By Douglass Anele
The number of brilliant people motivated by the pure love of knowledge to teach in universities has reduced considerably, one of the reasons being that the university system is steadily losing its mystique as a centre for academic excellence.

In addition, a growing percentage of newly employed lecturers comprise those who, after searching fruitlessly for good-paying jobs decided to go for higher degrees, including doctorates, and eventually end up in the classroom. Thus lecturing, for this category of academics, was a choice forced on them by the ogre of unemployment which has been ravaging the country since the mid-1980s.

The phenomenon of seeing university teaching as a fall back option in the absence of “better” jobs elsewhere has not reached the critical point-of-no-return yet, because many academics that I respect still steadfastly uphold the ideal for which universities are set up in the first place, that is, the attainment, consolidation and celebration of the very best in The True, The Good, and The Beautiful.

But if care is not taken to reverse the trend quickly, a situation might arise sooner than later when our universities would be dominated by those who became lecturers by default, an occurrence that would be disastrous for the Ivory Towers.

Now, given my critical stance on indefinite strikes by ASUU, some colleagues have chosen to mischievously and maliciously distort my views on the matter.

The latest shibboleths from a lecturer who happens to be an ASUU executive include, inter alia: (1) that I am fighting ASUU; (2) that for me funding is not a problem in our universities; (3) that I am insulting colleagues by pointing out their unethical behaviours publicly; (4) that my remarks apply exclusively to lecturers at the University of Lagos because I have never taught elsewhere since I started my academic career; and that (5) it was better for one to withdraw one’s membership of ASUU than to remain a member of the union and still criticise it.

All the comments I made about the government having enough funds to meet and even surpass ASSU’s legitimate demands, that our selfish, myopic, top political office holders treat issues concerning university education in the country cavalierly because their children and wards are studying in better institutions abroad, that Nigerians have been unlucky to be saddled with dishonuorable and untrustworthy leaders that regularly renege on agreements they freely entered with academics, and that ASUU members in government have generally treated the union unfairly etc. were not mentioned by my critic.

Anyway, responding to all the wicked, malicious, and ill-tempered canards from a supposedly senior member of the academia is a waste of my precious time, for I am certain that those who have been following with open minds my responses to ASUU’s strikes over the years will bear witness to the objectivity, sincerity and level-headedness of my analyses.

That said, I have always argued that although government has never really funded the education sector (including the universities) adequately, the problem has been worsened by the fact that university administrations sometimes waste available financial resources on frivolities. No honest keen observer of financial transactions in our university system can dispute that claim.

Again, I find it utterly ridiculous and silly for anyone to suggest that because I have always taught at UNILAG therefore my criticisms apply to only those teaching there, as if I have never visited other universities or interacted with colleagues teaching elsewhere.

It could as well be argued that since I have never been to other countries, my assertion that politicians oftentimes engage in corrupt practices applies only to politicians in Nigeria where I have lived virtually all my life. Of course, I don’t have to personally visit other countries to know that, given the high stakes involved in politics and the greed and ambition associated with politicking, politicians cannot always resist successfully the temptation to be corrupt.

At any rate, I have been to other universities apart from UNILAG and interacted, and still interact, with colleagues in those institutions.

Even, there is no good reason to suppose that lecturers in private universities are completely immune to the misbehaviours I pointed out in my article. It follows that my comments are applicable to the academic staff concerned across universities nationwide.

In a nutshell, then, any lecturer unduly agitated by my exposé, to the extent of distorting what I have written on the need for ASUU to begin a process of self-critical examination, is inadvertently acknowledging that my criticism has hit home with regard to his or her hidden misconduct. Truth, like sunlight, is a great disinfectant, and is usually bitter.

But it can only be ignored at the cost of loss of intellectual, moral, and spiritual freedom. People hardly realise that truth is not a democratic concept or paradigm: the majority is apt to be wrong when one is dealing with the veridicality of propositions and theories. Indeed, all revolutionary theories in science and innovative principles of morality were opposed by most people ab initio before gradually their truth became widely accepted.

Therefore, I cannot be intimidated by the majority or become unduly bothered just because some colleagues consider my views unpalatable.

I will not take dictation from anybody or union before I speak my mind on issues that I feel concerned about since, following Karl Popper, I consider dispassionate criticism the very essence of rationality. Any university teacher that feels otherwise could as well join the priesthood or the military. With these preliminary remarks, we can now begin to articulate a fresh vision for ASUU.

Like every union, ASUU’s fundamental mandate is to protect and enhance the welfare of its members. On a more global level, it is concerned with entrenchment of academic freedom in, and autonomy of, our universities. All these are geared towards the overall growth and development of university education in Nigeria. Thus, the activities of ASUU are teleological, since they are directed towards achieving clearly stated objectives. In terms of working for the improvement of members’ welfare, ASUU has been indomitable, although improvements in salaries since 1992 have been achieved largely through indefinite strikes whose impact on the system as a whole has tended to be negative.

Clearly, there is little creativity in strikes, for it is merely the stoppage of teaching in the universities. Hence, strikes should be deemphasised and supplemented with something more creative and positive. For instance, ASUU should encourage its branches to closely monitor income and expenditure in each university.

At regular intervals, each branch should request from the relevant authorities detailed account of government subvention and internally-generated revenue (IGR), and how these monies were spend in running the system. This should be done not in the spirit of confrontation but in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect to identify financial leakages and plug them.

Each local branch of ASUU should not be intimidated in carrying out this task, so long as it approaches the issue of making university authorities accountable and transparent in their financial transactions with honesty and sincerity of purpose. In that regard, it must be bold in insisting that scare financial resources should be managed prudently to minimise waste.

Reciprocally, vice-chancellors, deans and so on must look upon ASUU as a partner-in-progress, since no university can achieve academic excellence without solid consistent cooperation of lecturers. To be concluded.