EDITORIAL : THE NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, NIGERIA

THE ASUU STRIKE THREAT
 |RECENTLY, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, after its National Executive Council meeting held at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, warned that its members would
down tools if the outgoing National Assembly failed to enact the relevant laws for the smooth  running of the country’s university system in line with the agreement reached between the Federal Government and the union in 2009. ASUU is irked by the fact that two years after, government was yet to enact the laws that would give effect to the major areas of the agreement which required legislation for implementation and enforcement.

IT is a curious irony that just as ASUU was preparing to down tools, President Goodluck Jonathan was elsewhere pledging to revitalise education. President Jonathan renewed his administration’s commitment to improving the quality of education within the next four years while inaugurating the Nigeria Education Data Survey in Abuja. The Education Data Survey is being supported by the United States of America but that forum provided a platform for President Jonathan to reiterate the central position occupied by education in his administration’s bid to improve the living conditions of Nigerians.
PRESIDENT Jonathan had at that forum aptly noted that this desire would be a difficult task to achieve without education. He had also noted that the myriad of problems facing Nigeria could best be tackled by a vibrant educational system and that none of the country’s development goals could be achieved if the education system was unable to respond to the needs of the country’s economy. President Jonathan also revealed that a sum of N59.9 billion naira was being spent to upgrade tertiary institutions in the country.
IT is obvious from these facts that there is a disconnect between the executive and the legislature. While the executive is claiming to be zealous in improving the educational sector, the legislature is slothful in not providing the enabling laws that will make the desires of the executive arm of the government realised. For instance, ASUU, led by Professor Ukuechukwu Awuzie, is particularly worried that the government up till now, has not been able to enact laws to give effect to the 70 years retirement age for lecturers as agreed in 2009. According to Professor Awuzie, during the press conference after ASUU NEC’s meeting; “The expectation was that this item in the agreement would be passed into law within a few months of the agreement. After close to two years of waiting in vain, and seeing the consequences in the form of continuing brain drain in the university system, ASUU members have become restive across the country.”
CERTAINLY the slow, plodding process of legislature is a disservice to the integrity of the administration in this particular instance.
WHILE it may be understandable that the legislative process cannot be done with the typical executive fiat, two years are too long to enact a law that will  stipulate the age of retirement of lecturers so as to discourage brain drain as ASUU has pointed out. We observe that the sixth Assembly has not acquitted itself well in the legislative function. Not only has it done so little by enacting laws, it has also woefully failed to impact on the lives of Nigerians. On the contrary, it has carried on with unspeakable greed and selfishness to the detriment of the Nigerian people. Sadly, this is the Assembly within which the sovereignty of Nigeria people must be located, yet, it has in the main spurned the people who voted them there, plundered their treasury and dashed the people’s hope. The enactment of laws to raise the retirement age of lecturers is just one example of many areas where the legislature has failed to live up to its billing as the representative of the people.
HOWEVER, if the legislative arm of the government can be faulted on the grounds of insensitivity to important matters, ASUU should resist the temptation to resort to shallowness in its reaction. If it makes good its threat to down tools on account of the lack of integrity on the part of the government, its action will smack of going in the direction of two wrongs which never make a right. Already, the education sector of the Nigerian society is bedevilled by a myriad of problems which an industrial action will only exarcerbate. A strike should be the last weapon in ASUU’s arsenal for now. ASUU should be seen as cooperating with the administration with a quest to wrest the education sector from the jaws of the monster of deterioration and decay.
WE appeal to ASUU to tread softly and refrain from being provoked unduly. It is impossible to expect any redemption from this Assembly. We will also want to urge the succeeding Assembly to be inaugurated soon to treat the ASUU request expeditiously so that stability and normalcy may return to the education sector generally and the tertiary belt specifically. President Jonathan should be able to encourage the next assembly to repair the misdeeds of this past assembly so that his administration’s integrity may not be unduly impugned by an insensitive and selfish legislature.