There certainly are alternatives to endless, pointless strikes

On Wednesday, on Facebook, I described the ASUU’s over two-decade strategy of strike after strike, with only students as victims, as “the definition of madness”. This was an expression of my frustration, but I also wanted a substantive and sensible conversation on the way forward for Nigerian universities. However, substantial dialogue turned out to be […]

On Wednesday, on Facebook, I described the ASUU’s over two-decade strategy of strike after strike, with only students as victims, as “the definition of madness”. This was an expression of my frustration, but I also wanted a substantive and sensible conversation on the way forward for Nigerian universities.

However, substantial dialogue turned out to be too much to ask from university lecturers. Some ASUU members and apologists chose to shoot the messenger, claiming that I called them “mentally deranged”, and that I had insulted my own teachers. My teachers know that I respect them second only to my parents and will not be deceived by such falsehoods. The trolls hoped to silence me with these ad hominem attacks, but when challenged to focus on the substance, they all fell silent.

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To those ASUU members who have been taken in by these attacks, I make two points. First, “the definition of madness” refers to the proverb attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Second, “madness” does not only mean “mental illness”; I was using its more common meaning, referring to behaviours that are unreasonable or irrational.

If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then no one is more insane than the ASUU. In the last 23 years alone, ASUU held 16 strikes for a cumulative period of 51 months; on average, its members are on strike 18 per cent of the time. This is despite most ministers of education since 1999 being ASUU members, as were both Presidents Yar’Adua and Jonathan. If ASUU couldn’t convince their own comrades that their demands were reasonable, how could they hope to convince the current president, who did not attend the university, and whose minister of education trained as an accountant?

My first experience of ASUU’s hit was in the very first semester of my very first year of undergraduate studies, when ASUU forcefully sent us packing for three long months. The fact that we had already started our end of semester exams was irrelevant. ASUU stormed the examination halls in the faculty of science, stopped exams that were underway, snatched the booklets from students and drove them out. They did not give any regard to these students who had read on scorching hot days and stayed up at night with candles and mosquitos. How could it have harmed ASUU’s cause to allow these students just an hour to finish up this one paper into which they had put so much? No wonder that students and their parents hate ASUU with every fibre of their being.

But strikes hurt future students too. Since academic calendars have been disrupted, they have to wait until long after finishing secondary school before they can get into the university. In fact, there were occasions in which the whole academic calendar was cancelled. That is essentially cancelling one year from Nigeria’s progress in a fast-moving world. Those who can afford it go to foreign universities and graduate over a year ahead of their Nigerian peers; some don’t come back.

Most importantly, these endless strikes, with all the hurt they bring, haven’t worked beyond some marginal gains. In industrial relations, strikes should be a last resort to force employers to act, but Nigerian politicians couldn’t care less. ASUU strikes have become so frequent that they have become normalised. The news is not when ASUU goes on three strikes in two years; it is when it lasts a long period without a strike. Furthermore, because our politicians send their children to foreign universities, there are no frustrated teenagers at home to constantly remind them that universities are on strike. Sending poor students home to put pressure on politicians who have no skin in the game is like shutting down a man’s shop to compel his neighbour to repay their debt.

All ASUU strikes since 2009 have been on the implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in that year. This itself demonstrates ASUU’s naivety. Why would you enter into an unenforceable agreement with people who have proved time and time again that they can’t be trusted, who every time there was a strike, they would make false assurances and offer some money. ASUU would then acquiesce, only for the process to start again months later. If they want change, they need a legally binding agreement or even a federal law setting aside funds directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This would have given ASUU a right to enforce its agreement in a court of law and would have saved us further strikes.

But ASUU activists keep insisting that there is no alternative to strike. Such thinking simply betrays intellectual impoverishment and lack of creativity. When some members sarcastically challenged me to propose an option, I took the opportunity to suggest something I had proposed before: strategic peaceful protest. By this, lecturers will teach their classes and then invite their students to join them in the evenings or the weekends for protests. I am sure hundreds of thousands of students would be keen to join their teachers and mentors in their demand for better pay and better working conditions. In fact, many parents, professionals, non-university students and residents will join in solidarity. Millions up and down the country will protest every weekend. This will not hurt innocent students as strikes do but will hugely unsettle politicians and force them to resolve the issues within weeks. Protest – not strike – is the only language this crop of rulers understands.

But my interlocutors dismissed this concept out of hand, in favour of a strategy that has failed for decades. They said it is impossible for a protest to be peaceful in Nigeria because our ruling politicians will unleash thugs on the protestors. While this is often the case, it is not always. In 2012, there was a successful fuel subsidy protest featuring our current president and the current governor of Kaduna State. The #BringBackOurGirls protests ran for years without violence. How did these ones manage to remain peaceful? Because they were all well-organised. Is ASUU saying it has no capacity to organise?

To dismiss protest as unviable just because it is so unsettling to politicians that they would try to scuttle is akin to surrendering to an inferior army just because they shout louder. If we give up our right to protest because politicians may use thugs to disrupt it, should we also stop elections because politicians deploy thugs? The right to vote and the right to protest enjoy coordinated constitutional status. The appropriate thing is for us to defy the odds and assert our right, put pressure on politicians to stop violating us and take steps to make it impossible to infiltrate protests. But ASUU wants to have it cheap. They think chaining classrooms and sleeping will force heartless politicians to bulge.

Even if protest is unviable, the ASUU’s current strategy needs replacing. One way to do this is for the association to extensively consult with students and parents as well as workers’ unions across the globe. If ASUU starts to believe that there can be a better alternative, they will find it. But if they continue to hold on to their blinkered devotion to strikes, they will simply bring their profession into further disrepute and continue to hold Nigeria back.