Tag: ASUU

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Criminalising adjunct lecturing: UI’s former VC says ‘This sad phase shall soon pass’

UI VC, Olayinka

Prof. Idowu Olayinka, a former Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, has said it is wrong to criminalise adjunct lecturing.

He underscored the importance of adjunct lecturership to the development of departments in the Nigerian university system.

According to him, the indiscriminate rise against the culture is ‘a sad phase that will soon pass.’

Olayinka made this assertions in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Monday.

According to him, people speak at times, either out of ignorance or mischief and there is often the temptation to over generalised this issue of adjunct or visiting lecturership.

“I am amused when I read some comments which suggest an attempt to criminalise the matter of Adjunct or Visiting Lecturership in our universities.

“A fundamental question to ask is how many academics are engaged in this.

“The truth is that when an Academic Department is first established, it is not likely to have the full compliments of academic staff.

“It is natural for such a new Department to rely on outstanding scholars from sister universities for assistance.

“The Department can then start to gradually build up her own crop of full-time Faculty. Over time the need for Adjunct/Visiting Faculty would decrease gradually,” Olayinka said.

He said, even at that there might still be need to invite reputable scholars from other famous sister institutions to spend some times as visiting scholars in a bid to ground the established department and set it on proper footing.

“For example, the New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate, has just appointed Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as Arts Professor of Theatre.

“The Laureate is expected to play a key role in building the university’s deep strength within the arts and its growth as a preeminent research and teaching university and a world-class leader in global higher education,” he said.

Citing his personal experience, Olayinka recalled how he assisted a sister Federal University in the early 1990s.

“I was approached to serve as a visiting lecturer and I accepted the offer. I did that to the best of my ability for about three years.

“As we speak, the Department can boast of at least seven full professors, most of whom I had the privilege to teach during the period under reference.

“They are happily now established academics in their own rights. Reality is that the department doesn’t need me as a visiting lecturer again,” Olayinka said.

The former VC said that the country could also learn from other jurisdictions.

“I pursued my MSc Geophysics at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London in the early 1980s soon after the completion of my BSc from the highly regarded University of Ibadan.

“As of that time, the Geophysics programme at Imperial College was considered to be the largest of its type in Western Europe in terms of academic staffing and students’ enrolment.

“Yet, among the Faculty that taught my Class some highly specialised courses were about four drawn from some other University of London colleges and oil companies. That is the best of academic traditions.

“We do not have to throw the baby out with the bath water. This sad phase shall soon pass.

“In spite of our problems, we should not take the universe out of our universities,” Olayinka said.

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Still on Adamu Adamu’s defence of ASUU in 2013

FG awards provisional licences to 20 new private universities
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu

Dear Prof Tony Afejuku

By

Prof Ibrahim Bello-Kano

Dear Prof T.A. I read your column piece several times, and wondered, as you did, why the Honourable (let’s assume) Adamu Adamu, the Minister for Education, behaved towards ASUU the way he did. You did refer to his 2013 strong defence of ASUU strikes in which he called the striking lecturers “heroes and patriots” and a bulwark for a strong University System. Social theorists seek to explain why, in a given micro setting, someone is doing something or why someone is behaving or has behaved in a particular way, especially when that act or behaviour was, or could be, surprising or shocking to those who thought or think that they knew or know him pretty well enough as to not expect him to behave in such a way or manner. In the case of Adamu Adamu, one could ask whether he was behaving stupidly or maliciously or vengefully. Many people thought that Adamu Adamu would do better than Chris Ngige, given the fact of his previous positive attitude to ASUU and that he it was who set up the very Prof. Nimi Briggs Committee that was charged with negotiating with ASUU, for example. How would one explain what you, Prof TA, have/has called his “choleric reticence”? One possible explanation is this: when Adamu Adamu praised ASUU to the heavens in 2013, he was virtually broke and, in any case, unemployed. He was then a “radical” of sorts, typical of dyspectic traditionalist radicals in northern Nigeria. The North of Nigeria is still largely a feudal, proto-peasant community, where what Nietzsche would call “romantic critics of tradition” abound. Yet upon joining the ruling elite, and having been a minister for almost eight years, Adamu Adamu’s psychology has had to change. He’s now in a new cultural, political and economic setting, defined by privilege and insoucient entitlement. He’s now a confidant of the President of the country. He could jet in and out of Nigeria at will and at the expense of the State. He was gravely ill for a time and would have died but for state medical privilege. In this sense, Adamu Adamu’s hostile behaviour and action towards ASUU are typical of hitherto relatively poor individuals who are now, thanks to good luck or some good fortune, beneficiaries of social and economic parasitism. In this sense, Adamu would naturally see his role as the defender and preserver of official state policy, the Government’s Warrior in Shining Armour, despite his previous personal history and humble origins. Privilege is the flip side of economic parasitism. That’s why Adamu Adamu had to see ASUU as the “enemy within”. The second possible explanation is that, perhaps Adamu Adamu wanted to offer something reasonable for ASUU. One clue is that he did say, at an inter-ministerial meeting with the President on the strike issue, that ASUU were “patriots”. However, soon after that Adamu realised that there were other vested interests that hatched behind his back, and felt hopeless and caged and isolated in regards to the official state policy on the strike. Here, all we can say, if this explanation is plausible, is that Adamu Adamu could not live up to his moral or ethical beliefs and standing. We call this his moral failure, a kind of moral cowardice since he could not stand up for his feelings and sense of what is right or wrong in this particular context. Third, perhaps Adamu’s sudden and last minute aggressive and ill-considered attitude towards ASUU may have been caused by the strident criticisms of his failure to be at the top of the situation. Many commentators called him “sloth”, “heavy”, and “weak” in the light of his slow rising to the situation. Perhaps Adamu Adsmu felt he must assert his “macho” and “power” over a recalcitrant ASUU. Whatever explanation is plausible, Adamu Adamu stands condemned for his handling of the situation. Perhaps he lacks intuitive intelligence in these matters, having been inserted in a new and profitable official position. His former radical religious and moral personality has been dimmed by office-holding and the privileges that that has brought into his personal life and psychological identity. There’s no question that Adamu Adamu has ruined or damaged his preputation as a moral agent, at least in the eyes of a large number of Nigerians. Clearly, then, Adamu Adamu felt that ASUU was a minor irritant, who should be begging the Government and not bargaining with it. Yet it also entirely possible that in his new privileged position as a functionary of the State, he cannot stand a lowly Trade Union standing up to the Government and the mythical figure of Buhari as the President, a man who sees “enough is enough” as applicable only to ASUU’s activist stance on Education. It’s also possible that Adamu Adamu has now got an anemic view of lecturer renumeration. Years of his Principal’s policies of marketisation and other neo-liberal management of the economy must have convinced Adamu Adamu that the lecturers don’t need or deserve higher salaries. The measly N60k he offered to Professors at the bar says volumes about the mindset of Adamu Adsmu and the President, who’s reputed to despise workers being (seen to be) affluent. Adamu Adamu may have shared this view, too. In a few months, Adamu Adamu would be out of office, out of continuing privilege, and out of official decision making, at least in a direct sense. Without a doubt, his legacy is one of unbridled assault on Collective Bargaining. But as Mick Lynch, the general sectary of the British RMT Union said late last year, “If You’re Not Bargaining, You’re Begging”. The irony of it all is that, Adamu Adamu and Cohorts will be gone while ASUU will be here for a long, long time. Ibrahim Bello-Kano.

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KWASU to ASUU: We are not a quack university

The Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, says the institution is founded on the vision of advancing the frontiers of knowledge for the good of society and not a quack university.

The KWASU Director, University Relations, Dr Saeedat Aliyu, said this in a statement on Friday in Ilorin.
Aliyu was reacting to statements credited by the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, in his recent media outing on the ongoing strike by the association.
Osodeke labeled KWASU, among some other state owned institutions in Nigeria as “quacks” and “irrelevant” for refusing to join the industrial action.

”KWASU Management considers these statements as undeserving of an academic of Prof. Osodeke’s purported status.
”One who should know better than to denigrate institutions of higher learning for one reason that is unrelated to any factor used to measure the standard of institutions anywhere in the world.

”His statements are tantamount to bullying, they are reckless, uncalled for and a denigration of the status he occupies as national head of the union of academic staff in Nigeria,” Aliyu said.
She added that KWASU was the first public university in Nigeria to extend higher education curriculum to include equipping students with entrepreneurship skills to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
”KWASU is also the leading university which focuses on communities with the aim of solving challenges they face while helping to develop these communities.

”Currently, we are the only university in Nigeria going green in her thinking and activities as proactive measures to save the environment.
”All these reflect in our mantra of ‘the green University for Community Development and Entrepreneurship’.
”Again, we are the first institution in Nigeria to mount Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering as a forward thinking move to develop human capacity for the nation’s aeronautic and astronautic needs,” she said.
The director explained that many of KWASU’s ideas are being replicated by many other institutions which Osodeke eulogised in his uncritical statements.

She added that KWASU has all of its academic programmes accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and requisite professional regulatory bodies.
”As an institution founded barely thirteen years ago, KWASU has made a name for itself as a University which focuses on breaking new grounds,” Aliyu said.

She therefore called for a retraction of what she described as abominable statement and a published apology to KWASU forthwith from Osodeke.
According to her, the institution will not be quiet in the face of slanderous accusations made against its very existence and contributions

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We never asked parents to donate N10,000 each to ASUU – PTA

ASUU President Prof. Osodeke

There is more drama in the confusion beclouding university education in Nigeria as the Parent Teachers Association of Nigeria has denied asking parents of children in universities to pay N10, 000 each as contribution to ending the lingering strike by lecturers.

The PTA National President, Alhaji Danjuma Haruna, dismissed the claim in a statement made available to journalists on Friday in Kaduna.

“We are not involved in any statements related to paying money to ASUU for them to call off the ongoing strike.

“Our stand since the inception of the strike is for both ASUU and Federal Government to come to an agreement to end the strike, but not to contribute money to pay ASUU,” Haruna said.

He said the PTA believed that negotiation remained the best option of resolving the six months old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The PTA president, therefore, appealed to the federal government and ASUU to as a matter of urgency reach an agreement, because the strike had affected millions of students and their lecturers in many ways.

Haruna also called on the federal government to urgently rescue all kidnapped secondary school students across the country that were still in the hands of bandits.

The PTA president said it was disheartening that students of Federal Government College Birnin Yauri have remained in captivity for over 400 days.

Meanwhile, the National President, Foundation for the Protection of Women and Children in Nigeria, Hajiya Ramatu Tijjani has urged parents to monitor the movement of their children, who are on holidays.

Tijjani also said parents should monitor the social media platforms and television contents watched by the children, to ensure that it would not affect their morality.

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Buhari’s government is blessed with wrong people in right places – ASUU

Buhari

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has described has again hit the Federal Government over the way it is handling the ongoing strike.

It said it was a government blessed with wrong people in right places, withthe indication that the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, is among such.

The allegation is contained in a statement jointly signed by the Chairman, Muhammad Sani Gaya and Secretary, Murtala Muhammad of ASUU, Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil.

According to the lecturers, the FG is sout tocompletely destroy education.

They averred;
“We are prepared and determined to continue enduring the torture and negative media campaign against our struggle in order to liberate ourselves, the young and upcoming generations of Nigerians from the deliberate efforts to deny them access to quality and affordable education.

‘’Indeed, education is the only weapon that can change society, denying our youth education is akin to destroying the nation. The intention of the FG to destroy university education in Nigeria should be vehemently resisted.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the union is resolute, determined, focused and ready to continue the struggle in order to salvage the Nigerian public universities from imminent collapse.

‘’Unfortunately, the FG is blessed with enough wrong people at the right places. Irritably, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, is badly informed of the university system and dilettante with the primary duties of an academic staff. The public may note that based on laws establishing universities, an academic staff is employed to teach, conduct research and render community service. So, when ASUU embarked on strike, only the teaching component stopped, thus, the issue of imposing “no work no pay” doesn’t rightly and legally apply to academic staff.

“As a body of intellectuals, our union demands repositioning of our universities for greater efficiency in national development and technological advancement.

“Also, massive and sustained funding for our universities; a reversal of apparent decay in the university system; and, enhanced and competitive remuneration for overworked academic staff in Nigerian universities.

“Nigerians should join ASUU to ask the Federal Government to tow the path of honour by respecting the agreement it freely entered with our union.”

‘’It is paradoxical to note that while the government has acknowledged the demands of ASUU as genuine and patriotic, yet the FG under the stewardship of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) has shown lack of political will, nonchalance and ill-intention towards salvaging the University System from imminent collapse arising from the comatose created by the above highlighted issues.’’

‘’It is quite disheartening that ASUU, this time, is dealing with an insincere and dishonest FG that claims to be fighting corruption but is surrounded by corrupt elements whose major preoccupation is denying the citizenry reasonable living standard and quality education.”

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Many Nigerian undergraduates still pay N90 for accommodation and you expect their mattresses not to have bedbugs – Professor

Adeyemo

A seasoned academic, Professor Olanike Adeyemo, has highlighted the contradiction in the funding of universities in Nigeria.

Such contradictions has almost paralysed the system, with public universities currently shut due to strike by lecturers.

According to her, it is stra ge that there are still universities where students pay as low as N90 annually for hostel accommodation.

In an interview with ‘Saturday Punch’, the Professor of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Ibadan says:

“This will happen when the government stops deceiving the people that we can have free tertiary education. If you go to Technical University (Ibadan) now, it is on because it is a hybrid school. It is like a semi-public and semi-private university. I sit on the governing council there. The cost of getting a Harvard education is about $80,000 a year. That is huge if you convert it to naira and that is why you will keep seeing brain drain. It pays the UK to take our doctors because the cost of training a doctor in the UK is huge. That is why our doctors and other professionals are leaving the country every day.

“At UI, the cost of generating electricity is almost N1 billion a year. A former vice chancellor wrote an article where he said the subvention was N150 million and that is even grossly inadequate to pay electricity bills alone. And in universities in Nigeria, some still pay maybe N90 a year for accommodation and you expect their mattresses not to have bedbugs. It is not possible. What we have in public universities is very unrealistic. Education cannot be free anywhere in the world.”

Adeyemo is the Deputy Vice Chancellor of research, innovation and strategic partnership, the first person to attain the role at the university. Olanike’s research focuses on aquatic and wildlife epidemiology and toxicology, food safety (including fish food safety), global public health, aquatic toxicology, and aquatic veterinary medicine.

Adeyemo is the first female veterinarian to be inducted into the African Academy of Sciences and the Nigerian Academy of Science.

In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program[5] and in 2002 she was named a Fellow of the Leadership for Environment and Development program in the UK. In 2010, she was named a Fellow of the African Scientific Institute (California, USA) and listed in ASI’s 2011 edition of “Black Achievers in Science and Technology. In 2011, Adeyemo was appointed an epidemiological and toxicological expert on the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee (JECFA). In 2012, she was named a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. In 2016, she was named a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science. In 2019 she was named a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries, and Fellow at the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Pollution Mitigation

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FG is adding just N60,000 to professor’s salary – ASUU

ASUU President Prof. Osodeke

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has revealed the amount the Federal Government is adding to salaries of professors.

It gives the amount as N60,000 for the most senior, which, it says, is even promissory as the FG allegedly puts it in 2023 budget.

The zonal coordinator of ASUU, Port Harcourt zone, Stanley Ogoun, reveals this in a statement on Friday.

This reads:

“Nigerians should be aware of offers the so-called minister came up with. These are: (a) 170 billion naira for revitalisation in the 2023 budget; (b) a promise to increase by N60,000 the salary of a professor at the bar in next year’s budget; (c) no statement on the amendment of the National University Commission Act gathering dust at the National Assembly (d) payment of two tranches of outstanding Earned Academic Allowance in next year’s budget; (d) a promise to adopt the University Transparency and Accountability Solution; and (e) another promise to release the white papers.”
Speaking further in the statement, Ogoun said, “Imagine the level of deceitfulness by the minister! A promise to fulfill demands in an election year? We did not embark on strike for over six months geared towards improving our public universities only to come back with mere promissory notes from a government that is notorious for reneging on agreements. I’m sure Nigerians would not forgive us.

“On the issue of withheld salaries, and the claim that we do not deserve the salaries. We challenge the government to prove if the unproductive staff of our moribund refineries and other agencies of similar nature are not being paid. They should also justify why unproductive politicians that are responsible for the current comatose state of Nigeria are receiving humongous salaries and allowances. For the avoidance of doubt, teaching is only one of the assignments we undertake as lecturers. It only earns a candidate, going for promotion, a maximum of one point per year. Research and community service are the core requirements for promotion.

“The current move by the Federal Government to jettison the principle of collective bargaining and reduce our Union’s objective and patriotic struggle to revamp and reposition public universities in Nigeria to mere award of miserly salaries, ranging from N30,000 to N60,000 is unacceptable to us.”

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Varsity closure: Read ASUU’s new statement on FG’s offer

ASUU President Prof. Osodeke

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has issued another statement rejecting the salary package the Federal Government just offered.

Here is the statement by ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke:

“The major reason given by the Federal Government for the miserly offer, paucity of revenue, is not tenable. This is because of several reasons chief of which is poor management of the economy. This has given rise to leakages in the revenue of governments at all levels.

“There is wasteful spending, misappropriation of funds, and outright stealing of our collective patrimony. ASUU believes that if the leakages in the management of the country’s resources are stopped, there will be more than enough to meet the nation’s revenue and expenditure targets without borrowing and plunging the country into a debt crisis as is the case now.

“The Munzali Jibril-led renegotiation committee submitted the first Draft Agreement in May 2021 but the government’s official response did not come until about one year later! Again, Award presented by the Nimi Briggs-led Team came across in a manner of take-it-or-leave-it on a sheet of paper. No serious country in the world treats their scholars this way.

“Rejecting a salary package arrived at through collective bargaining is a repudiation of government’s pronouncements on reversing “brain drain”. It is common knowledge that, more now than in the 1980s and 1990s, Nigerian scholars, especially in scarce areas like science and medicine, are migrating in droves to Europe, America and many parts of Africa such as South Africa, Rwanda, and Ghana with supportive environment to ply their trades as well as competitive reward systems for intellectual efforts. Does the Nigerian government care about what becomes of public universities in another five or ten years if this trend continues?

“one of such recommendations is the tax on cellphone and communication lines. Ironically, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning recently announced its readiness to implement ASUU’s recommendation, as a revenue

“Reversal of the decay in the Nigerian University System, in order to reposition it for its responsibilities in national development; Reversal of the brain drain, not only by enhancing the remuneration of academic staff but also by disengaging them from the encumbrance of a unified civil service wage structure; Restoration of Nigerian Universities, through immediate, massive and sustained financial intervention; and Ensuring genuine university autonomy and academic freedom.”

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College of Education lecturers suspend strike as ASUU remains adamant

COVID-19: Nigeria gets $15m grant for safe school reopening
Education Minister, Adamu Adamu

The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union,(COEASU) lecturers have suspended their ongoing strike for a period of 60 days.

But the Academic Staff Union of University says its strike remains valid, with its leadership saying the Federal Government is insincere in its claim on resolving the impasse.

University students have been at home for most part of this year.

But the suspension of the colleges of education staff strike is contained in a state signed by their President, Dr Smart Olugbeko and Dr Ahmed Bazza, General Secretary of the union on Friday in Abuja.

The union said the suspension followed “enormous progress” made at the ongoing renegotiation with the Federal Government.

Olugbeko said the decision to suspend the strike was taken at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja, to re-assess the status of issues leading to the three-week roll-over of the national strike.

According to him, as evident in the enormous progress made at the ongoing renegotiation and the appreciable level of progress made towards the amendment of the Colleges of Education Establishment Act, which is paramount for the development of the COE system.

“NEC resolved that the nationwide strike that started on June 10, be suspended for a cool-off-period of 60 days.

“This is to give the government the opportunity to perfect the progress made so far into tangible achievements that are acceptable to the union.

”After which the NEC shall reconvene to re-assess the status of the issues and decide the way forward, ”he said.

He therefore commended critical stakeholders for their intervention and dogged commitment to the resolution of the issues.

Olugbeko also said NEC decried the high level of insecurity in the country, as evident with the increase in the spate of kidnapping, banditry, killings and other social vices.

“NEC, therefore, calls on governments at all levels to address the situation more proactively by beefing up security on all campuses.

“As the system is being reopened for teaching and learning, and across the nation in general, ’’he said.

The union president, therefore, commended the Government of Imo, Kwara, Osun, and Oyo towards the resolution of the lingering issues in their respective colleges of education.

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Students on ASUU strike: ‘Our house rent expires during the strike and most landlords do not care’

President Muhammadu Buhari

Some students on Tuesday lamented the economic losses they are suffering, apart from the academic, due to the strike by their lecturers.

They called on the Federal Government to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) following its four weeks extension.

They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, that meeting their demands would bring an end to the lecturers ongoing strike.
.

They said the incessant strike was inappropriate for the education sector, adding that, it had stalled the academic performance and progress of many students.

Victory Adebowale, a student, said that the extension of the ongoing strike was disheartening, saying that the strike had lasted for too long and had affected Nigerian students negatively.

According to him, the Federal Government and ASUU have had enough negotiations within the last five months, adding that the extension would further subject students to depression.

Adebolwale said that embarking on strike tended to keep students in school for more than the supposed estimated period of academic session.

“Our house rent expires during the strike and most landlords do not care, some students might lose interest in academic activities following the “Yahoo Yahoo’’ trend which is now rampant in the society.

“They might at the end of the day, see schooling as a waste of time and that schooling is a scam” he said.

Ruth Essanse, another student, said she was not really being affected by the ongoing strike as it came during her industrial attachment programme.

She said that the extension of the strike by the union was to give the government and ASUU enough time to deliberate on possible ways of solving the issues of strike.

Essanse urged the Federal Government to sign the 2009 renegotiated agreement, aimed at improving universities’ teaching and learning outcomes, saying that the ongoing strike was due to lack of attention on the universities.

Mr James Mutudi, a student said extending the strike was to draw the attention of stakeholders and the Federal Government in meeting the needs of ASUU.

She said the industrial action had also affected both students and lecturers, adding that many lecturers had resolved into doing menial job to provide for their families.

“I feel so sad spending extra one month after the five months strike. The Government has failed us, they don’t care about our future and our educational sector,” he said.

Mutudi, therefore, advised fellow students to use the strike period for skills acquisition or business, rather than staying idle, adding that, he was doing brick laying.

Hope Opomu, another student ,pointed out that the reason for the extension was because the Federal Government was being adamant in meeting the demands of ASUU.

“I won’t blame ASUU for extending the ongoing strike by four weeks if their demands were not meant,” she said.

Opomu added that the strike was extended to give the government time to pay salaries and also meet other demands of ASUU, adding that the extension was at the detriment of students future.

She added that the strike was a major setback to academic activities as it hindered students from graduating at the speculated time.

Opomu advised students to endure and join hands together by protesting and ensuring that the Federal Government met the demands of ASUU.