The war ASUU should be fighting: victimization of students

However, to ensure diversity in this discussion, instead of writing my opinion and then later publish the reactions of readers, I took the opposite approach and engaged the stakeholders (students, parents, lecturers, etc.) of our university system directly in the discussion.  We had the conversation on Facebook and a few online forums.The same way, we’ll […]

However, to ensure diversity in this discussion, instead of writing my opinion and then later publish the reactions of readers, I took the opposite approach and engaged the stakeholders (students, parents, lecturers, etc.) of our university system directly in the discussion.  We had the conversation on Facebook and a few online forums.
The same way, we’ll later discuss staff training i.e. victimization of lecturers themselves.  For example, why does ASUU choose to watch helplessly when the management of our universities denies deserving lecturers the right to go for further studies?  Later we shall also discuss why ASUU had chosen not to fight brazen lies told by universities during accreditation visits by NUC.  ASUU usually stands by while the management borrows files from lecturers who are not the staff of the university in a desperate attempt to get their programmes accredited; yet they wouldn’t recruit the needed manpower or allow the ones they have opportunities for higher qualifications, even though TETFUND has provided for such purposes.
However, for this week, we focused on student victimization and following is the thread of discussion from stakeholders. 
Muktar Garba Maigamo: If ASUU should do that then it would be fighting itself.  I have so many cases in point which I had witnessed while an undergraduate. You may recall that of recent, ABU had to sack one lecturer who had been trying to sleep with a married woman.  And not long ago, we had a disgusting incident in your home state where a lecturer from ABU lured or rather attempted to have an affair with a boy.  But for reason best known to the school authorities the lecturer is now been reinstated. Therefore,  it would be a hectic job for ASUU to get rid of its bad eggs.
Anonymous: (Please sir, do not mention my name in print) ASUU is the main player in victimization of students. 1. This strike itself is a victimization of students because the current strike affects only the poor students, who are staying at home doing nothing. ASUU should look for a way to punish only the government not students. 2. The problems of collecting money for marks or demanding sex from female students remain. 3. Also they don’t discharge their duties appropriately which results in producing half-baked graduates. 4. Wickedness which results in failing students unjustly. One lecturer in ABU lecturer was proud of saying “less than twenty percent of my students pass my course”. I think if you produce failure you are also a failure and must be sacked.
Ibraheem Dooba:  Thanks Muktar Garba Maigamo, I read about the ABU lecturer, but didn’t know about the one from Niger State.
Muktar Garba Maigamo: @Prof., the case happened last year. The incident happened in one of the hotels in Niger State as reported in the Daily Trust newspaper. The lecturer taught me a postgraduate course.
Ibrahim Abdullahi Haruna:  Well, I think, ASUU strike is justifiable considering what obtains in our university system, especially in areas of sciences which require sound and state of the art technology. All our federal universities believe me or not, are suffering from poor laboratories, libraries, lecture halls and students accommodation. All those areas I mentioned above need total overhaul. Since strike is the only language federal government understands, I implore ASUU to fight to the finish. On the ASUU themselves, sometimes they are not helping matters. Some of their unscrupulous members engage in immoral act and victimization of innocent students in our universities. For instance, in university of Maiduguri, where I did my undergraduate studies, some ASUU members are victimizing students. ASUU as a union should put an end to this. Ibrahim Abdullahi Haruna, Corps member, serving in Jos.
Muktar Garba Maigamo:  The other incident I witnessed was between my lecturer  and my female friend.   The girl was newly admitted and the lecturer kept harassing her until she succumbed. I told her to tell her parents so that they could take action. Whenever he entered the class, he made sure that he made her uncomfortable by directing every question at her. This hapless girl would cry and cry but he continued.
Ibraheem Dooba:  @Muktar , why did you ask her to report the matter to her parents? Was there no mechanism in the university to correct such aberrant behaviour? The ASUU president said in an interview that ASUU has an ethics committee. @Ibrahim Abdullahi Haruna, what about humanities i.e. English, etc. which demand very little of the so-called state-of-the-art facilities, are students there doing better than those in the sciences and engineering?
Muktar Garba Maigamo:  @Prof., her father was then a non-academic staff of the university and I felt he could directly do something since he was part of the management.
Baba Shehu Umar, lecturer, UNIMAID:  We can do that, but let’s put our house in order.  Without funding, we cannot develop our home and check all those things.
Ibrahim Abdul-Azeez, DVM, PhD, UNIMAID:   I wish we could talk on phone on this matter for it is dear to my heart. Give me a free period of yours and I will call. Anyway, let me begin by registering my utter disappointment with some lecturers who happen to be members of ASUU as well. I am a lecturer myself but I feel the imperative and a need for a new wave. I strongly feel that every soul that has had some level of university education in Nigeria knows first-hand the calcified organismic rot in the so-called ivory towers. However, I feel we should begin turning things around by shaping our destinies by our hands to the best of our abilities.
Hamza Yarima: I appeal to ASUU to collectively consider the plight of innocent students and their helpless parents and return to work.
Auwal Dankano: I’m an ardent  supporter of the current ASSU strike, but am disappointed by the way our lecturers relate with  their students.