None of Nigeria’s public universities was able to be in the top ten among the universities in Africa in the recently released webometrics ranking of universities in the world in August 2021, by the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.
The nascent of a university as best, centers on a number of far-reaching consequences of such a university like, teaching, research, academic reputation, financial sustainability, international diversity, funding offer to students, award winners and lots more. Although, American and British universities are those leading in the world but in Africa, it is South African public universities.
So, what stops Nigeria’s conventional universities from making it to the top ten? There are myriads of reasons which include absence of ultra-nationalistic spirit, lack of zeal for the teaching profession, low research, and poor funding from the government, among others. The University of Ibadan was one of the standard universities in Africa being the premier university in Nigeria in the early 1950s and 1960s. At the time it was not under the control of Nigerian military government. The University of Ibadan at that time It that attracted different people from some other parts of the world during the colonial era. Everything was going on well for Nigeria’s conventional universities in the first republic. But things took a downward turn for virtually all Nigeria’s public universities when the military junta took over political power, coupled with the activities of the trade union called the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), founded in 1978 to replace the defunct Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT) of 1965.
However, being a union that puts the interest of its members at the forefront, ASUU embarked on its first nationwide strike in1988, during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime. The basis of the strike was to press home its demands for university autonomy and improved wages. Another ASUU strike resurfaced in 1994 and 1996 over the dismissal of some its members during the General Sani Abacha era. And its violent wind continues to blow up till today. The longest strike in the history of ASUU was the 2020 strike, that was tensed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That strike unfolded the dependent nature of the union. That strike laid bare the main problems facing public universities in Nigeria. Nobody is disputing the fact that the lecturers need to be taken care of by the government, because whatever success the country records could be attributed to them in the areas of innovations, if any.
Nigerian lecturers earn the lowest wage in Africa not to talk of advanced countries. A Nigerian lecturer earns the maximum of N1, 649,509 ($4009) per year, according to Current School News (CSN). The South African currency of that salary is RandR 61,151 per year, which means, N137,459 per month, for a lecturer II masters degree holder. This salary pales into insignificance when compared with that of their South African counterpart, which is RandR 587,532 $ 38,544. Even, in Uganda, a graduate assistant, that is, a first degree holder, earns Ush 9,555,260 $2,706.
Nevertheless, the incessant industrial action by ASUU persists because of the union’s failure to utilise their initiative by shifting their attention from government and use their respective internally generated revenue (IGR), grants and other aids of their schools to keep moving on pending the time a serious government will respond to their demands. Well, government’s business is nobody’s business, whether it collapses or not, they are less concerned. But the children of the poor will suffer as they are left to hold the short end of the stick.
Shamelessly, ASUU is beating another drum of fresh industrial action by giving government a three-week ultimatum over the non-compliance of the government to their agreement. What ASUU should know is, if strike is the alternative or the solution that can cast a spell bound to fascinate a mulish government, all their demands would have been met all these years. ASUU considers strike as innocuous and solution-driven, not knowing that it is as poisonous as a snake’s venom. In fact, it is paralysing and damaging.
In the 2021 national budget, only 5.6% is alloted to education, the lowest of United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) benchmark of 26%; in Kenya 23.1% is allotted to education. In the history of budgetary allocations to education from 2011- 2021, Nigeria has not crossed the 10% mark. The only year it reached 9.4% was in 2014, and it started to diminish from 2016 to 6.10%. The funniest of it all was, President Muhammadu Buhari’s vow of 50% for education by 2022. This is contained in a document titled “Heads of State Call to Action on Education Financing Ahead of Global Education Summit. It was signed as a form of commitment at the recent Education Summit in London.
Even an unborn baby knows that it is a reverie. After over six years in office, President Buhari just thought of that now, after things have fallen apart. And government also encourages strikes by paying these unions the money they did not work for; aftermath of their industrial action which negates the Trade Union Act. So, the rot plague to the country’s public universities is translucent enough to the extent that public officials and some private individuals have to send their children to universities overseas for studies; who cares about the children of the poor?
These are the problems the capitalists in the country are not oblivious of, and that gives an avenue for proliferation of private universities now numbering 79 (90%) of public universities, which is 91 (federal and state universities). And more private universities are going to be established. According to news making the rounds, the federal government is considering giving each student N1 million loan, which the ASUU has rejected. If it is true, how does government expect the majority poor students to refund the loan? And this In a country where many live below poverty line earning N137, 430/ $381.75 per year, according to NBS analysis.Abdullahi writes from University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria
