…AND ONCE AGAIN, ASUU! (III)

At those two times, as this time, the reason for ASUU’s strike was and is about bettering the lives of our children (who have remained in our local universities) that are being short-changed by subsequent Nigerian governments by refusing to implement sovereign agreements. ASUU has returned to the trenches, and our children have returned home. […]

At those two times, as this time, the reason for ASUU’s strike was and is about bettering the lives of our children (who have remained in our local universities) that are being short-changed by subsequent Nigerian governments by refusing to implement sovereign agreements. ASUU has returned to the trenches, and our children have returned home. Sob, sob!

There is no profession more honourable than teaching. Not even politics, wherein the prefix ‘honourable’ is automatically assumed the moment one wins an election, is rigged in, or rigs himself, in. Teaching is divine. All Prophets of God were known as teachers. The disciples of Jesus (Prophet Isa alaihis salam) addressed him as ‘Teacher’. Teaching is in itself educating and rewarding (even if not in cash). And, among teachers, university lecturers are a special breed. One does not usually become a Graduate Assistant (junior teacher) in a university unless one was quite sharp up there, (not that it matters anymore in this country). Anger, anger!

Having said that, this Column believes the weapon of strike has been overused and overbeaten by ASUU, as well as by labour generally. Over time, the sharpness of strikes has been blunted by the sheer expectation of it, and by the resignation to fate most Nigerians have become accustomed to. Consider, for example, recently workers of PHCN went on strike, ‘downing their tools’ as they put it. Almost no one in the country even noticed them for they have become a subject of derision; since the ‘service’ they are supposed to produce is not being produced. So one cannot refuse to give a service one does not give ab initio. Jeer, jeer!

But now that the target has moved, ASUU needs to re-strategise. The exact same money ASUU is asking from the Government (N150 billion) is what, according to the Central Bank, Nigerian parents spend on their children studying in Ghana. Common Ghana. Not to talk of Egypt, Malaysia, Dubai, Ukraine. Or the UK, or the US. The children of those who matter are (mostly) not at Bayero University, Kano, or University of Nigeria, Nsukka. And if these privileged children are not in universities abroad, they are in our local ‘Ivy Leagues’ run by Americans and Turks. And to say Turkey is not even an English-speaking country. Yes, the target has moved. So there is need for ‘targeted sanctions’. (And ASUU used it to devastating effect two decades ago at BUK. Your Columnist was involved.)

During the dark days of the early 1990s when a dictator deliberately created fuel scarcity just to elongate his misrule (before a collective national struggle made him step aside, hopefully forever), we lecturers used to queue up for several days on end to refill our cars at the Mobil station opposite the Permanent Campus. If my memory serves me well, one such day during the height of the fuel scarcity, a colleague of ours had spent almost three days on that fuel queue, but noticed that the policemen assigned to ensure security and equity at the filling station were doing alfarma (that corruption-driven preferential treatment of customers who had only just arrived but were willing to offer a bribe).

Our lecturer colleague vehemently protested that injustice (as ASUU had made all of us teachers loud protestants, albeit with a small ‘p’). The policemen ignored him; he persisted, and they pounced on him. They beat him mercilessly, to a pulp as the English would say. They went ahead and vandalised his car. Our friend escaped death, as we would say in Nigeria, by the skin of his teeth. He ran onto the campus beaten, bloodied, brutalised.

An emergency ASUU local branch meeting was summoned. Several options were discussed. At the end, it was agreed that the police authorities would be written to to do the following: have the erring officers punished; apologise to the victim; make amends for damaging him and his car via financial reparation; and promise not to engage in that misdemeanour ever again, anywhere. When they got our letter, it was said, the police top brass were said to have laughed and scoffed at it, and so refused to do anything for several days. A reminder was sent; they refused to act.

So another emergency ASUU was convened. And then the intelligence of academics came to fore. It was there and then resolved unanimously that the sons and daughters of police officers be made to pay for the sins of their fathers. Someone asked: ‘is it fair to visit the sins of the father on the children?’ Yes, he was replied, all is fair and just in war, and it was a war between ASUU and the police. For good measure, it was also resolved to add all the children of the military (since, after all, it was the impunity of the military dictatorship that made it possible for the police to be so anti-human rights).

We all relished that assignment. I was departmental admissions officer, and knew well who and who were sons and daughters of the uniformed people. (At their discretion, some overzealous lecturers even added the children of ALL other uniformed people: immigration; customs, prisons; even vigilante!). We made a list of all of them, and informed the students what the matter was: that they were no longer our students until their fathers made amends.

And that communication was sent to the police. That their children and wards would never graduate from our university until they had made full amends to the letter of the first ASUU letter. A copy was sent to the military and other uniformed types. And it worked like magic. The military, the immigration, the prisons, all the uniformed men, descended on the police. Pressure was so high that the police top guy was said to have rushed to the university waving a white flag, signifying surrender. They made amends, and our beaten and brutalised colleague became a celebrity. ASUU had won. And those children graduated.

Another example occurred at a university Senate meeting. A certain First Daughter had been truant and was below 75% in class attendance, so was not allowed to sit for exams, as the statutes of the university stipulated. So she was asked to withdraw. (In black and white, she was expelled, respectfully). Was it politically correct to expel her? No! A debate ensued. One professor finally provided the clincher: if we made exception for this top-notch daughter, then any student who had been asked to withdraw for the same reason since the institution became a university in 1976 should be recalled, readmitted and apologised to. Equity! That First Daughter remained expelled! ASUU won again.

Those were the days. So, when the target moves, the hunter needs to re-strategise. Enough said, ASUU. My children are home, waiting. Sob, again sob!