EDITORIAL: Here We Go Again!

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is talking about a return to the trenches and we all have a sense of deja vu! The recurring decimal is like a broken-down Francophone record, we have had that number play so very often, what to do for an encore? 

In a statement issued this week, Comrade Salim Ahmed, Chairperson of ASUU at Federal University Dutse, in Jigawa State thundered that “Government is unwilling to decisively address the outstanding issues with the union. Therefore, in line with the directives from the National Secretariat, we resolved to hold a press conference and let the parents, the stakeholders in university education know of the situation and to be sensitized and well informed of the failure of the government to address these lingering issues. The general public should be aware of the true state of affairs.”

Ahmed disclosed that the union would, within the next three weeks, set machinery in motion to further mobilise its members and sensitise them for further action.

READ: ASUU To Begin Nationwide Strike

“The union calls on all well-meaning discerning minds to prevail on the Nigerian Government to attend to these outstanding issues and meet with our union leadership to avert an unnecessary and avoidable industrial crisis in our already frail and weak university system,” Ahmed added.”

Comrade Salim Ahmed is bluffing and the response of the government must be measured and strategic in the overall national interest. The national interest dictates that Nigeria stops the slide of its tertiary institutions down the international ranking of tertiary institutions worldwide, where in a knowledge global economy, Nigeria is becoming not only competitive but sliding into irrelevance. The fight back must start to declare negotiation of all outstanding issues with the academic staff unions. The focus must be on the immediate, short, medium-term, and long-term strategic imperative. 

The strategic imperative will should be implemented through a fiscal balance redirecting funds from unnecessary waste, duplication, and corruption. It is imperative to extend and implement the now-dated recommendations of the Oronsaye panel on the cost of the machinery of the government in full. 

There’s no alternative since the government cannot conjure funds out of thin air. Nevertheless, he has to be done. To build a competitive economy, Nigeria cannot swim against the tide of knowledge-based globalization. We, therefore, believe that serious negotiation must take place and be concluded within the next two weeks.