By Dr. Mansur Dawaki
of because, I am a will-be beneficiary, or a probable victim of the ‘no-work, no-pay’ policy of the federal government, I still will have to admit that, the response of the ASUU president to the Minister of Education’s comment on the issue was well articulated. A flute player may have all the day, until when a more melodious tune is played by a rival.
The Government’s, or rather the President’s ‘flat rejection’ of ASUU’s demand for the payment of the salary arrears owed its members was, to say the least, unreasonable and insensitive. To kill a maggot doesn’t require an arsenal, and the government may have varied mechanisms at its disposal to level up with ASUU if the outcome of the current negotiations was somewhat unfavourable, or humiliating to their psyche. For example, the government may, through its regulatory agency for the Universities, impose tougher appointment and promotion criteria, which may even help flush the quacks, and sieve ‘the grains from the sand’.
Education Is The Backbone Of Any Meaningful Society- Traditional Ruler
For the government to insist on the implementation of the ‘no-work, no-pay’ policy in its strictest sense is unnecessarily vindictive and counter-productive. This is because, as Osodeke rightly noted, time lost in teaching is recoverable, and no student will graduate without having satisfied the minimum required credit hours, no matter the circumstances. And on this, ASUU membership is the sole caretaker and guardian of that sanctity. And, by the way, a student may even unilaterally decide not to graduate within the stipulated period allowed for his/her programme by employing provisions such as suspension of studies, incomplete status and some other approved delay tactics.
It is therefore worrisome for a minister in charge of the education sector not to know, or not to be in full grasp of the workings of the university system. If this is the nature of the vizier, then God saves the emir. The Minister should have done better to advise the president on the issue when the latter ‘flatly rejected’ the request of ASUU for the settlement of its members’ arrears, instead of brandishing his ignorance and seeking for a means of vendetta on behalf of his boss.
This strike has unnecessarily lingered, as the government has abashedly victimized ASUU and its membership. Education in any entity is not a venture that’s not without worth, and no resource judiciously expended in the sector may be a waste, or be too enormous. As an ardent, and an unrepenting supporter of the current president, I was shame-stricken when one of his ministers said, and later one of the governors echoed that a meagre one trillion in whatever currency, denomination or symbol of wealth was beyond the borrowing capacity of the government for the university system.
The sooner the president takes this everlasting ASUU palaver with the seriousness it requires, the better for the nation. Let it go down in historical records, that he be the president who handled the last of the ASUU strikes, and the conqueror of the ‘strike’ fortress of ASUU, which has defied consecutive rulers ‘milla dun Babangida ilaa an’ within a conservative time estimate.
Mansur U. Dawaki (Ph. D)
Department of Soil Science
Bayero University,
PMB 3011, Kano, Nigeria.
