When teachers vex
In terms of frequency of usage, there are fewer words that can compete with the word ‘vex’ in the lexicon of the half-baked artisan whose middle name is ‘Disappointment’, or the cheating mechanic whose workshop is more of a car morgue than an automobile clinic. “Oga, I beg no vex”, you would hear them say […]
In terms of frequency of usage, there are fewer words that can compete with the word ‘vex’ in the lexicon of the half-baked artisan whose middle name is ‘Disappointment’, or the cheating mechanic whose workshop is more of a car morgue than an automobile clinic.
“Oga, I beg no vex”, you would hear them say after a hypertension-inducing professional goof. And you are supposed to take that as an apology. Now is there anything more vexing than a mechanic begging you not to vex after short-changing you? At least you have a right to vex! To have that right taken away from you is the limit. The least one can do is vex when short-changed or swindled. No one, I swear, will take that right away from me. Vexing can be therapeutic in that it allows you to let off steam. That is why when a cheat begs me not to vex, I vex double.
I can therefore under-stand why the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) has rejected the ministerial equivalent of “I beg, no vex” offered by the Minister of Education, Ruqayyat Rufa’i, following the strike embarked upon by the lecturers. Over the years the Nigerian government has been good at negotiating agreements with ASUU but without any plans to implement what has been agreed upon. Where then is honour? Where is integrity?
The pattern that has emerged since the days of military rule is as follows: Every year, ASUU would go on strike and the Federal Government would call for “dialogue”. Emergency ‘men and women of goodwill’ and traditional rulers would beg ASUU not to vex and that the lecturers should give the government the benefit of the doubt to do the right thing as far as the ASUU demands are concerned. After much pressure ASUU would blink. An agreement with timelines is fashioned out. The strike is called off only to resume the very next year on account of non-implementation of earlier agreements.
As someone who has been close to university administration in the last couple of decades I can say with personal conviction that had ASUU not elected to tackle government head-on regarding the utter neglect our universities have suffered since the incursion of the military into governance, we would not have had universities worthy of the name today. When those in government want to blackmail ASUU they claim that the lecturers are fighting only for pay rise. No assertion could be more fraudulent.
ASUU’s demands are actually a list of what those in government ought to have commissioned experts to produce at great cost. The charter of demands states the problems confronting universities in the area of teaching, research, conditions of service for academics, infrastructure, funding – indeed the entire gamut. Yes, there are times when square pegs find themselves in round holes in some local chapters of ASUU but that is just a domestic problem; the larger picture concerns the nobility of ASUU’s patriotic exertions to make our universities better.
One had thought that having a president who holds a PhD and an education minister who is a professor was the kind of development required to fix the problem of ASUU’s demands once and for all. Alas, it is difficult for onlookers like us to understand how government goes to sleep after negotiating with the university teachers only to wake up with appropriate noises when ASUU embarks on the next round of strikes.
This must be why the national President of ASUU, Dr. Isa Faggae, insists that the present strike action is going to last “for as long as the Federal Government wants it.” Many of our universities don’t have a recognizable calendar anymore. In our days we knew exactly when we would graduate. The university calendar was sacrosanct. Instead of courageously addressing the problems already identified by ASUU those in government continue to play ludo with the destiny of the younger generation. The worldwide webometric ranking of universities hardly reckons with many of our universities because their gates are often more shut than open.
A former university administrator, Prof. Peter Okebukola notes that strikes affect the quality of graduates “since time lost due to strikes that should be used for delivering the curriculum is not gained after the strike. He also notes that globally, “there is the usual sneer when Nigerian universities are mentioned and a quick link with unstable university calendar due to frequent strikes. This image robs graduates of our universities of international esteem … top-rate universities that are desirous of staff and student exchange will elect to partner with universities with stable academic calendar in other parts of Africa.”
Nigerians – the elite, that is, are reputed to be spending about $10 billion annually to educate their children in foreign universities. This kind of capital flight is bound to hurt the country on the long run, but who can blame a parent who opts to send his children overseas in the present circumstances? Apart from the US and UK, other countries that continue to rake in huge sums from Nigerian parents are Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Ireland, Benin, Togo, Ghana, South Africa and Egypt.
A group that calls itself the Association of Northern Youth for the Advancement of Peace, Harmony and Development, ANYPAD, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack both the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayat Rufai and that of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has also appealed to government to expedite action on addressing the demands of the teachers.
I think our university teachers have been given the short end of the stick for too long. They have a right to vex -and time has taught them that (pardon the lingo) unless they vex well-well, the government would continue to play deaf and dumb and lame and blind.