Former national president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and ex-vice chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, Professor Attahiru Jega has lashed out on Nigeria’s Federal Government for not being proactive in meeting the demands of the academic union in forestalling any industrial action.

Jega made this known following threats by the union to embark on another round of strike action should their demands be ignored.

“Every country that recognises the value of human capital development invests appropriately in education.

Where government does not invest appropriately in education, where our academics well trained globally and also compete globally are underrated and not listened to or respected in their own fields of endeavor, then obviously there would continue to be crisis in the university system.

ASUU and many other unions would write to the government on certain demands, there would be no response. It is only when ASUU says it is going on strike or even only after ASUU has gone on strike that government will quickly constitute a committee that will sit and negotiate with them.

By the time that happens obviously, it becomes very difficult to reduce or minimize the damage that has already occurred. And then the government will quickly sign an agreement (sometimes without even deep thinking) and then they will not implement these agreements.

They are not even proactive. You sign an agreement and you are unable to implement it. Be proactive; call the unions and say ‘look, we signed this; we wanted to do this but we can’t do it for certain reasons’. You are dealing with a union of academics who will see reasons as they are rational in the ways they look at things.

You don’t do that; you ignore things until they threaten to go on strike, and eventually do so. Immediately you constitute committees with no intention of resolving the outstanding issues. That is where we are now.

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“Fundamental aspects of an agreement reached in 2009 have not been addressed in 2021. The government has not been proactive. It is only when the union says it is going on strike that government tries to intervene.

“Government must be proactive, responsive and responsible to its citizens, in particular the area of human capital development. Instead of building the access and capacity of existing universities, you are creating more universities. You are creating universities within the same pool of staffing that has been in existence for over ten years because there have not been serious capacity building.

“The government itself is undermining the capacity of our institutions to drive human capital development in our own context and so long as this continues, it will be very difficult for us to get out of this perpetual and unfortunately regrettable cycle of crisis,” he said.

This and many others issues formed the high points of Jega’s remarks while featuring as guest at the globally viewed Toyin Falola Interview Series. Professors Toyin Falola and Omotoye Olorode led others in the interview session.

While also addressing the looming ASUU strike action, Professor Olorode argued that “As far back as 2001, proposals were on the ground that if our universities have 24 hours of electricity and water and renovation of facilities, our universities can run 24 hours in a day. By this, we can triple intakes into the universities.

Lectures can be given at any time. In 2013, the government itself set up a NEEDS assessment committee that went around Nigerian universities. We told them for thirty years that our universities are dying.

In 2013, they found out that to renovate our universities, they would need about 1.3 trillion naira. They said they could not provide this at once. We said no problem but that 200 billion naira every year would take five or six years to be fully paid and implemented.

Today, we are still arguing on that 200 billion naira when the naira had gone down to just about one foot of its value in 2013. So even if they provide it now, it is useless. Meanwhile, they are borrowing more money.

There is a lot of money private hands and parastatals that are not being collected. Femi Falana and I took this government to court over 6.2 billion dollars that the government did not collect from oil companies. The money is there.

“Lecturers are dying of overwork; they should be paid earned allowance. If the government does not want to pay, it should employ more lecturers. They refused. With the IPPIS, they want to run the universities from Abuja. There are people who enrolled on the payment platform of IPPIS and yet they are not being paid.”

On the proliferation of universities, the role of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and poor funding of tertiary education, Jega fingered the negative influence of politicians on the present predicament of university workers.

According to him, “There is no doubt that the National University Commission (NUC) in the way it functions leaves much to be desired. Obviously, the original intention was that it was patterned along the UK University’s commission.

Over time and particularly because its foundational laws were developed under military rule, it deviated from that original objective. A lot needs to be done to ensure that the NUC works in such a manner that it protects and defends the interests of the Nigerian universities.

It must also focus on careful, strategic planning for the growth and development of tertiary education in our country.

“One of the challenges is that NUC has many public sector institutions that work in accordance with the laws that establish them. The implementation of the laws is mediated by the character and deposition of the people who are placed as heads of these institutions.

“No doubt over a long period of time, we have had people who were rather weak in the ways and manners in which they would stand the negative influence of politicians with this issue of the rapid and uncontrolled development of our university system without careful planning.”

Vanguard News Nigeria