Councillors earn more than professors – Lagos ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Odukoya

The Lagos State Zonal Coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Dr Adelaja Odukoya, shares his views with CHUKWUDI AKASIKE on the ongoing strike by the union.

The strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities has been tough on students. Is it possible for the union to consider this and call it off?

This is a sacrifice the union is making to salvage public universities in this country. ASUU will continue to make that sacrifice until the government becomes reasonable. Talking about the students, they are also our students; some of them are our wives and husbands. Some of these students you are talking about are about 50 per cent of our members on PhD programmes or on different post-graduate programmes. We are foster parents to the other students who do not fall into these categories. Unlike the government, we are not irresponsible and insensitive to them. What we are doing is because of the students so that their future will be better.

It is not just about having a degree. The whole idea about the university is universal. When you talk about the university, the standard must be universal, the content must be universal, and we are saying the way the university in the country is presently constituted is not globally competitive, so that the future of those students will be secure and they will not waste their time in our universities. That is the essence of this struggle. So, it is for them and for their future that we must insist that the government must do the right thing and not compromise because of the pain that we feel due to the action of the Federal Government.

So, the students are equally our children, our members are part of them, our wives are part of them, and the other ones are our foster children. We are part of the critical mass you are referring to as students. We are not strangers to them. They live in our houses and they are part of us and we are part of the same struggle. What we are doing is also in their interest because like I said, university education is global and there is no sense in giving them a degree that is worthless, which the government is trying to do. We say no to that and we will continue to say no to that.

You are one of the members of the newly-formed committee set up by ASUU to counter an alleged smear campaign against the union. How does the committee intend to achieve this objective?

The establishment of committees by an organisation is an internal affair of the organisation. I will not be discussing the modalities of our committee or any other thing in the public domain.

But do you believe the committee can achieve this objective?

I have said I would not discuss my committee or the affairs of my union in the public.

How does ASUU intend to cover lost ground in the area of lecturing the students if the strike is eventually called off?

When you miss your schedule as a journalist, you know how you recover it. We are professionals; we are trained, and this is not ASUU’s first strike. Part of the problems we have in the system has always been situations like this. We are professionals and we know how to go about it. So, leave us to handle our beat like we have always been doing. I can assure you, covering lost ground will always be done.

What if the Federal Government sticks to its ‘No work, no pay’ policy, does that mean that students will not recover lost ground?

That is the question you need to ask the Federal Government because for us, it is an unnecessary diversion. If the Federal Government says it is not paying for work not done, ask the government how it wants the students to be taught. So, that should be the business of the Federal Government, not the business of ASUU, because we will do the right thing according to what is before us.

Is there any plan by ASUU to embrace other means of protest and jettison strike actions in order to protect the public university calendar?

The simple response is that strike is the last option of our union. This is an agreement of 2009 we are talking about renegotiating. I am sure you are aware that several times, we have issued press statements on several things we have done. You are also aware that this strike would have been declared way back in December last year, but because we have respect for the intervention of the National Inter-Religious Committee and several other interventions like that. So, asking whether ASUU will consider embracing other means of protest, I think ASUU is a strike-hungry and thirsty union, and that is the only option. We go on strike when the government forces us to be on strike. We’ve had three Memoranda of Action; 2017, 2019 and 2020. This shows understanding and patriotism. In the context of this strike, the government itself has set up two renegotiation committees, and the reports have been thrown away by the same government.

For once, I think our journalists and the general public owe Nigerians a responsibility to hold the government accountable. We should stop this situation whereby we have always been the victim. We are no slaves in this country; we are freeborn, and this is democracy. Why are people so shy or afraid of the government and not ready to speak truth to power? The government is being so reckless, so insensitive and wasting public funds. The government will enter into an agreement, it will not honour it, and rather than speak to the government, we choose to be victims. This mentality should be stopped by Nigerians and we need to be more forward-looking.

In the next few days now, they will start campaigning and begging us for votes. When they get there, they suddenly become our masters and some of us accept them as our masters. This is wrong and this is actually some of the problems we have in this country. Every other segment of the society succumbs to that, but ASUU as an intellectual aspect of this country will not and we shall not.

But some are of the view that you hardly follow your struggles in the past to the end and that is why the government is taking the union for a ride. What is your reaction to this?

It is the same public that will say that ASUU is not considerate and not showing understanding. So, what we have always done is to show that we are patriotic, to show that we understand and to show that this is not a kind of war between enemies, but we are actually supposed to be partners to see how we can collectively develop the country. That is why some people say we trust a lot. Yes, it is because of the same students you appeal for. These are the kind of sentiments that actually influence what we do. What that has shown is that our union is a patriotic union; our union is understanding and considerate, but it is only the government that has actually been irresponsible.

You once described the sexual harassment bill passed by the Senate as discriminatory and unfair to teachers and lecturers. Don’t you think such a position may put you in a bad light?

I will not want to go into that issue. If you want to take up the issue of sexual harassment, I will rather take on a different level. What we have now is the issue of the strike and the irresponsibility of the government. I will rather focus on that. If at any other forum, you want to discuss the issue of sexual harassment or any other thing, I will be free to discuss it without mixing it with the issue of the national strike.

More lecturers appear to be leaving the country to continue elsewhere. What can be done to stop the exodus of members of your union?

It is the same thing we are fighting for. Nigerian lecturers are one of the poorest paid lecturers anywhere in the world. To be a lecturer, you need to have a PhD, and to have a PhD, apart from your secondary school, you would have spent a minimum of four years in the university, a minimum of one or two years for your Master’s degree and another minimum of four years for your PhD. But you come out, and a Special Assistant to the President for an instance who does not even have more than a first degree, if he is lucky to have that, and all he does is to speak for the President and he will be paid more than a professor. We not only have the degrees I have highlighted, in fact, a professor who has maintained such a position in the last 10 years earns less than such an SA to the President. Is that not insulting? This within a context where before now, the only person that earns more than the Vice-Chancellor of a university is the Prime Minister of the country. But now, even councillors or Primary 6 dropouts earn more than a professor.

Is that what will keep a professor in the system? It is wrong to give Lecturer 2 N150,000 or N175,000 per month as salary; to do what? To buy ice cream or popcorn? So, you can’t wait; there are other options. Some of us are still here because of passion, not because we don’t have choices. Again, you work in an environment that you are not appreciated; you don’t have the tools of your work. In other climes, they vote funds for you to buy books for conferences. We use our money to buy books; we use our money to publish; we use our money to buy journals and things like that. Lecturers in this country subsidise education. It is that bad. Some people are tired of this and even our senior colleagues and those young colleagues are actually leaving in droves.

Except the government does the needful, fund public universities the way they should be funded and remunerate lecturers properly, lecturers will continue to leave the country. The salary we are being paid is the salary we have been receiving since 2009. What were the prices of goods in 2009 compared to now? Lecturers go to the same market like every other person. The issue now is that the government has deliberately decided to weaponise poverty among lecturers. If Nigerians are not asking questions, then the result will be brain drain.

The Federal Government is considering a 25 per cent salary increase for lecturers and 35 per cent salary increase for professors. Do you think this is enough for ASUU to call off the strike?

The issue about that is just simple. Whatever the government is doing, it is not doing it for ASUU. Way back in 1981, the issue was settled; collective bargaining. We don’t get awards in ASUU. Even in the private sector, when you go to these oil companies and other places like that, it is collective bargaining, and that is part of the slavish mentality. We are not slaves and workers anywhere in the world are not slaves. So, there has been a collective bargaining agreement, which we have been drawn up since 2012 based on the 2009 agreement.

This government has set up three reconciliation committees; the first one led by Wale Babalakin failed and did not deliver on its mandate; another by Munzali Jubril that finished its work in May last year, submitted its report to the government, but the government refused to do anything about it. It was not until the present strike that they decided to jettison that report and set up another committee – the Prof Nimi Briggs committee; that one has finished its assignment. The government shamefully and most irresponsibly threw the report into the dustbin, and you are asking us to take an award based on nothing. What happened on Tuesday is an indication that the government, having seen that they have scandalously failed, called vice-chancellors and pro-chancellors of federal universities to come and rescue them. So, for me, it is an SOS by the government for them to come and rescue them from the corner they have boxed themselves into.

What happened on Tuesday with the setting up of the 14-member committee to look into that report has actually vindicated our own position that the way to go is to go back to the Nimi Briggs renegotiated report. The issue of 25 per cent or 35 per cent has been consigned to the dustbin of history. It does not matter again because if it still matters, there will be no need to actually go and look at that report. It is a confirmation that the government was insensitive and unthinking by adopting that posture. So, anybody talking about that seems not to understand the importance of what happened on Tuesday.

There has been a shortfall in the number of professors in Nigerian universities. Are you worried about that?

It is the government that should be worried. If we are not worried, we will not be on strike. That is what we are saying. It is the same thing about brain drain. You are not attracting professors; the existing professors are retiring; people are leaving the system because they are poorly remunerated. You can’t create a professor in a day; you can’t even create a PhD holder in a day. It is the government that is not worried. It is because we are worried that we are on strike. It is the Federal Government and the Minister of Education that you should ask that question.

ASUU members are going through tough times, having not been paid for six months. How is the union helping to ameliorate their suffering?

That is our internal problem. We have our internal mechanism and you don’t expect me to be disclosing how we manage our problems. If the strike continues for two years, I can assure you that we will continue.

University autonomy is an issue that has been on the front burner. What is your view about it?

Just as Prof Jide Oshuntokun spoke recently, people mistake university autonomy to mean that the government should totally take their hands off funding of universities. No, the idea of university autonomy is that the universities and those who teach there should have the freedom to decide what they will teach, how they will teach and when they will teach. Yes, we are in search of truth, and when we see the truth, we should be able to defend it no matter whose ox is gored. If somebody out there will determine what I teach or what should be the truth or the nature of truth, then that is not it. That is the most primary thing about university autonomy. The issue about financial autonomy and things like that are secondary. It is just like a child you have not empowered and you are expecting a miracle from him. People cite examples of the United State of America, but during their stage of development, was the government not funding them?

When you talk about the US, most funds for research are from the government through one foundation or agency and things like that. It is the same in South Africa and the same all over the world. Who is funding research in Nigeria? Even the government, because of their looting, stealing and primitive accumulation, they will rather give contracts to foreigners rather than give them to Nigerians or even the universities. So, how will universities become financially autonomous? In China, for instance, and most sensible countries, foreign companies do their research locally. In Nigeria, foreign countries do their research abroad. We can get to that stage of university autonomy provided the government does the needful by funding public universities properly so that they can fly and do what they are expected to do like their counterparts in other parts of the world.