“Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain.”
—www.cfod.com.au
By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Last weekend, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) finally succumbed to pressure to end its industrial action embarked on February 14, this year.
The union had been in a prolonged face-off with the Federal Government over some sundry issues bothering on funding and revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, the proliferation of universities, visitation panel/release of white paper, 2009 agreement and University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), among others.
With the decision by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the union to end the eight-month industrial action, the embattled union’s President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, can now possibly heave a sigh of relief, having been physically and mentally tormented by the seeming lackluster attitude of the government’s negotiating team while the strike lasted.
Surely, being at the helm of affairs of a recalcitrant union such as ASUU at a trying time like this must have been a tough and exacting task indeed for Osodeke.
Now, the question is not about who is right, but who is left. For many years to come, the nation’s ivory tower will continue to count its losses both in terms of human casualties and the brain drain syndrome that has always been an unintended consequence of the perennial ASUU strikes.
For this latest episode, not a few members of the union have been dispatched to the great world beyond as a result of the financial stress and starvation occasioned by the no-work, no-pay policy of the Federal Government.
For instance, the Chairman, ASUU, UNICAL Chapter, Dr John Edor, was recently quoted during a live radio programme in Abuja as blaming the death of six professors and four PhD holders in the institution on the starvation policy of the government, saying “one can simply infer that apart from God that gives and takes life, when He would wish, the starvation policy of the Federal Government against ASUU members for embarking on a strike that was provoked by government’s failure to implement the agreement reached with our union is connected to their death.”
Some unconfirmed sources within the universities have even allegedly put the casualties between 15 and 21. Chilling and unsettling.
Though there are no official statistics yet to determine the exact number of competent hands that have found their way out of the country in search of greener pastures, a report is rife that the strength of teaching staff in public universities has been severely depleted.
The irascible and supercilious president of the union, Osodeke, rued the sad development while recently fielding questions from journalists at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife: “We don’t have certain statistics, but a large number of our members have moved out of the country not because they hate this country, but because of the way they are being treated. There is no country in the world where their academics will go on strike and you think the best weapon is to size their salary.”
One major problem with some of these union leaders is their lack of capacity to know of their own lack of capacity to determine the current wave of events. Ordinarily, as intellectuals, they are supposed to know better, but most often than not they tend to confuse the symptom of the decay in the university system for its cure. Under the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari alone, ASUU has gone on strike for not less than a cumulative period of 15 months approximating two academic sessions, resulting in avoidable loss of academic years, brain drain, and consequential falling quality of graduates being churned out.
Yet, Osodeke, in his moment of embattled lucidity, made an outlandish remark, saying that ASUU deserved to be paid the accumulated salaries owned its members for the period they did not work; otherwise, the students would lose a session. That comment was gross, simplistic, and insensitive.
Although President Buhari has not made a categorical statement as to whether or not he is ready to rescind the decision on the no work, no pay policy, it is obvious that ASUU cannot force the Federal Government to change its mind if it so wishes to enforce the rule.
If the union leaders truly understand how government works, they will probably know that they are not likely to change the mind of the Federal Government because what the law says is that striking workers cannot earn their salary for the period they did not work.
And no responsible government will want to set a bad precedent.
For a union that knows its onion, it is high time the leadership sat together to re-evaluate its strategy and understand the fact that strike has never been and can never be the answer to the underfunding of university education. The argument turns logic upside down.
Even with the best of intentions, this unrestrained habitual attitude of shutting down the universities in the quest for revitalization of the decayed infrastructure is queer, strange, and unproductive. If at all it had worked under the military government, they need to appreciate the fact that democracy thrives on the rule of law, not on the rule of arbitrariness. In democratic governance, confrontation is no longer fashionable. So, they need to shelve this disdainful arrogance of thinking that they can always arm-twist the government to get want they want.
For the humiliation its members have suffered under this present government, this may be the last snapshot of the union which has been in the throes of the military mentality of confrontation.
To be sure, the strike has only been suspended, but not finally called off because there is still some level of distrust between the Federal Government and the union.
In a communiqué issued on Friday at the end of its NEC meeting held in Abuja, Prof Osodeke said that the demands of the union had not been fully addressed, but commended the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, for his intervention.
“While appreciating the commendable efforts of the leadership of the House of Representatives and other patriotic Nigerians, NEC noted with regrets that the issues in dispute were yet to be satisfactorily addressed,” he said.
The details about other issues left to be sorted out remain yet unknown. But from the tone of the statement, this may be the beginning of a chain of events the end of which no one can foresee.
Beyond that, the communiqué itself is hollow, pedestrian, and uninspiring. In his irrational self-interest, Osodeke failed to express sympathy for the loss of some of the union members who died in the course of the strike. They are the martyrs of the struggle, the unsung heroes of the strike. But by the error of omission or commission, he refused to give them their due recognition, but left their loved ones to continue to nurse the wound all alone.
He is equally silent on the plight of the hapless students and their parents who have been at the receiving end of the protracted crisis. It is also a grim irony that the union being led by Osodeke did not deem it necessary to apologise to the nation for this latest round of industrial action which has become a national embarrassment for the country among a comity of nations.
All of this speaks to the kind of leadership in charge of the affairs of the union. Such an insensitive attitude hurts. It insults the sensibility of the collective psyche of the Nigerian people. Obviously, the failure of the Federal Government to secure the future of the teeming youths of this country is too comprehensive to let go. But again, ASUU must understand that it cannot win the war by turning everybody into its enemy.
Emmanuel Osodeke is a professor of Soil Science at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. He took over the mantle of leadership from Professor Biodun Ogunyemi on May 31, 2021. His capacity to change the old narrative has been impressively on trial.