Olu Obafemi’s commitment to funding Nigeria’s public universities ( 3)

WE ride on with pleasurable pleasure of enjoying Professor Olu Obafemi’s patriotic concern with the central government’s attitude to what we call Nigeria’s public universities. What I enjoin you to enjoy is the pleasurable bleakness of our great thinker’s elucidation of what he elucidates.

ASUU’S commitment to the nation as a labour union

In due commitment to their avowed duty to the nation as a labour union, being a factor of production, ASUU has perennially sensitised government to the fact that they form the base for a strong workforce that populate both the public and the private sectors. Thus, government must be aware that its governance effectiveness is assured by its recognition of the centrality of ASUU in labour recruitment and economic development. They must be abreast and publicise the adequacy or otherwise of funds received, their purpose and effective management.

It is also in this vein that the Union nudges government to improve upon its appropriation to education in general and Higher Education in particular. It is in this regard they make comparison with our nations’ performance in this sector in relative terms. ASUU have cited the more salutary allocations made to education by smaller African states like South Africa, Namibia, Sierra- Leone, Mozambique, and Lesotho.

For instance, from statistics available, while

Africa is recorded as spending over five per cent of its Gross Domestic Product ( GDP), the second highest of any region, specific spending of specific African countries record, in Global ranking of education spending percent of GDP in 2021 can be found here: ( https:// www. the globalconomy. com/ rankings/ educationspending/ Africa). Nigeria does not feature among the 40 nations ranked in Africa and the world. Government may/ should understand, as already established by research findings, including Olukemi Lawanson, Dominic I. Umar ( 2020), that education ‘ fosters economic growth’ determined by carrying out an analysis of their research on impact of Government’s expenditure on education at the various levels of education on Nigeria’s economic growth for 38 years ( 1980- 2018).

This corroborates assertion made by frontline scholars and experts on Nigeria’s education recommending ‘ improved funding of education at all levels given their interconnections.’

It is recommended that Government should churn out and implement ‘ policies aimed at diversifying and broadening the Nigerian economy’, noting that ‘ economic growth has the potential of increasing education spending’, if, I must add, such economic resources are well focused in the direction of education.

The usual excuses being advanced by analysts from the rather low funding policy of education by Government include the: ( i) ravaging effect of global economic recession, crippling foreign and domestic debts with the mammoth allocation to debt servicing to the detriment of capital and recurrent appropriation ( this year’s Appropriation of 28 trillion naira, over a third of it is for debt servicing), ( ii) galloping decline of revenue from the extractive, oil sector and the non- oil sector, ( iii) gross fund mismanagement by government; and the cesspit of corruption. All of these have been offered as obstacles to proper funding of universities and, therefore, the unending strikes and unstable calendar of the universities to redress the decadence and rot in the university system.

Strikes, negotiations and re- negotiations, results of which have been swept aside by government and punitive steps like non- payment of salaries to striking workers, have been the operational ambience and climate of university culture in Nigeria, as standard and quality nosedive frightfully. Government’s reprisal on strike action is on- going in non- payment of salaries seized by the Buhari led government, based on the obnoxious and illegal ‘ no work no pay’ rule.

Even as the present government promised to redeem that situation and has begun to do so in parts, there are imminent and ongoing plans of industrial action to compel government to pay seized salaries by other university unions.

Besides pressure on government to attend to the welfare and resource demands of the education sector, members of the union have perennially concerned themselves with the state of the nation. Thus every year, since the eighties, the state of the nation has taken centre stage in their annual convention and communique. I recall the 1986 edition in particular, because of its historical significance. The edition was titled ‘ ASUU and the 1986 Education Crisis in Nigeria’.

It was the ‘ text of the Communique of the ASUU Conference on the State of the Nigerian Economy’ which took place in Benin in April 1984’ and formed the perpetual Agenda of the Union for the ‘ liberation of Nigeria from economic servitude, social anarchy and political instability, how to save Nigeria’.

At the bedrock of this publication was the tragic events in which unarmed students and citizens were murdered in cold blood by police in ABU Zaria ( ASUU, 1987). It stresses the ‘ commitment of the Intellectual’ to social transformation’ through truth- telling, ‘ courage, readiness to carry on rational inquiry… ( to engage in) ruthless criticism of everything that exists’ inviolably and relentlessly.

I must, however, state responsibly, that in spite of the disdainful provocations from the system, academics and their union must never, in despair, surrender their own, the university, to the apathy and insensitivity of the governing elite. As academics and scholars, committed to the production, delivery, distribution of knowledge, the university is our natural habitat. Even as we struggle to improve it, when the battle is won, there must be universities to go to and effect the damage and disrepair.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.