ASUU’s Quest for National Development: When Personal Service Supercedes National Service

Sani IDRIS

Making reference to advanced countries such as UK and US, is perhaps the commonest tradition by which Nigerian elites rationalize and concretize their analysis on core national issues. Anytime you watch TV stations or attend public fora where thorny issues are discussed and analyzed, hardly would you miss phrases like “if you go to countries like US, UK..” as a way of relating faulty systems to perfect systems. Most often however, we forget to make reference to one key element which is SACRIFICE that made these countries great and their systems formidable. Sacrifice for national growth and development is the only plug-in that is missing in Nigeria’s journey to greatness. For UK and US to be where they are today, some people had to make heavy sacrifices in defense of national interest long ago. This, up till today remains the greatest moral heritage the UK and US generations keep building upon to sustain national growth and to prevent trivial personal tendencies from exposing their countries’ systems to vulnerabilities.

In the year 2021, UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson breached COVID 19 social distancing protocol by attending a gathering of only 30 people for 25 minutes. This singular action hanged a capital question on the Prime Minister’s fitness and moral ground to continue holding public office. In response to this, an outspoken UK parliamentarian, Edward Divey wrote “Boris lied to Parliament and the country,.. he has become a threat to the health of our nation… it’s time for him to resign”. Minister of Health, Hon. Matt Hancock who was one of those who attended the illegal gathering apologized to the people of UK and resigned his appointment. This symbolized a hard choice between serving national interest and satisfying personal interest. Also, Minister of Justice felt rudely shocked and uncomfortable with the development, thus tendered a resignation statement as follows; “I can no longer serve in a government that disregard rule of law. Douglas Ross joined his fellow compatriots to signed out his ministerial position honorably. This sort of four-corner pressure model from executive, legislative, and judiciary members and the general public transmuted to impeachment threat which subsequently compelled the UK Prime Minister to resign no optionally. This is where true patriotism and selfless service to the nation is well understood and practiced. No doubt, the culture of putting national service far above personal service is the lifeblood that makes countries great. Albert Einstein supported thus “the World is not destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch the evil doers without doing anything”.

When Capitol inversion occured in 2021 under the watch and support of former US President, Donald Trump, Twitter and Facebook blocked his account to safeguard the democratic integrity of their country and to forestall physical chaos and political turmoil from befalling their nation. Then, a number of officials serving in Trump’s government including deputy National Security adviser and Transportation secretary; Alaine Chao parted way with the President to resign. In addition, US citizens took to the streets in a clear show of discomfort with the siege so as to defend the sanctity of their system. This is where the secret of greatness and prosperity lies. Certainly not through lip service treatment and unworthy loyalty. Unlike in Nigeria, citizens in advanced world are on constant readiness to hold office holders responsible for their actions in a very objective and positive manner. Most certainly due to their high level of enlightenment and understanding of what freedom really means. Plato reiterated, “If you do not take interest in the affairs of your government, then, you are doomed to live under the rule of fools”.

Looking through ASUU/FG industrial impasse as a case study, one can without any stress pinpoint many office holders who should have ordinarily resigned by now, if at all they occupy their offices to serve the nation with diligence and sincerity. Unfortunately, majority of Nigerians have a mentality of misconceiving a Call to national service as a call to serve a particular President or a party. Relevant to cite, is the case of Minister of Communication and Digital Economy who publicly described IPPIS as ineffective, very vulnerable to external manipulation and a supportive tool for siphoning national fund whereas, UTAS became the overall best in terms of effective performance, and user friendliness. Despite this factual outcome, the President rubbished national interest by not giving a go-ahead for the deployment of UTAS. Yet, neither Dr. Pantami, nor NITDA boss contemplate resignation as a gesture of true patriotism.

Back in 2013, the current Minister of education wrote in a very powerful article, I extracted “ASUU should not call off the strike until government agrees to do and does what is required (implementation of 2009 MoU)..instead of hectoring ASUU to call off the strike, Nigerians should pray for more of its kind in the other sectors of the economy”. Today, he is licking back his words shamelessly. The culture I refer to as betrayal of natural spirit. Greed and love for self-service will not make the education Minister see reason on the need to pay the supreme price in favor of national service. The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission; Prof. A.A. Rashid, knows pretty well the value of education and how it’s being deliberately mishandled and manhandled by the government he serves, yet he glues to his seat in disgrace and internal turmoil. The managing director of NTA whose institution is being used as a State tool to propagate falsehood at the detriment of national interest, would expectedly relieve off himself voluntarily from the position in protest against lack of independence for editorials and professional journalism. That, we have not seen. I deliberately refused to mention the likes of Minister of Labor and Productivity, Chris Ngige who by all ramifications lack moral standing to be in government. Rather, they should willingly submit themselves to nearby prison for various disservice atrocities they have committed to the nation.

As sad as it sounds, instead of Nigerians to witness mass resignation from all organs of government over several national embarrassments caused by this prolonged ASUU strike, lies and misinformation became the usual next-day meal ticket of Nigerian political appointees, mindless of the fact that, lies have a very short lifespan.

Former Prime Minister of UK; Winston Churchill stated ” a lie gets halfway around the world before the Truth had the chance to get its pants on”. Nonetheless, lie will keep running without reaching any destination untill Truth prepared itself well, outrun it and finally got relaxed in its destination within shortest possible time. Buddha theorized that, three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth. An African proverb further says, the flower of a lie can blossom heavily but cannot bear fruit. In a nutshell; liars end in shame and disgrace. Liars do not stand the test of time and do not enjoy the rest of their life. Period!

From the commencement of the current ASUU struggle to date (7months), different packages of lie were unsealed in order to tannish ASUU’s image, and to distract the focus of their members. But all ended in trash bin. This has been simply because ASUU advances and stands by the truth. Therefore, one can say that, neither media nor political power does ASUU has, only truth and knowledge bank. Not as twisted by rumor mongers, it’s very true that, ASUU doesn’t want strike until it becomes inevitably necessary.

I have attended several ASUU Zonal meetings which availed me with first hand knowledge on how ASUU averts looming strike actions especially for State – owned universities. Not for the intervention of ASUU, strike actions might keep rocking many State-owned Universities. On several occasions, applications for strike are turned down at Zonal level. In so doing, branches in the Zone will deliberate and suggest ways forward to the branches concerned on how best to engage thier visitors or managements for amicable resolution. Moreso, where the effort of the branches failed to yield fruitful outcome, Zone used to form powerful delegations to intervene through series of diplomatic engagements. The bottomline is, always, ASUU recognizes that, sincere intellectual engagement forms the bedrock for a win-win industrial conflict resolution. In such interphase, expectedly, parties are accorded plain ground to present true submission and make concessions where necessary for restoration of peace and harmony in the education industry. It’s on this note, I see the need to clear air on public misperception on ASUU’s love for strike, through development of a comparative analysis preferably in graphical form of Days spent on engagements vis-a-vis Days spent on strikes for people to appreciate the untold sacrifice of ASUU members. It’s never arguable that ASUU’s love for education is extremely pragmatic.

As hinted by Maximilian Robespierre, the secret of freedom lies in educating people whereas the secret of tyranny lies in keeping them ignorant. Perhaps, this explains why our political class witch-hunts education in order to keep majority of Nigerian populace in a state of perpetual ignorance. Ignorant people can’t judge and if they do, they will do it wrongly. How do you expect ex-NANS’s president who confuses Crack and Quack to judge who is wrong or right in ASUU/FG feud? In Nigeria, due to lack of sound education, large number of those interested in politics know little or nothing about freedom, civic rights and privileges, patriotism, and emancipation terminologies which signals existence of a fundamental problem.

Most often, I don’t bother when salary payment is stopped due to my belief that, academics are at the best position to partake in a rescue mission for the country’s education system. I usually become trigger-happy and encouraged when I see Professors who have just one or two years to hit retirement age taking front seat in all ASUU struggles. These are erudite scholars who stand to benefit little from the struggle, yet, sacrifice so much to salvage the system from total rot and imminent collapse. What then will stop young and mid career academics like me from following suite? This onerous legacy of Knowledge, Truth and Service bequeathed to us is worth upholding so tightly. I neither regret nor apologize for my active participation in ASUU strike action. It is a service to the nation.

Sani IDRIS
sanidris2000@gmail.com
Department of Soil Science, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria-Nigeria