By Tony Marinho
COVID-19 deaths approaching 1,460,000, infections 62,700,000 worldwide, Nigerian cases 67,600 and 1,180 deaths. Stay safe!
Why were 43 or more heroic rice Nigerian farmers murdered in Borno and eight in Kaduna? And the Olufon of Ifon, Adegoke Adeusi, last week? If this is not war, what is? Can no farming this year = famine next year? Is this a roadmap, a plot? Nigerian needs 500,000 strong armed forces and 500,000 police force urgently!
Nigeria has often had one strike or protest. Remember struggles of your parents when young like the 1971 student protests in which Kunle Adepeju was shot dead. ASUU strikes are not about ASUU but fighting ‘education decay’ and a protest against the inaction/negative policies of governments to punish educators and students or ‘put them in their place’ – below and beholden to politicians.
ASUU strikes were ‘survival struggles and dirges for the death of Nigeria’s tormented education system. Credit ASUU with the END.EDUCATION.NEGLECT protest since the late 80s with two proscriptions and about 15-16 strikes totalling about 4+ years of lost time. Beyond emoluments, many issues were involved to get government to provide a standard ‘Conducive Academic Learning Environment’ for staff and students and accept the University Transparency and Accountability Solution UTAS versus the government’s Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System- IPPIS. The IPPIS ignored university earning peculiarities. Has ASUU recommenced UTAS be changed to Universal TAS to replace IPPAS nationwide? Why demonise everything Nigerian? Government missed publicly embracing UTAS and offering it to Africa with conferment of CFR on the patriotic ASUU developers. Did the annual accountants meeting comment professionally on the UTAS struggle? The TSA, Treasury Single Account is also a huge obstacle for the progress of the university system.
ASUU has been maligned with ‘All they want is undeserved money’ advertised by governments. Cutting edge university progress is paralysed by a vicious cycle of ‘Delay, Decay, Near Death, ASUU Strike, Marginal Catch-up Agreement, Government Failure As-And-When-Due, Failed Agreement, More Delay … Restrike etc. This has paralysed growth of departments requiring practical material, freezer specimens or expensive equipment, training and research. How many 3D printers, drones, 2020 computers are in Nigerian universities? Arts subjects can also be costly to fund like expensive theatre and film, music and video productions, orchestras but generally are less costly than even running costs for a lab with disposable science chemicals and equipment and $250,000-$2.5m for a telescope, electron microscope, DNA and nanotech Chemistry analyser or a robotic surgery system.
Are art-inclined VCs, Ministers and Directors of Education and a NASS [hungry for vehicles] willing to allocate higher science education budgets suitable for a 2020 university system. Every university department needs a key item, e.g. an electron microscope, to attract research grants. Government, ASUU, NASU and students must unite to propel Nigeria in a ‘Great Education Leap Forward’. This settlement must not be another empty promise by government with zero result further rubbishing our education failure.
Blame our politicians not our professors! Successive governments neglected education, police, armed forces, health, road networks, and ignoring education as an investment producing human resource products. This administrative fear of education, even by educated politicians, rubbished its economic value, dragged down higher education quality and Nigeria’s international standing.
Alumni groups and private sector CSR activities ‘saved’ some universities from total decay but cannot fill the stolen/missing/lost multibillion government funding gap. In science more funds equal more equipment. Money differentiates the mundane experiment from a Mars experiment. The result is a student and lecturer brain drain, costlier than the health brain drain and medical tourism. Medical tourists return but education brain drain is often permanent. The participants, lecturers and students, often never return. Zero foreign student fees inflows! Students travelling abroad export foreign exchange while lecturers as ‘economic refugees abroad’, send a few dollars back into Nigeria. Nigeria’s government failure has truncated the ‘Nigerian Dream’ common when I was in school and at the University of Ibadan, UI, in the 1960s-70s. The Nigerian Dream died for millions in underfunded strike-torn institutions, following the fate of poorly-funded public primary and secondary schools that fail to support their needy students.
Imagine Nigeria’s saving if government supported education as the huge confidence, national pride and revenue generator through the businesses and taxes paid by graduates later and immediately from foreign students and lecturers, hosting international conferences, international research grants, travel, collateral profits from eating daily, using accommodation and IT facilities.
Strangely, governments, ignoring their responsibility to grow ‘education as a national asset’, recognise private schools and universities for their own children, but fail to build up Nigeria’s education assets by providing adequate support for Nigeria’s public primary, secondary or tertiary education.
Citizens must thank ASUU for its 30 year END.EDUCATION.NEGLECT struggle! We thank government but blame it for the needless damage to students and staff and Nigeria caused by the eight month delay. This adds to stolen years from our students and ruined lecturer job satisfaction and promotions. Government should apologise to the ‘Educationally Wasted Generation’. It is a waste because many students have lost many years of education with prolonged years in university. Government must get the Nigerian university train back on high speed track. ASUU requires a University Research and Development 2030 Strategy using technology to leapfrog into the IT/nanotech/robotic/drone/biofuel/non-fossil 2030 University world. Fortunately, many conferences will be virtual and cheaper with ZOOM.
Meanwhile NASS, cut Salaries and Perks SAPping Nigeria dry by 75 % or take Sitting Allowances.
‘Aluta continua victoria non-acerta’.
