Fed Govt irresponsible on ASUU, IPPIS
By Idowu Akinlotan
Years of strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and repeated but broken agreements by the Nigerian government have done virtually nothing to reverse the worsening condition of Nigeria’s public universities. Forgive the pessimism, but conditions will continue to worsen in the universities until a government which knows what to do, and is willing to put its money where its mouth is, takes office.
This government, like its predecessors, simply does not know how to set priorities. Education in Nigeria as a whole requires the declaration of an emergency. Instead, the government has peevishly and indifferently offered palliatives, citing arguments about declining national revenue. Nonsense. It’s a question of priorities.
The recent ASUU strike was ignited by the insistence of the federal government to pay university lecturers through a payroll system described as Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS). University teachers, already chafing under other disputes with the government relating to arrears in revitalisation funds to public universities and other germane issues, are adamant that the payroll system is inadequate and distortionary.
The lecturers have suggested an alternative, the University Accountability and Transparency Solution (UTAS). But most commentators have sentimentally sided with the government, insisting that employees could not dictate how they are to be paid.
But of all the problem afflicting public universities, which still cater to most university students in Nigeria, is payroll system the biggest or most urgent? And for a responsible government, one which has repeatedly breached agreements with ASUU, should they not be wary of additional provocations?
The public may be impatient with the lecturers, preferring that their children graduate from the universities no matter what, and at the earliest time, but there can be no ignoring the altruism of ASUU which has done a far better job than the government in recognising the decay in tertiary education and proffering more sensible solutions. ASUU may not always be right or even fair in the methods they choose to fight their cause, but they are seldom mistaken.
Rather than the nonsense about a new payroll system, the government should be engaged in finding the right formula and paradigm for public education, particularly tertiary education. The government still overregulates the public universities; it should think of giving them wings and allowing them to soar.
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It has funded the political system, bureaucracy and security system far more than the education sector; it must responsibly reorder its priorities to make Nigerian universities better funded, qualitative and more competitive. And after years of irresponsibly managing its disagreement with the universities, it is now time for the government to make new laws concerning the education of children of public officials in the three arms of government.
It is time for the executive branch to sponsor a bill that makes it mandatory for members of the three arms of government to educate their children not just in Nigeria but in public schools.
Public officials have made silly remarks about education and health sectors in Nigeria because they always have the opportunity of overseas alternatives. It is time to completely bar them in order to find out whether they would remain as unperturbed about the issues constantly made disputatious by their casualness and rhetorical effrontery.
Millions of public university students, not to say millions more who are in the process of being admitted into the universities, may lose a session if the dispute between the government and ASUU persists. The government dishonestly puts the blame on ASUU, and most Nigerians unwisely acquiesce.
The Buhari presidency has been described as the most divisive Nigeria has ever seen. It is hard to fault that conclusion. But the government is also seen as more adroitly sowing the seeds of future explosions than any government before it. The EndSARS protest may in fact just be a foretaste of future explosions if the government does not quickly resolve the needless crisis it has ignorantly birthed.
The Nation
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