ASUU v FG and the Ezeulu metaphor

It is incredible that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has gone on strike 15 times since 1999. That should be some kind of Guinness World Record or something.

Yet, here we are, 50 years since the first university strike  in Nigeria (according to the Committee of Vice Chancellors). Yet again we are caught up in a long, intractable war of attrition between the federal government and ASUU.

This one has lasted over 200 days already and based on reports in the papers today, it seems far from over. The government has offered a 35 per cent salary increase for university professors and some N150 billion in next year’s budget for the “revitalisation of universities.” There is another N50 billion to offset deferred salaries and allowances. The ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke told the government to take the offer, roll it into a scroll and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. As far as he is concerned, the union will only agree if the government signs the agreement that has already been on the ground.

So where does that leave us? Well, two million Nigerian students hanging on the wings, their lives put on hold, in a freezer without electricity. Inevitably, that life will stink and it has already if the Concerned Alumni of Nigerian Universities (CANU) are to be believed. They claim that the continued closure of universities has led to an increase in prostitution, banditry, and other crimes. Whatever data they used to come to that conclusion is not immediately evident but the statement is out there.

This tussle between the FG and ASUU is like watching Ezeulu of Chinua Achebe’s finest novel, Arrow of God wrestling himself in the mirror. It is now a contest of obduracy between the two parties. ASUU unrelenting, the FG almost nonchalant. How will this end?

Well, in Arrow of God, Ezeulu, the chief priest of the deity, Ulu feels slighted by the people of Umuoro, where he presides. He feels that he and the deity he serves are not getting enough respect from the people of the villages. When he is invited by the colonial officers and, against the dictate of tradition, was persuaded by the villagers to go, he finds himself detained by the white man for days. Days in which the people did not create chaos and demand the release of their chief priest.

Yet, upon his release, Ezeulu returns home to a warm welcome but that was not enough for him. He decided to make the villagers pay, for sending him to the white man and for not being in more reverence of him and his deity. And when it is time to give the villagers the blessing to harvest their yams, Ezeulu deters. There are sacred yams he hadn’t finished eating yet because he was detained by the white man so the villagers had to wait. The chaos! Crops will rot on the farm and there will be hunger, the people pleaded. Determined to exercise his power, Ezeulu dug in. The villagers must wait. For him, it was not his pride, he was serving but the pride of his deity.

In the end, Ezeulu’s son suffers a sudden death and the villagers, turned to the new Christian faith for the blessing to harvest their crop without consequences from the deities.

What has that got to do with ASUU and the FG, you ask? Well, the issue is this: the longer Ezeulu held out to fight his fight, the more he lost his devotees. He ended up a broken man of a broken god.

No matter how this strike  is resolved, both ASUU and the FG have suffered losses they cannot recover from. Already, there have been reports of some state universities breaking away from ASUU’s directive. I suspect the longer the action goes on, the more fragmented the union will become. There is such a thing as activism fatigue after all.

That aside, already, dozens of university professors have lost interest and faith and have either left the country or are fixing to leave. The impact is far more significant than we are ready to accept. Already, standards at our universities have been low for quite a while and there has been a shortage of quality academics. Now, to lose this number of intellectuals within this time frame, with no replacements lined up, will further damage the education system that ASUU is fighting to salvage.

That is where the government suffers its losses as well. That its mission to improve the education system in the country, if it ever actually had one, has suffered a momentous setback, effectively derailing that buzzword for the government and the ruling party. But more importantly, for officials like the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who has not covered himself in glory in this long-drawn-out episode, the loss of value will be huge. Does that matter in the long run?

With regards to this government, perhaps not. It would seem that a succession of Nigerian governments have as much regard for education as vandals would have for art and the aesthetic. ASUU’s strike is like an angry house owner threatening vandals with torching a priceless piece of art. It makes little impact.

Fifty years since the first university strike and countless strikes  since then have not brought about the desired reaction from the government. The biggest victims have been the students and the system they are fighting for.

While the government claims the economy cannot sustain ASUU’s demands, the truth is that the government finds resources for the things it cares about. For instance, there is always money to pay the high salaries of senior politicians in government and more than enough to loot, there will always be state money being diverted to elections. INEC for instance, has a budget of N305 billion for the 2023 elections. The FG has offered only half of that to “revitalise” the 43 federal universities in the country. Not to talk of the N1.4 billion it used to purchase vehicles for neighbouring Niger Republic to tackle its own insecurity situation.

If the government can justify spending N37 billion on renovating the roof of the National Assembly building in Abuja, how much does it think N150 billion will go into getting 43 federal universities to a reasonable standard?

The truth, sadly, is that education is not a priority for the government. Otherwise, how would one justify the huge disparity in the pay package of professors and politicians or Nigerian professors and their counterparts elsewhere?

Regardless, compromises must be made from both sides to get students back on campus and have their lives back on track. Both ASUU and the FG will do well to remember that sometimes giving ground is the best way to go and sometimes holding your ground and winning will still kill you.

The Siege of Candia for instance demonstrates this. In 1648, 60,000 Ottoman soldiers besieged the city of Candia over an offence, a slight on Ottoman pride. The siege lasted 21 years at the end of which Candia completely capitulated. The Ottoman Empire won but the cost of that siege was too much for it that it led to the collapse of the empire.

The Ezeulu of ASUU and the FG must decide if that is a price they are both willing to pay.