Why ASUU Strike Is For Benefit Of The Poor, Needy

For many years, the ideological nature of political struggle in Nigeria has been systematically suppressed by the press. When Nigeria politics is written about, it is in misleadingly crude terms of power struggles between political parties—usually the All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic Party and (very recently) the Labour Party. Or sometimes, the reportage is about individual personalities—Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi—or the economic problems (hunger, poverty, disease, joblessness, soaring energy prices and lack of access to quality education, among others) supposedly caused by poor leadership.

As a matter of fact, such strands of politics, reported by the Nigerian media, are mere subplots in the battle between a backwards-looking regime, erected on the structures of shameful revisionism, corruption, denial of truth and unpatriotic divisiveness on the one hand, and the nationalists and intellectual workers headed by Academic Staff Union of Universities on the other. It is important to state from the outset that this latter group (led by ASUU) is acting as a check on the increasing gross inequality between the bourgeoisie and the 90% of the Nigerian population who are peasants and urban workers.

Straight to the point. The Federal Government has over the years treated ASUU so monstrously. From the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida to the democratic administration of Olusegun Obasanjo, to that of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to Goodluck Jonathan and now Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), it has been the same farcical drama of sham, indifference and disdain. Promises were made but not fulfilled, negotiations began and were stopped only to begin again and stop. For the past three decades, no Nigerian leader has dealt with the ASUU/FG agreement seriously, sincerely, honestly and honourably. From 1992 to date, the rot in the university system has continued unabated; from 1992 to date the university teachers have embarked on several warning strikes and sometimes indefinite strikes all in an attempt to press the government to tread the path of honour by respecting its promises.

Now, one can understand why since 1992 the university has been the target of government animosity. On February 14, this year, ASUU embarked on yet another warning strike reminding the Federal Government to honour the terms of the renegotiated 2009 agreement which, among other things, include IPPS vs UTAS, payment of EAA, Revitalisation Fund, release and implementation of Visitation Panel reports. Lamentably, instead of addressing these issues faithfully and honestly, the government opted for its usual mischievous and malicious tactic of hiring its cronies and acolytes like Festus Keyamo, Chris Ngige and Adamu Adamu to blackmail ASUU.

In Nigeria, as in other parts of the world, our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous battle between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those forces determined to dismantle it. It is these two forces that are in conflict every day and everywhere. They are with us in schools, in offices, at the market, in the churches/mosques and even in our homes. In simple terms, there are two classes in society: the rich and the poor, the ruler and the ruled. ASUU, as a union, is made up of a breed of university scholars who are bright, confident, original, honest and whose simple lifestyle is a stunning contrast to the dominant imported culture associated with Nigerian leaders who are the oppressors. In other words, ASUU is the only body in Nigeria that fits the honest, anti-imperialist intellectual, who is armed and prepared to fight, in a certain measure, for the elimination of injustice and the mass participation of the people in the ordering of public affairs.

It could easily be perceived that only the intellectual has the capacity to put Nigeria first, to love Nigeria and insist that education is a right and not a privilege. It is only the intellectual that has faith in the capacity of the people to change their lives, to demonstrate that people are subjects and not just passive objects of development, to insist on certain minimum professional ethics and democratic principles, to reject a society based on corruption, to reject the rule of fear, to reveal that the children of ordinary peasants and workers have a right to free education, to insist that it is the primary responsibility of any responsible government to provide education for all its citizens. But over and above all, it is the duty of the intellectual to criticise the policy of privatisation of education and the whole program of looting and plundering of our commonwealth.

This strike has demonstrated abundantly that the government has deliberately refused to live up to its primary responsibility of providing education for its citizens. Also, the strike has revealed that ASUU is the messiah and deliverer by insisting that education should be a right and not a privilege. In this regard, ASUU has assumed the unassailable position of the champion of the poor, or better still, the voice of the voiceless. A strike for that matter is not a crime, it is just a resultant product of discontentment or intense provocation. The motive for embarking on a strike is to effect a positive change in an unacceptable condition. In this regard again, ASUU is speaking on behalf of all students, artisans, cobblers, market women, farmers and carpenters—the oppressed members of the Nigerian society.

The ongoing ASUU strike has revealed the intolerable gap that exists between the rich and the poor. The strike has shown that there is education and prospects of a good life for the rich but only hunger, poverty and ignorance for the poor.

Leo Tolstoy, that famed Russian writer, once wrote that ‘the only thing necessary in life as in art is to tell the truth’. But here is the real difficulty: truth itself is a very expensive gift which you can hardly find among cheap people. Those who stand for the truth (like ASUU) are not cheap people, they are brave and courageous people who also serve as the conscience of society. Some people cannot hold onto the truth because they are afraid of the iron hand of the ruling class. Yet, others shy away from the truth because they have sold their conscience for pecuniary rewards. Perhaps, a recent example from the media would be insightful. There is a media friend, Farooq Kperogi. I believe strongly that he needs some education about truth-telling. When the current ASUU strike began in February this year, he sensationally threw his weight behind it. But just some weeks ago he made a quick U-turn. His action is not surprising, though it is amazing, because in Nigeria when people criticise (like Kperogi, Keyamo and Adamu) they are only drawing attention to themselves so that they could be given a chance to join the looting. As soon as a Nigerian critic grows rotund from the fat of the land, he abandons the working class and joins forces with the oppressor. Kperogi’s recent essay entitled, ‘ASUU Call off this Strike Now’, is the clearest example of a dozen untruths flowing from the pen of a writer in this modern era. Needless to say that the essay is also the grossest falsehood and the cheapest propaganda. But, most importantly, the essay shows that Kperogi has acquired the dog’s facility for throwing up and returning again to eat vomit.

Undeniably, the ASUU strike has the potential to unite both the lecturers, students and parents; the strike has the capacity to persuade Nigerians to be more organised, to resist bad governance and tyranny on a scale they had never before attempted.

And from all indications, the strike has brought out those aspects in Nigerians: resistance, solidarity, courage, defiance and outright rejection of misrule. This is as much as to say that the strike has the capacity to determine who becomes Nigeria’s helmsman in 2023. And since the contours of both life and poverty are the same in Nigerian cities and villages, since only a few can eat while the majority squirm in poverty, since some few privileged children can go to school while the majority cannot, people, peasants and workers are already organised in their villages and cities and will refuse to be cowed by a backwards-looking regime. All Nigerians united by the strike should now be courageously calling for power to the people.

It is left to be said that there is no weapon equal to the tenacity of purpose and holding firmly to its principles. ASUU is sending the message that let us draw strength from the hopes of tomorrow and refuse to perish in the darkness of today. But more than that, the ongoing strike is meant to show that freedom can never be given voluntarily by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Doki is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Head, Department of English at the University of Jos; 08034529344