign colleges and playing lips service to educational policies here.

Not a few Nigerians think that why the government has allowed the educational sector to go somersault and why for two months a nation like Nigeria can have its universities closed completely; and people are playing politics with things, doing propaganda and militia force and are not sitting down and tackling the problems quickly so that the students can return to their normal classes in the Nigerian universities. It is because most of them are not directly affected by the strikes.

It is common knowledge that ASUU has had several meetings with the government; yet things seem deadlocked. So, what exactly is the nature of your negotiation with the government in Abuja?

We had a 2001 agreement which was due for re-negotiation in 2004. But it didn't get treated until 2006. And to do that we had to write the government and we had to circulate about 35 letters. We wrote to various arms of government agencies including the National Assembly asking that the issues be revisited. When we made the agreement in 2001, we tried create the policies for us to start a process of reviving and repositioning the Nigerian universities, particularly as it relates to the issues of revenue and infrastructure rot in the system. So, when we eventually met with government in 2006, they set up the Onosode-led Committee for us to start negotiation.

The issues at stake were what must be done, the grouse for the negotiation centred on brain-drain and reversal of infrastructural rot. So, when we presented that, we now set up what we call the objectives of the negotiation.

They were four in number. One was to reverse the infrastructural putrefy by repositioning the Nigerian university system for national development. The second was to quash the brain-drain, not only by enhancing the remuneration of academics; but also by 'delivering' them from encumbrance of a unified Civil Service Structure which is also the Civil Service Wage Structure. The third was to restore the universities through EBBA, massive and sustained financial intervention. The fourth was to restore the ailing universities of economic poverty and academic syndrome. So, in trying to pursue this, we now agreed on the issue of funding in which case, to ensure that the universities are run well. We also had to affirm the issue of remuneration and how do we ensure that those who leave Nigeria and go to other countries do not continue to do so. Many of them are senior professors and academics and you know, sometimes, the younger ones. We also wanted to ensure that those who got first-class and second-class uppers from the universities, will be able to come back to the universities to make careers for themselves.

In fact, in the last couple of years, many Nigerian graduates were trooping to the banks and oil companies and some even want to become translators in the West African coasts.

So, we were losing the best of hands that were supposed to be in the universities. We feel that we were getting older and about to retire so, we want to garnish ourselves by getting the universities working and functioning effectively. We also found out that our laboratories are empty and class and lecture rooms are over-crowded. The students' hostels are inhabitable because they have more than ten people sleeping in a room meant for two. And the libraries are not what they are supposed to be in its incisive information and knowledge storing.

We feel that in an average university, some of these basics ought to be available to students and lecturers. But all these things are not there. And the worst thing is that, because of all these, no Nigerian university is rated as one of the first 5, 000 in the world. In fact, Nigeria's best university today is rated 5, 840 in the world and the 50th in Africa. We feel that this is not good for us all and so, it is a question of getting in there and saying we are training people when what we are producing cannot compete intellectually, locally and internationally.

So, this is the nature of the issues we are negotiating and agreed on with the government. And we had an agreement by December 2008.

Can it then be taken that most of the points you just enumerated represent ASUU's grouse or what concisely are the fundamentals of your demands?

You see, when people go for collective bargaining, we have got to the charter of demands. In collective bargaining, the first thing you offer an employee is your charter of demands. Then, the employer makes what you call dismissal offer. After this, you begin to negotiate which means give-and-take. By the time you finish the negotiation and have the agreements of all the issues, what you now have is no longer called the demand by either the employee or an offer by the employer, it has become an agreement. That is the two of you have used the stance of collective bargaining which entails give-and-take to arrive at a final agreement. So, it should no longer be called the demands of ASUU. As of today, we are not demanding anything because we have had an agreement on all the necessary issues we raised. What we are only expecting now is that the government should sign the agreement, period! That's all we want now. We are not going to be bargaining on anything again as from today.

Some lecturers said that Vice-Chancellors are not committed to the ASUU cause because they are paid nearly N22million annually; that is N2million monthly besides enjoying free accommodation and meals etc which is in contrast to collegial culture of the academic terrain. Also, each of the VCs is said to be getting from the FG about N1.6 to N1.7 million each in arrears of certain dues while Deputy Vice-Chancellors still earn about N300, 000 to N400, 000 per annum hence, the taciturn stance of the Committee of VCs...

In the first instance, who introduced disparity? Who introduced the margin within the Nigerian universities? And who introduced the divide-and-rule amongst us? It is the same government! Government came out openly and declared that the Vice Chancellors are 'Political Appointees'. In actual fact, you are talking about the monetary aspect of it. Now, the struggle to become a VC has become a do-or-die thing. All that is the handiwork of government and it is not by accident that they introduce it.

It is unbelievable that you invite a VC to probably come to Abuja with all his other colleagues and give them all the pecks. Those who are running the universities, is it safe for them to be 'executive VCs'? At the peak of it, most of the VCs are almost living literarily in Abuja.

And then, you now give them this large money to match their status quo as 'Political Appointees'. And their immediate, the Deputy Vice Chancellors (DVCs), considered the best among their other equals, earn so poorly. Because for you to be called a VC means you have a proper university balance as best among equals. But now, in addition to the free food and other tips, you give them so much salaries and the next thing is, the DVCs just receive about N300, 000 or N400, 000. While the VCs even get N1.something million as other benefits; it is not ASUU that created these discrepancies. It is government! So, government should also know what to do to correct these things.

And that is why also some VCs like the University of Lagos (UNILAG), VC, have become vicious. Because he now gets so much money with a lot of skeletons to hide, he now talks as he likes. But we shall get there at the appropriate time. And that is why he has become vicious, attacking all the unions of universities because he wants to preserve his source of money and let his 'masters' see that he is a good person and that he is now in the richest class of people. But that is the least of mundane things for any VC to believe because most of them are still young. Although, the UNILAG VC is not really young, in fact, he is overdue to go. But others who are younger know that they have the chance to come back to make a career. The question is, when they come back, will they end in doing the works of a professor or end up being VCs? You can see the dislocation of moving from the big salaries and now expecting the VCs to return to N300, 000 to N400, 000; that could create a lot of problems for them.

Some of them cannot even continue to lecture in the universities because they would only move from them to become very strong politicians.

Now, what else could they have done because they don't have political parties; so when Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) wants to hold its conventions; they will just invite all the VCs and they will go? And they will be given tags to go with it; so, will you now tell me that all these are worthy of university academia? But they will do this because they have now become politicians or at best, they will be sent to ministries that will be manned by lecturers-turned-'Political Office holders'. So, it is the government that is creating the problems. And therefore, when we begin to cry that government has not appeared to understand the uniqueness of academic powers and the universities; then, Nigerians can understand what we are saying.

That's why when we needed to negotiate. And we negotiated with the basic knowledge of the needs of lecturers and professors among us. We said there was the need to create slightly a different class. But they turn around and create this quantum leap that puts the VCs salaries upward six times that of a professor.

Nigerian lecturers are said to be fleeing in their numbers to other countries for career fulfilment and indeed, beefing up the standards of education in those places, what would you say is the population of Nigerian professors and academia on their heels?

Truly, I don't have the population figure off-hand. But what we can do is to try to convince the negotiating team that there is drain in manpower. We also provided some of those statistics from the archives, but like I said, I don't have it off-hand.

However, let me make one point: Nigerians are dominant among academics in South Africa, Botswana and Iran, anyone can go and verify. All over the place many of them are also leaving for Europe and other Western countries for career fulfilment. And most times, it is not money that makes an academic want to leave his or her country. But it is the ability to have the environment to carry out their research and publish and be recognised. What made people like Wole Soyinka to be recognised? It is not because he is a millionaire. It is because he was recognised for his researches and publications as a Nobel Laureate. It is the combinations he has made in literature.

What makes the likes of Chinua Achebe and other great people to be known? It was all because of the contributions they have made towards advancing the frontiers of knowledge. When an academia is in a university and he cannot do simple research work; if you are in the sciences and you are in your research laboratory and there is no light; you will not be able to function. Some of them will require a particular temperature for them to determine how effective a particular virus can be effective, or how a particular disease can be subversive in a particular situation is. But these things are no longer available. There is no Nigerian university today that can sustain electricity in its campus for 24 hours because it costs them fortunes. The VC of the University of Ibadan (UI), said he bought two generators for N250million. But it requires about N900, 000 monthly to get diesel to run the same generators.

That is minus the cost of the over-head to run the school, yet you spend the larger chunk on generating power. And that is not to talk about getting the laboratories properly equipped. So, most of these lecturers and professors are running to other countries out of frustration because they crave to distinguish themselves in their careers through research and publications. And so they go to environments where these things are readily available. And that is why we are saying let us create the environment in which the older academics can get facilities. In USA, every professor has the facilities and his own the laboratory where the students go to do their research depending on what they need to do. But in our own case, we are ill-equipped and we can't do all we aspire to do.

What would you say are the major obstacles stalling educational growth in Nigeria?

Besides the issues of endless strikes in the educational sector; I would refer to one cartoon strip at the back of your newspaper. I think it is called 'Ripples' at the back page of The Nation the other day. It said that "ASUU strike has caused more prostitution..." And it also said "It is now moved off campus..."! Now, what we are saying is that long before now, go to any university in Nigeria, during the school periods, most of our female students are not in school. You won't even see them around when schools are in full sessions. Ask many lecturers, they will corroborate this fact. But when it is exam period, they would all rush back and the classes would swell up. And many times lecturers find it difficult to know how many students are exactly in a particular class. But that wouldn't be the case when he or she is teaching. It is only when he or she is about to conduct the examinations that the problem would confront him. And after he or she has prepared his or her exam papers that it will be discovered that they are in short supply because most of those that had been out there, in their bid to try 'to make ends meet' are now back in full.

Now, some of them they chose to be 'out there' because the hostels they are living in are small for many of them that share a tiny room with a little space for beddings. So, they now chose to look for alternative apartments. Yet, some go somewhere else to sleep and when it is their turn to sleep in the hostels, they come back. That's for those that take routine turns. But many of our parents are not caring enough to go back to the hostels and find out where exactly their children are living. So, when they now have them at home because the universities' doors are bolted and locked; and same for the hostels, and then, they continue with that lifestyles which they were running while on campus. And that's when you now complain that 'prostitution off campus has increased'. No, it has not increased, it has only come to the open for all to see the rot that go on in our campuses.

Now, let us talk about the policies that compound our problems in the Nigerian universities generally.

It is because government has not given education in Nigeria a priority. Government has not considered the development of the human capital as its priority. If they have, for instance, sometimes ago, when the Senate provided huge money for the expansion of the roads in the FCT; if this kind of money has been committed to the enhancement of health and education, we won't be where we are today. I say that to let you see how we regard the issues of education and health. Rather, they are more concerned about the comfort of the richer class who have limousines and do not want to be caught in go-slows. So, the roads must be 20 lanes so that they can drive comfortably with their convoy.

Again, in the educational sector, we have had policy somersaults. Somebody comes in and wants a reform; he comes in overnight and just starts a reform. And what does he do with the reform? He simply says he wants to do this and do that; and tells everyone he has a roadmap that will go this and that way. But on the long run, he is only looking for how to get money so he can go to New York and Washington and other places canvassing a new road map. And another one comes in and pretends, 'I have a job to do here in six months and complete the task.'

And he too says he wants to change the educational policy from private to all the public universities which can take several years to formulate and he wants to do it without any consultation; or measures to dissect the problems he met on ground like why the federal and probably, community schools are not producing the best results. These are all policy somersaults!

Nigeria has no continuity of policies! Governments only get up, do this, do that and they think that is all governance entails. And that is one of the problems we have in the educational sector. Their second problem is lack of proper funding. When you talk about funding, you will discover that there are many other competing needs like putting 'money aside for extra judicious spending like the N420billion given to troubled banks as bailout. But we don't have that kind of money to boost our educational sector.

So, the point is that, even as President Umar Yar'Adua said that education is one of his 7-Points Agenda and gives the sector only 7 per cent of the budget; that is, on N3.2trillion of the total 2009 national budget, institutions with N224billion, around 7.something per cent; if you put that on the overall budget, you will see that government is trying to give the impression that the Joint Venture Cash Corps (JVCC) is not a part of the national budget.

The Nation On Sunday, August 30, 2009