As a product of the university community, Dr. Egwu clearly understands the key issues which, in the past, had caused a lot of friction between academic staff and government, resulting in interminable but avoidable strikes. Such strikes had always disrupted the academic calendar of the universities, to the extent that students spend extra years to complete their studies.

But recent events in the education sector have shown that the minister might be loosing grip on the sector in view of the avalanche of strike actions embarked upon by different unions in the sector. In a chat with Sunday Trust, Dr. Abu Mallam, who also doubles as the chairman of the University of Abuja chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities  opin that “the talk that the minister was a member of the academic community cannot hold water. The man is more of a politician that an academic. Besides, don’t fo    rget that he was a former governor and an aspirant for the chairmanship position of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP

Shortly after settling down in office, the minister organised a retreat for all stakeholders in the sector, where he unfolded his roadmap for the educational development of the country.

Contained in the roadmap are proposals aimed at arresting the decline in the sector, given the deep rot in the system over the years.

In this regard, he identified six old-generation universities across the six geo-political zones and provided them with special grants to enable them upgrade their facilities so that they can compete with the best institutions in the world. The minister also allocated to the universities special funds for research activities.

But if the gathering storm in the educational sector, especially with the current industrial action embarked upon by the combined union of the university lecturers, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, and the gathering cloud of strikes by lecturers in the nation‘s polytechnics and colleges of education is anything to go by, then it suggests that the minister of education is indeed in for a hard time.

But while lashing out at the striking workers, the minister recently accused the unions of sabotage. Reacting to the SSANU’s strike at a press conference, the minister said all issues raised by the union had been addressed by the Federal Government.

“Consequent upon a meeting on Thursday, 12th March 2009, which was one of those to resolve the contentious issues with the Union, I informed them that government had put in place a technical committee to harmonise the reports and thereafter forward same to Mr President for his consideration and approval and further directives.

“I therefore consider this strike a deliberate attempt on the part of SSANU to blackmail government,” he said.

While citing the cardinal reasons that prompted the strike action, National President of SSANU argued that education will be priced out of the reach of the children of the poor, which we do not want. It means the ministers will continue to produce ministers, the governors will continue to produce governors and the peasants, the labourers, the gardeners will produce gardeners SSANU Comrade Promise Adewusi who read the resolutions of his association’s emergency meeting, said that it was worrisome that while minimum wage still stood at N5,000, the government was moving to impose on the same parents a whopping N180,000 fee per child.

According to Comrade Adewusi, “Even at the paltry N20,000 or N25,000 they pay in the federal universities, most parents can still not conveniently and comfortably do this. If this is allowed to happen, what that means is that they will not go to school.”

The SSANU president further said; “We want a fair playing field because we have been blackmailed in most times that, look, if you want an enhanced condition of service, accept introduction of school fees in our universities. We have always maintained this solidarity with our students because even our children are in these universities. We cannot afford to send our own children out of the country, like other government public functionaries who hardly have any of their children in Nigerian universities.”

In this wise, Comrade Adewusi announced that the association, having painstakingly studied the consequences of the government’s plan, directed all of its members to resume its suspended strike with effect from July 20, 2009 even as it also rejected the proposed salary increase for its members, but insisted on the full implementation of the product of its collective bargaining with Federal Government.

According to Comrade Adewusi,  “What this means is that the universities have to be shut down, because our members are the ones maintaining the services that keep the students in comfort. Now we cannot guarantee this comfort.

I think the best advice in this circumstance is for parents to reach out to their wards and their children because we cannot guarantee that there will be facilities that will continue to sustain them in classes and hostels. For avoidance of any untoward thing, even our members in the clinics, the doctors and nurses, we are withdrawing them until government sees reason. We are withdrawing all our personnel from the works and services, electricity, water.”

Thus in view of the prevailing spate of industrial crisis by various interest groups in the sector, many have wondered whether the minister still has a firm grip on the state of affairs in the sector.