CHALLENGES FACING HIGER EDUCATION IN NIGERIA FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
toyin adepoju
I would like to respond to this debate by responding to Nkolika's response.Most of my references are to the University of Benin,where I taught until I came to study in England in Jan 2003.
I place an observation by Nkolika at the top and mine,highlighted in black, at the bottom. I conclude with a list of points I think Nigerian academics should address about how they,themselves, manage the system.
On Sun 08/09/09 8:27 PM , Nkolika Ebele nkol...@yahoo.com sent:
When I left in 2003 ,the library catalogue was a card catalogue.There was no public computer in use in the library. My first encounter with a computerized academic library system was in England.and yet I had been teaching library skills at Uniben (short name for the university) since 1990.I might have introduced the IDEA of a computerized library into my later lectures because I had read about it.
4. Many
Universities and lecturers are striving on their own to meet up with
the international requirements but it has not been easy. How many
international journals can a lecturer on a monthly salary of
N60,000[about 385US dollars] afford, how many international conferences
can s/he afford to attend from his salary without any form of
sponsorship.
I had a senior colleague who I knew subscribed
to one international journal.The library subscribed to a number,but
since my exposure to journals was very limited,I would not have been
able to assess the strength of the collection.I understand the
university now has access to some online journal databases.
As for conferences,attending a conference
in Nigeria constituted quite an achievement.In the 12 years I lectured
there,I was fortunate to get sponsorship from the university for one
conference in Nigeria.I might have got a second one but for
departmental politics.I was invited to one international conference but
the university stated that they could foot only a part of the
expenses,leaving the other substantial part,so I had to forgo the
conference.
As for salary,in 1991,a graduate assistant had
a salary of about 600 naira. In 2002,after determined
agitation,including strikes,over the years,an assistant lecturer,the
next grade,had a salary of about 50,000 naira. This increase was
reflected in a corresponding increase up the ladder of promotion,with
the most significant increases occurring at the three highest levels
of senior lecturer,associate professor and professor.This was a
significant increase over previous circumstances and enabled many
lecturers to buy second hand cars and to stop or rely less on secondary
incomes,such as trading,running barbershops, running butcher
shops,intra-city taxi driving,inter-city taxi driving, and selling
handouts and books.I was able,though,after a particular salary increase
to pay for a computer on the university's 12 month payment scheme and
start a research centre,with myself and a secretary on 5,000 naira a
month, as the only employee,using my own books and a flat belonging to
my family.
I continue with my own general observations: As
for ASUU strikes,they are undertaken only after a vote by all
university ASUU branches in the country and the number for a strike
compared with those against.Its true,though,that ASUU was and perhaps
still is very cohesive.Strikes were undertaken after the government had
repeatedly failed to enter into negotiations or in the event of a
breakdown in negotiations.
Having noted the inadequacies of the system as
these emerge from structural,macro-problems in the way the universities
were funded,I must observe that NIgerian academics need to reexamine
the way they manage the system in relation to
1.The conception of the professorship.Is the
professor a person who does not need to do any more research or a
person who is expected to demonstrate continuous achievement with
time?My experience was that the former was the case,and this might have
also applied to other Nigerian universities.This double standard for
the "other ranks" and for professors can be understood as creating a
number of serious problems,ranging from backwardness in the knowledge
base available to lectureres,bullying of other lecturers by
professors,politicisation of academic activity by professors,and
periodic increases in the number of academic demands to be satisfied by
the other ranks for promotion up the academic ladder to the exaltation
of the professorship. These upward reviews were undertaken by
professors as the majority members of the universty senate.As far as
I know,no rationale was ever provided for the timing of these upward
reviews.
2.Allegations of financial embezzlement by principal officers of the university,including
academic staff.ASUU chairman Uniben once stated publicly at an ASUU
meeting that principal opfficers of the university,the burasar,the
deputy vice-chancellor and vice-chancellor were each given a
substantial mandatory cut from the profits of part time programs..I
wonder if that could be true and if it might occur in other
universities.
3.The harnessing of the cognitive resources of academics through a culture of book and journal publication
which will impact powerfully on both the professional and personal
developpment of academics,business and the universities.My memory is
that there was an acute shortage of current literature.This happended
on account of the difficulty of purchasing books in the aftermath of
the devaluation of the naira.The Nigerian and perhaps other African
educational systems are still waiting for a visionary but very
practical alliance between scholars and business,in which text books
will be commissioned to meet enormous demand.Higher level research
texts can be published intially as smaller percentage of texbook
prduction,and later,in increasign numbers,funded,perhaps, by profits
from textbook sales.
This is a potentially massive market,stretching
across Nigeria to all universities,and into Africa.It would take some
time to elaborate on the economic,social,intellectual and institutional
implications of this market.I expect that any publisher who is able to
establish a state of the art research centre,with up to date literature
and access to powerful online journal,book and other academic
databases,with 24 hour power and high speed internet service,and
perhaps research fellowships that will enable cademics to reside in the
Centre for time to use its facilities while researching work
commissioned and eventually marketed by the Centre,will reap siguficant
monetary profits while contributing inestimably to a research culture
in African countries.
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Okwy Okeke
As long as ASUU members fail to get the position of the Nigerian student, I will not tire to reply to these posts.
Maybe I should dumb down the conversation to get the message across:
To this list of real and perceived ills, I'll add the following:
1) The WC in our offices still have handles, the one I used during my visit to UPenn was equipped with motion-sensor, I did not know that WCs could flush themselves in spite of teaching in a university for 12 years until my travel to Philly
2) The "quality" of babes they now send to the predators among us have dropped, the prettier "ajebutters" that can afford to pay for the hotel room as well as fall prey to our blackmails are now being sent to Ghana and the West by their thieving parents, we are now left with the Rita's of the Koko Mansion and "I go shit" variant of babes, government must address this evil.
3) The beer the serve in the staff club is not as cold as the beer I had at a community college at Golden, Colarado. It now tastes watered down, and we suspect goevrnment is guilty of tamping down our beer, yes, it must be government
4) (feel free to add your own list of the bizarre here)
Nigerian university lecturers can cripple the government for all the students care, they can seize UMYA jet and sell it on eBay, they should even feel free to take the senators and any and every person they deem guilty for their fate hostage (what is the difference between ASUU and MEND)? But please, stop holding the students hostage! Fight your fight with the government, just teach us when we show up in the classroom, is that too much to ask?
Stop the strikes, it is killing what is left of our lives!!!
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toyin adepoju
Okwy,
What do you understand as the position of the Nigerian student? That teaching must take place even if the teacher is underfed,cannot afford medical expenses,.cannot afford transportation,suffers delayed payment of salary leading to mounting debts,can hardly afford to buy even old literature not to talk of current literature,so that being up to date in his or her field is an almost unattainable ideal,cannot afford to take part in fora for sharing knowledge among academics-conferences and seminars,among so many other situations I could write if I had the time?What kind of teaching will such a teacher provide to the student who "justs wants to be taught when they show up in the classroom" regardless of the working conditions of that teacher,or even of the environment in which they,the students,are learning?
To make informed comments about ASUU and the Nigerian university system,you need to look carefully at what it means to earn a living and the relationship between quality of terms of service and quality of delivery of service.
You also need to note that ASUU has fought consistently for improvement of funding for education.I hope you took note of the assertion in this debate that the Nigerian government has never spent more than 5% of budgetary allocation on education,in contrast to UNECO'S projection of 20% and in contrast to other countries.It is true that ASUU fought for and won the passing into law of the Education Fund bill,in which companies would be taxed a particular percentage for education.I wont pretend to know the fate of that fund.
Now,in addition to that list of inadequacies I suffered as a lecturer in Nigeria which I listed above,I will intimate you with those I suffered as a student in Nigeria,where we lived in cramped halls where we shared a space fit for four but with about eight of us in that space,often problematic toilets in the halls of residence because not only were the toilets too few,there was a lot of of the time no flowing water in the toilets,having to urinate in corners because there no functional toilets for students in the lecture halls,of course,there was no public computer access throughout my BA which I completed on 1989,struggle with hunger and deprivation that leads to prostitution among female and perhaps male students,along with others I could name if I had the time.
I am not arguing that these conditions were uniform in all Nigerian universities.I am not arguing that my life as a student and eventually a lecturer in a Nigerian university was defined solely by these experiences.I am also not arguing that the system has not improved significantly.
Almost all the improvements in the working conditions of academic staff from 1989 - 1002,when I was an acasdemic in Nigeria were effected through strikes.
I simply want to assert that a synoptic view of the Nigerian university system is required if one is to make contributions that would move the debate forward.
Qansy Salako
Okwy, my friend,
I have decided to take you up on your logic under this ASUU thread.
I will find time to do a dialogue with you until I feel my points are fully made or you opt out before me, whichever comes first. My objective is not to convince or make you change your locked-in views on why ASUU should stop the strikes, it is simply to widen your window of view as you develop your position and before you pour wet concrete on it. I also wish to use the exchange to prove to you that people are reading and processing your thoughts. But are you processing others’ thoughts?
Your Proposal:
ASUU should employ alternative means other than “strikes” to engage government in its labor disputes because students are suffering as a result of the strikes and times have changed in Nigeria.
Then you went on to offer Okwy’s own alternative tactics thusly:
[QUOTE] “Finally, let me suggest to university lectures to pick their quarrel with the right quarter –
stage sit-ins on Saturdays and Sundays when academic activities in the schools will suffer the least.
March to the churches and mosques during worship hours and force the clergies to address you in
front of the governors, senators, and federal executives, disrupt the next wedding ceremony of any
of the president's daughter, etc. There is an endless list of tactics that will target the federal
government without punishing students and disrupting their lives, and the good news is that the
foregoing will get the larger society behind your campaign.” [UNQUOTE]
My Comments:
Many have described on here the deplorable conditions of service of an average university lecturer in Nigeria. Comments from Nkolika and Toyin Adepoju may be consulted. At any rate, you seem to be aware of this yourself a la your funny “additions” onto the list of lecturers’ grievances against the government. So in the same bemused vein, you want the lecturers to protest profligate government only by picketing their priests and imams on weekends only, ehn? And you think people like Goodluck and Ogbulafo will get it?
As university dons walk in protests to their churches and mosques, how much regard do you think market women, spare part sellers and mechanics, motor park workers, pure water hawkers, etc will have for intellectuals in the society? Kai. Lord have mercy!
The standard of education today, as we all agree, is comatose. Unfortunately, the lecturers’ grievances including the issues under the current strike are key to reversing the trend of poor quality of education and to provision of good nurturing and mentoring of your beloved Nigerian students. One of my favorite ASUU demands is the issue of getting Nigeria to reverse the scourge of brain drain because this single-handedly knocked out the already doubled-over standard of education in the 80s.
Your recommendation that ASUU should negotiate with the irresponsible Nigerian government using the ridiculous means above is tantamount to reverse human shield protest. In other words, workers should not protest their employers for better conditions of service and product quality if their means of protest would inconvenience the customers. What else would get any employer’s attention very quickly, if not its customers? Lecturers should not walk out of their classrooms in protest against government for good employee services and improved quality of education unless their students agree they could do so. What else should get the attention of a responsible government quickly if not stoppage to education of its youths? And what if lecturers can’t even get to the venue of the first daughter’s wedding, let alone disrupt it? And if they do, what if the totalitarian security outfits simply clamp them in jail for months and months without bail? Are you reading your own logic?
At any rate, your recommendation begged two assumptions, I’d like to address them.
1. Quality of Education. That the quality of education as we have it today will remain the same as lecturers maintain the drudgery of their painfully unsatisfactory daily/semester routines. This is a fallacy. Under this quarantined conditions of service, the quality of education that your beloved students will receive will only go further south. And what then would you have the lecturers do if today’s education quality tumbled to another painful low? Would you have them move their protests to their pastors’ homes at midnights on weekdays? You really believe that the kind of characters we have in our government will become inspired by these Ghandi sit-ins and give up their culture of free looting to fund the universities. Is it really respectable for teachers to seek permission from their students before they engage their employer over unmet conditions in their employment contracts? Okwy, asking permission from your child before you change his daycare due to cost is taking parenting too far.
2. Lecturer Life Equilibrium. That lecturer’s life will remain the same as she copes to teach under damned conditions while area boys in government live large as tyrants, kings and philosophers out of the national safe with impunity. The lecturer watches below-average graduating students join government and become multimillionaires within 2 years of national service, and all she can do is protest the decadence in her church and mosque? Well, Okwy, have you given thought to the reality that something’s got to give? Lecturers’ equilibrium will simply shift and attain the next stable state. We call that the law of entropy or the 3rd law of thermodynamics in chemistry. Under your proposition, lecturers will resort to doing more economic recovery stunts than sell handouts to their students. They will start new company to hustle for government contracts from their student-turned-commissioner or minister. They will float and run all kinds of private businesses including, transportation, consultancy services, extra teaching jobs, private clinics, etc, all of which will make them become less available in the classroom and more out of focus on your beloved students.
I remember my ASUU days, medical colleagues in my Unilag college of medicine were notorious for not caring whether ASUU was on strike or not because most had their private clinics that readily absorbed their free times anyway. You alluded to the good-boy attitude of secondary school teachers. Actually, secondary school teachers used to strike more than they do now. Remember NUT of old? They stopped it when they realized the level of obstinacy and the kind of slave mentality of the people that constitute their employer. Now they walk out, officially, when they are owed 6 months or more active salaries in arrears. But observers will tell you many of our primary/secondary school teachers don’t really have both of their feet within their classrooms at any time. Many have their life saving moonlight jobs that they do such as trading, tailoring, photography, contractors, rental services, land middlemen, etc. All these don’t make them take life too seriously with their classroom and government. Why do you think the quality of our education stinks from the bottom up?
ASUU you say? Think again, my friend.
Okwy, something has got to give under your reverse human shield initiative.
And the first impact of whatever gives will be on your beloved students.
It is called more impairment of quality of university graduates – cognitive, visual and kinesthetic.
Ghandi sit-in aint good enough.
Give the lecturers another thoughtful idea to work on.
Qansy Salako
Okwy Okeke
Oga Qansy,
We can go back and forth, and even reduce this to an academic argument like whether price floors, and/or ceiling are good for the economy, etc, the proverbial questions that have no answer, however, here is my summary:
You and ASUU support the lady that has refused to breast feed her 2-months old baby until her husband reflects the inflation index in her weekly upkeep allowance. You and your friends are of this opinion that medical science suggests that starving the child for 5 days certainly will not kill him/her (happily ignoring the irreversible damages) and that the father's hands will be forced within the week, after all, she had done same to the other child that is presently close to useless to society, courtesy of her actions, brilliant! You are right, science does support your position. I and others at the other end insist that responsible mothers must find other tools of negotiation with their irresponsible husbands that will not imperil the life of the child - may history record our positions for posterity!
If you also reduced the whole conversation to just weighing the options I put out there between serving the kids that just came by my drive-through and mopping the floor the over-weight guy just messed up..., then good luck to Nigeria.
Just have in mind that "ASUU Strikes" is the 800-pound gorilla squashing university education in Nigeria.
I must also mention that I am happy there is still one ASUU member or executive (present or past) out there that is not too self-absorbed to talk. I already see some of your members walk away in a huff like the short-tempered military occupiers they in vain try to model because the world is not carrying water for them.
To the details now we are done with the executive summary, my summation is that your position falls short of rigor.
First, I am not in the job of proposing how ASUU should fight government because I am anti-trade union in 2009 Nigeria, especially ASUU that produced the president, vice-president (who I understand was one of the militant types), minister of education, and many other members of the federal executive, what is it that our parents call a child that throws stones into the market where his mother went to buy and sell wares?
University lecturers, especially the ASUU activists under them all fed fat under the military, ASUU activism was almost the sure-fire route into government, from Eme Awa, Humphrey Nwosu, Elo Amachazie, etc of the pol science dept of UNN through the "boys" (read senator Ugochukwu Uba et al) more than two dozen social sciences departments lecturers from UNN served under the military regimes at state and federal levels, something we can safely say was replicated more or less across the country, but I digress. The point though is that ASUU activists that are only too willing to take the "come-chop" invitation of the government should for a change think up how to address their grievances without resorting to disrupting the lives of students! BTW, don't forget Dr. Maurice Iwu, ASUU's gift to 2009 Nigeria, make sure to add him to the list!
I challenge your assertion that secondary school teachers strike more than university lecturers. My secondary school teachers never went on strike for a day, not a single day. Primary school teachers went on strike only once back then, and I remember how the state governor resolved it withing days, however, there was no single year ASUU did not have reason - either at the national or local level to down tools. Qansy, do you realize that UNN (well I can talk about her for obvious reasons) has not had a normal session since MKO Abiola ran for the presidency? Yes, there has never been a normal session UNN for 15+ years because of ASUU? At what price will ASUU retreat from the brinks? What do you think will become of the broken system if students unwisely imitate their teachers and strike for each fee increase, every slide in Naira value, levy, theft by the university administrators, molestation by the teachers, power failure
before examinations, bad hostels, unreleased results that force them to miss NYSC service year, missing results, incomplete results, erratic/non-existent safe drinking water in the hostels, police brutality, expensive food that the lecturers ensure by alloting their few food outlets to their wives while stifling competition from outside, examination malpractices perpetrated from the very top, criminal admission processes carried out by th lecturers, irresponsible lecture schedules by the lecturers, absence of lecturers during office hours, etc? What do you think will become of our society if we seek to address the irresponsibility of a fraction of the lecturers that soil your collective reputation? I will tell you, Nigerian universities will be in arrears of days to go on strikes, that is the world ASUU is leading us to, ban the group now!
The man with rashes does not buy sandpaper but salve, ASUU lost the plot way back the mid-90s. What you just wrote about the condition of service do not only apply to the university teachers, so, do you also suggest the doctors (who by the way on the average are paid less than university lecturers and have contributed less to the misgovernance of the country relative to ASUU), all K-12 teachers, police officers, customs, etc down tools because the earn a fraction of their counterparts' income in the West?
Oga Qansy, take off the blinders off and tell your friends that they have done enough damage already, our system is broken, we must repair it with common sense not gangster tactics.
Stop the strike, ban ASUU, and fire any lecturer that refuses to teach. A group that has no integrity can't come to equity, what makes ASUU assume more relevance to society than the poor secretary that our dear Oxford visiting lecturer pays a criminal wage of N5,000. A criminal wage because the FG and state governments-set minimum wages are N7,500/N5,500 in the least, but our lecturer friend is so carried away with himself that he is asking for time, so much for intelligence, those are the type Oga Ikhide is after, but I will spare him in this reply
Make I go come first.
Okwy Okeke
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Qansy Salako
[QUOTE] “First, I am not in the job of proposing how ASUU should fight government because I am anti-trade union in 2009 Nigeria,….” [UNQUOTE]….Okwy Okeke
Okwy,
So you were not in the job of proposing how ASUU should fight government, ehn?
How come you were bold enough to offer recommendations that they could engage government by protesting on Saturdays and Sundays at the churches and mosques of their locales where their priests and imams would pray for them in the presence of attending government officials? So if I were Egwu or whatever his prodigal name was, why won’t I simply request my priest to move his congregation to my house and shut out original suffer head former colleagues out of my important official routines? Ewu…ewu….weekend Ghandi sit-ins with pastors and imams!
Oh, now we know you are actually not in a position to propose how ASUU should fight his employment problems with its employer. For your information, most readers never thought you were all along.
In fairness to you, the fact that you are anti-trade union actually imparts legitimacy and fillip to your partisanship position. If you naturally don’t believe in trade unions, then ASUU alone won’t be your pet peeve, you will have problems with any and all workers’ unions, such as NASU, Nigerian labor Congress (NLC), student NANS, lawyers NBA, oil workers NUPENG and PEGASSAN, road transport workers, doctors, nurses, market women; including even associations of first ladies, governors’ wives, army officers’ wives, etc. This throws a fundamental shift in how your anti-ASUU position should be viewed and responded to. It removes sensationalism from your outrage against ASUU, because by implication you will not tolerate even NLC venturing a strike against the government, be it for improved conditions of Nigerian workers, rigged elections or military brutality of a community. This fundamental shift almost now moots engaging you further on anti-ASUU rhetorics because since it is all trade unions that you do not like, you have a right to repudiate ASUU activities. This shift eliminates contention between you and us. It would have been different had you been making a case for the supremacy of one union against non-essentiality of ASUU.
If you ask me though, I would argue that some key trade unions are essential especially in developing countries where they have multipurpose uses on employment issues and in checking potential excesses or anti-people policies in governance. If you do not believe in any form of trade unionism in 2009 Nigeria, you would truly not see why ASUU should be fighting any cause at all. To date, ASUU has got the measly benefits it has only by strikes, and it is virtually impossible to imagine a Nigeria without the NLC. Indeed, without trade unions in many developing nations, you would need armed struggles to negotiate even fair democratic elections. But then, since you do not believe in trade unions anywhere, such argument belongs entirely in a different debate. It is beyond the scope of our dialogue under this thread. What your position is reduced to is let a tyrannical cabal be in “government” and lord it over perpetually traumatized citizens. This is consistent with your position to just keep feeding a malnourished child with chaffs that you have on hand, even though you can fight for and obtain grains from their oppressors.
I’ll quickly address one aspect of social decay that you and Ikhi have used rather arbitrarily in your arguments. That is the way most supposedly ASUU members usually compromise once they get invited to participate in government. First, not all academics compromise, great academics like Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Babs Fafunwa, Lateef Salako, etc, tried to maintain their integrity in government. However, ASUU does have its own internal contradictions and challenges, just like any other sociological groups. Fundamentally, not all members of academia believe in the essence of ASUU. That should make you happy. All academics are automatic members of ASUU because union money is deducted from their salaries at source. Such proportion of members who don’t quite care for ASUU would follow the motion of group strikes when there is one, but they will not find it difficult to cavort and collaborate with government of the day even before they are invited to partake in spoils of governance. Such academics are not bound by any common good ethics that their colleagues fight for or accountability that their inviting government does not cherish. Under the ethos of individual rights to freedom and liberty, there is absolutely nothing the mainstream ASUU can do to such unassociated members, especially after they’ve crossed to join the bad guys. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated eyes like yours, all acada in governments are ASUU members who are wrecking the nation.
The rotten social order that engenders mass impoverishment, abysmal healthcare and social insecurity also contributes to capitulation of even former ASUU die-hards once they join a government. The bar of tolerance for suffering varies in different individuals. Some people will never compromise their integrity even at the point of death; some will surrender immediately their nagging spouse raises an eyebrow. These human nuances are as available within ASUU folds as they are in our ragtag police, over indulged military, odious political elites, corrupted judiciary and decadent business middle class.
If we had a working society where the rule of law operates and regulates everyone equally without immunity or official incompetence, all of the challenges to scholarship in our universities would be better controlled. And that includes official malfeasance and financial impropriety within university own administrations. But the Nigerian society also includes all of us. When the fish rots, it starts from the head. If we have a rotten center, it will be naïve and hypocritical not to expect to smell the stench in the body and extremities.
Okwy, it took me 2 hours….that will be $1,000, please.
After all, the Akunyulis will charge you more than $500 per hour!
Qansy Salako
Okwy Okeke
Oga Qansy,
The story goes of a mad man that chased around everyone at the park - the hawkers, passengers, etc. The park's resident mad man sought from him the reason for his extreme action, and his reply was that his just started, to which the older mad man told him to take it easy, that madness does not end in a day, and that since it will be a while before he is cured of his neurosis, a little madness a day does it.
I will be patient with ASUU knowing that psychosis is an ailment cured with much patience, we will all be patient with ASUU, but not for much longer.
Trade unions are anachronistic in 2009 Nigeria, ban all of them, if you want to be the governor of Edo state, start from the same block as everyone, not gain some name recognition at tax-payers time, the cleansing has to start with the middle-class, we are our biggest problem, we are government!!
Time is ticking for ASUU, then the deaf fly always ends up buried with the corpse. If it will make it less bitter to accept, let ASUU hold a requiem rally celebrating victory over the military occupiers, then disband like other guerrilla groups, and its members set free to walk into the 21st century like other people, and compete in the market place and per chance do a year's job for a year's pay for a change. ASUU has spend about half of the last 15 years on strikes, we may yet ask for our refund if you don't take this offer of amnesty!!
Make I go come while you decide if your reply will be about Obasanjo, and/or AG/UPN coup-baiting bit, we know that style, Fela told us that much years ago.
Ban ASUU!!
Okwy Okeke
p.s. It took me 20 mins, my fee is $2.60 (a third of the minimum wage) I can't benchmark with Akunyili, if I so desired, I will have to quit my drive-through window job and join PDP, tell your friends that it is the way of the world!! |
Qansy Salako
Okwy,
It appears our dialogue under this thread is now at its sunset.
I am in favor of key trade unions (e.g. ASUU, NLC, etc) particularly for developing countries like Nigeria.
But you are not in favor of trade unions and you especially hate ASUU with passion.
The whole scenario is now akin to a bishop preaching the omniscience of Jesus to a Taliban chief.
It’s not gonna happen, there would be zero transfer of information/knowledge between the two.
What is this relentless comparison of ASUU with madness anyway?
This is over the top, don’t you see?
Are you sure Nigerians see ASUU the way you see it?
You violated your own self awareness when you again made bold to recommend the following way-out for ASUU members:
[QUOTE] “Let ASUU learn……walk away if you are unhappy,….go to the private universities, go
to Timbuktu, any where, or teach, there is an alternative to everything, … People need to stop
thinking of the old ways of doing things, get into the new world, or get out of the universities, there
is room in the political arena, if you want to be a politician, or agent for change, drop the chalk and
mount the soapbox, or start a business……” [UNQUOTE]………Okwy Okeke
Like the spirit, you just disappear and materialize through the wall of your own logic, anytime you want.
This minute you say you’re not in the business of telling ASUU how they should fight the government, the next minute you’re advising them to take their case to churches and mosques. This hour you’re saying ASUU make up the government and are wrecking Nigeria, the next hour you are advising ASUU to join government and become politicians to change Nigeria. Ha….phew!…wiping my eyebrow.
Dunno, it’s either you really believe that thesis and antithesis of what you say are synonymous or you don’t really care which way Nigeria ends up.
Before I go, I’ll respond to your question about the students.
Sorry, the question almost fell through the cracks. You asked:
[QUOTE]”….what do you suggest students do to right all the wrongs ASUU or rightly stated, the
rogue elements in ASUU visit on them? .... Go on strike like ASUU until the lecturer that sold
examinations papers through his son is fired AND sent to jail….” [UNQUOTE]….Okwy Okeke.
My Response
No, the students shouldn’t go on strike o….nor be me talk am. But they should sue ASUU to its last kobo. The students should have all ASUU lecturers fired, then ASUU itself banned. There is more, the students can walk away if they are unhappy. They can go to the private universities, Ghana, Timbuktu, anywhere there is no lecturers’ union. There is alternative to everything, the students can get out of the universities, there is room in the political arena if they want to be politicians, they can mount the soapbox…… I am sure you recognize the logic and wisdom in my response.
Hahahahaha…..Hehehehehehe…..laughing out loud clapping (lolc).
Okwy, it’s been fun.
Till another time on another thread, my good friend.
Best wishes.