Thanks, Femi.
I have been preoccupied with trying to restructure myself.
For that reason, I have not followed up on the few comments I have made on this thread or even followed the thread seriously.
Something told me, though, that I cannot be too busy to address an issue central to my history and telling on the image of what has made me what I am and is central to the platform of all I will be.
I have looked through most, if not all the posts on this subject on this group, and I would like to make my contribution to putting things in perspective.
Between Infrastructural Challenges and the Human Spirit
Well before I began my BA in 1985, Wole Soyinka had advocated that Nigerian universities should be scrapped and rebuilt from the bottom up.
My generation never saw the glory days of Nigerian university provision-some of which I had seen because I had been admitted to the university earlier but left because I did not identify with the ethos of the globally dominant educational system, but that is a much broader philosophical issue for another time- so we were the buka generation,who made do with food cooked and served by private food sellers at varying degrees of aesthetic value for the university landscape, in contrast to being served meals in the cafeteria, a change that drastically slashed the elite culture of the university.
It was during my BA I saw a computer for the first time in the Dean's office and asked what the object was.
The toilet in the Hall 4 male hostel was not a place one liked to go to, on account of its poor water condition.
Being able to have your own bed space was a significant achievement, before the advent of the private housing complex known as Ekosodin, and in Hall 4,a place of privilege in that context, we were about four to a room, with the sections partitioned by something like nets.
I never used a computerised library card catalogue, or even saw one outside what I had read about, till I got to England in 2003, 12 years after my BA.
All journals I had accessed, even as a lecturer at the University of Benin, were all hard copy, though some were up to date and there was a significant selection in my field.
Even though I had been able to buy a computer in Benin with the aid of the university's hire purchase scheme, I had employed a secretary to use it in the research centre I founded using my personal library, while I went on field work, so it was at Kent I was compelled to learn how to use a computer.
What am I trying to say?
Its important to insist on and work towards better conditions, but dont dismiss the resilience of the human spirit.
The fact that our circumstances were far from ideal does not mean that we could not do great things.
I see the relative heaven in which Cambridge students live, my mouth waters at the sight of this different universe, but I am pleased I had the exposure I had to my country and tasted of its substance.
Developmental Processes and the Challenges of Time and Opportunity
I see that my lecturers at the University of Benin are every inch as intelligent, most of them as diligent, as dedicated, as my lecturers at the universities of Kent, SOAS and UCL.
The central difference was opportunity.
What we Nigerians, Africans and other struggling peoples need is opportunity.
We also need to avoid putting each other down and denigrating our countries.
Critique, but try and be balanced and humane.
At a meeting of the Quakers I attended the other day, I moaned about poor government in Africa.
The English people looked at me silently.
Then one of them told me that it took England centuries of growth to achieve a stable democracy, citing as an example the mandatory length between the seating arrangements for members of parliament, which has to be longer than the length of a sword, because in the old days they used to lunge over the bench to attack each other with swords.
She also mentioned that in order to avoid persecution, the opposition had called itself her majesty's loyal opposition.
Democracy is more than a process.
It is a culture.
It takes time to build and the only way to to cultivate it is to do it and do it continuously for as long as possible.
Distinctive Qualities of Nigeria
I suspect Nigerian social class is more flexible than that of England and that Nigerians are more socially aware.
I see myself as having moved on from Nigeria, having spent decades there from my birth till I left, but I need to still mine the place for treasures I cant find here, treasures I consider vital to the history and perhaps the future of the human race.
What are these treasures?
An understanding of nature as cognitively symbiotic with the human being, integrating but transcending its aesthetic value.
That vision is core to classical African cosmologies, and is embodied in the character of the Benin landscape, for example.
It is an ancient global insight, evident from Africa to Asia, but seemingly negated in Europe, the West and perhaps the Middle East by the transcendentalist ethos of the Abrahamic religions and the disanimated science that eventually emerged from the ferment of the Scientific Revolution.
It is only now beginning to remerge with Western neo-paganism and partly reinforced by scientific rethinking of the the balance of nature.
The Need for a Balance of Narratives
What has this got to do with ASUU and the Nigerian university system?
Everyone should tell their stories, so we dont have one sided stories.
From the varied platforms of these stories, we are better enabled to conduct analyses.
Publication and Promotion and the Place of Nigerian Academia in the Global System of Knowledge
Foundations and Continuity in Nigerian Academia : Landmarks
I was shocked, for example, by Moses assertion that the use of publication criteria as a measure for promoting academic staff is a recent development in the Nigerian university system and that this criterion assess only quantity, not quality.
How can such a belief even be entertained, much less held, about a system that was created and run by such discipline definers as Kenneth Dike, Cornelius Adepegba, Abiola Irele, Adiele Afigbo, Emefia Ikengah-Metuh, Obiora Udechukwu, Chika Okeke, Dapo Adelugba, Peter Bodunrin, among so many names inescapable in any study of the their disciplines, and of the foundational initiatives of scholarship in African history, the visual arts, African literature and African philosophy, not forgetting the marvellous work of Akiwowo at Ife on indigenous sociology based on Ifa which received widespread attention even beyond Africa and was carefully examined by his non-African colleagues, a dialogical collection in the form of academic journal articles I have to post here as soon as possible.
So, how can anyone even suspect, much less believe, that rigorous academic procedures were not made the life blood of the systems run by these figures who represent much of the foundations and much of what came after in their respective disciplines anywhere these disciplines are studied, from Benin to New York to Tokyo?
Joseph Omoregbe, then at the University of Lagos, I think, wrote and published in Nigeria what is likely to one of the earliest surveys of global philosophy anywhere, most likely well before Blackwell and other Western publishers came out with their works on world philosophies, the scales of Western exceptionalism having begun to fall from their eyes, and even then,I am yet to see such works written by one person. Omoregbe's impressive publications list is accessible here. The links are to recent reissues by Lambert, some dated 2012, but, to the best of my knowledge most or all these books were published more than ten years ago in Nigeria, as suggested by older publication dates from other information sources, such as Google Books on Knowing Philosophy , A Philosophical Look at Religion and Philosophy of Law and others present on that platform.
Interestingly, there is 2010 journal essay on on him Scribd in relation toASUU and the Nigerian govt : "JosephOmoregbe's Philosophy of Civil Disobedience and the Imperativeness of the 2009 ASUU Strike : Implications for a Sustainable Higher Education in Nigeria" by Sylvester Enomah. The issues weighs heavily in relation to this debate because it is asking the same questions asked here and seems to not take sides with ASUU or the govt.
One of the most important works on divination theory and practice is Angulu Onwuejwgwu's Afa Symbolism and Phenomenology, published in Benin by Ethiope, when Onwuejeogwu was professor of sociology at the University of Benin.
The most sophisticated work, the most rounded presentation of the core metaphysical Orisa concept of ori, the self in its dialogue with fate and free will, known to me is by Adegboyega Orangun, Destiny : The Unmanifesfed Being, written when he had only an MA from the University of Lagos, if my memory is accurate on the specific university, and consisting of interviews with Ifa babalawo and his own carefully detailed analyses and conceptual constructs.
That field of study is central to African philosophy and religions, a global field of enquiry, but I am yet to see Orangun's work equalled.
In the light of such observations, I am puzzled at outright dismissals and condemnation of my country and its scholars.
The Struggle to Balance Quantity and Quality in Nigerian Academic Publication
The struggle to balance quality and quantity of publications may be described as perennial challenge in the Nigerian university system.
Efforts to address this challenge have included instituting a ratio of externally published as opposed to locally published papers.
Others have included insistence on publication in particular kinds of journals of proven quality.
I see publications of my peers and senior colleagues online and I recognise that they are making an effort to make an input outside their own nation.
Nigerian Academia and Self Awareness in a Global Context : A Personal Experience
What point am I making?
I am suggesting that the Nigerian university system, as represented by the Nigerian academic community, is more mature than it is given credit for, more aware of its place in the global community of knowledge, than is suggested by its critics.
In 2010, A.M Ashafa, at Kaduna Sate University, Kaduna, contacted me on the behest of a noted diaspora Nigerian professor to contribute an essay on the Nigerian Diaspora to a book in honour of Professor Abdullahi Mahadi (link to call for papers).
I was moved. This prof must know others in the social sciences who could do a good job, and my formal academic training is not in the social sciences.
I have never met this prof before. He must have read my online writings and been convinced I could do the job.
I put myself together, and with consistent gentle reminders from Ashafa, I completed it and sent it off by email.
The book, Challenges for Nigeria at 50: Essays in Honour of Professor Abdullahi Mahadi was published and my copy, beautifully bound in hardback, with a fine picture of the honouree on the front, was sent to me by courier from Nigeria.
Interestingly, the book has an essay "The Authority of Mutual Obligation : ASUU and the Social Contract Tradition" by Ibrahim Bello-Kano.
The Nigerian production team wanted a national and cross-continental spread for their book, representative of high, even very high quality contributions, and they got it.
That quality is evident from the scope of the essays, their structure and organisation and the concepts and analyses they deploy.
The contributors in Nigeria cover the North, the Niger Delta, the Southwest and the Southeast,while those abroad are drawn from England and the US.
The contributors include 13 professors and 13 PhDs, the PhDs being doctorates who are not professors.
You cannot dismiss people operating at such a professional level.
Who published the book?
Kaduna State University.
Where was it printed?
In Kaduna, by G.K Press.
thank you very much
toyin
On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks again for this incisive post. You have forced me to add more to my previous posts on this issue. Those whose claim to superior ideas is based essentially on expertise in English Language-(what we call the language of domination in Political Economy), are either unschooled in the values of mutual respect or have been so absorbed in a perverse value system of the society in which they are ensconced, that they have totally negated such values.As to whether a different perspective from those of the intolerant duo is capable of derailing the debate on ASUU strike, I think not. Toyin has raised an important point on the likely diversity of people who reads the posts on this forum. I think failure to reply and provide a more balanced and reasonable perspectives on the core issues surrounding the current debacle will only help to validate and legitimize their vague generalisations. In fact, it will amount to intellectual laziness.Femi--On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovadepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
REPOSTED WITH ADDED LINKSSomething Is Wrong Here : Unfounded Assumptions Projected as FactA lot of unfounded assumptions on ASUU and the Nigerian university system as a whole are being presented here as summative valid points.
It seems one has to pay more attention and speak up consistently.
One cannot claim to be too busy to address those making up false stories about one's home, mixing fact and fiction, meaningful comments with preposterous claims, thus giving the impression they are being fair.Who knows who is reading all this stuff?On the Relationship Between the Structural Integrity of ASUU and the Past and Future History of Nigerian University EducationThis is a NO GO AREA :'Moreover, the important imperative of ASUU's functional decentralization has been put on the table and it will remain there until it is embraced in one form or another.'
Moses Ebe Ochonu
You are ON YOUR OWN with Ikhide in that illusion.That statement you made does not grasp what is at stake.I had written a rejoinder that expressed graphically my sense of outrage at that statement on ASUU but it seems it might be better to approach the issue in a more urbane manner.
We are discussing the union that took me from a person earning 600 naira a month, a person looked down upon by many in society as being in an unserious job, a person whom my father was pleased that I had been offered the lecturing job, but advised me that he would not have been able to achieve much of what he had if he had remained a teacher, so why I dont I let him get me a job as an editor in a publishing house, since I loved books so much;the union that took me from from the years of managing because one believed in the academic calling, resisting statements like ' you will die in poverty','can he mould a block'?; the union that took me from being person whom when one of my classmates learnt the dept had retained me as a lecturer came to tell me 'I have come to commiserate with you'-I keep wondering if she made a mistake in her words, but she was a graduate of English and Literature like myself and would not mistake 'commiserate' for 'congratulate'; the union that fught through great sacrifice for my dignity as a person who, in the 12 years I taught at Uniben, the faculty of arts staff toilet never had running water, leaving the indefatigable Ehimika Ifidon who believed body and soul in the system, to fetch water with buckets to flush them before and after use, a level of commitment I could not muster, leaving me to pass water by the side of a tree in the faculty grounds, on which, on one occasion, a passing student greeted me 'good afternoon sir'...the sheer ridiculous hilarity of it all wont let me continue.What is the point here?ASUU is the force that makes being a lecturer with some dignity possible in Nigeria. A national ASUU with teeth.Remove that and you have nothing.You become a football of the politicians.You cannot be taken seriously as a decentralised group.What is your bargaining power?The argument should not be 'ASUU must not go strike 'but what do we do to make strikes unnecessary?'Students in Nigerian Universities and ASUU
This, too, is not a representative view-'ASUU's indifference to the plight and interests of students.'
I suppose you want ragged teachers to teach the students?Teachers who run barbershops and butcher shops, as in the hard old days?Then, we shall know what is called 'indifference to the plight and interests of students.'Muzzled teachers who have no one to speak for them, are never on strike, always in the classroom, come rain or shine, teaching what?Fela- 'teacher, no teach me nonsense.'At least the teacher is teaching.'This vast online army of young commentators and bloggers got ASUU supporters worked up and gave them a window into what students, the most important stakeholders in the system'.
You clearly missed those students calling for a nation wide demonstration in favour of ASUU and those whom the govt send a mobile police detachment to suppress their pro-ASUU demonstration.Wonderful Student Experiences in Nigerian Universities from BA to PhD Across the YearsI have been composing an essay on this issue of ASUU which its clear I need to complete and publish. Yes. Posting online is publishing.Im so grateful for this group inspiring me to write about my teachers at the University of Benin.I have such wonderful stories too from my sister who studied at the University of Calabar.She talked so much about Emelia Oko, Imme Ikhide, Rukmini Vanamali and others I knew their names by heart.I can bring you Charles Ugu's stories of the University of Ibadan, with the names of his teachers falling from his lips like incantations.Is it my teacher Ogo Ofuani who was forever talking about his University of Ibadan PhD as an immersion in a place where reality of knowledge reigned and the descent to Uniben was moving to a lower plane?Is it Max Wagbafor of Political Science who kept talking of his University of Ibadan PhD as if he became a human being at IU, and compared to Uniben he was among barbarians?Yet, both Ofuani and Wagbafor were teachers at the very university of Benin where Moses has described my account of my education there as a 'first class education by stellar lecturers'.Some of the most notable African-American and English scholars today in England and the US came to University of Ife to get their PhDs, after which they returned home.Am I to write about the University of Calabar yearly international conferences in African literature, the presentations of which were published as books?The Central Impact of the Nigerian University System, from its Beginnings to the Present, on Modern African Culture and Scholarship on this Culture
Am I to give a history of the University of Nsukka school of art, over the decades, from the days of Uche Okeke, to Obiora Udechukwu, to El Anatsui, to Olu Oguibe to Sylvester Ogbechie to Dimprozukike and the impact of this school on African art?Do I survey the achievements of the Ibadan and Ife schools of the humanities, from the 50s to the present, their shaping of the agenda in African historiography, African literature and literary criticism, and theatre arts?The Ife art school from Ona, with Moyo Okediji and others to Victor Ekpuk?What about Yaba polytechnic and its art school?University of Lagos and its school of philosophy?The achievements of Okike journal at Nsukka, and the dept of philosophy and its journal?What about Akiwowo and the Ife school of indigenous sociology?It is not possible to discuss scholarship about Africa in the humanities without discussing the past and present achievements of the Nigerian university system through its teachers and students.Any other story is not based on fact.ASUU: Strategies and Creative Impact in Comparison with Other Academic Unions in Western CountriesIf one were to write on the meaning of ASUU, its strategies and its profound positive impact on Nigerian academia, it would be a long essay.I will attempt at least part of such an essay.I was a student at various levels at the University of Benin, and a member of Uniben ASUU exco and so got some exposure.Happily,I have also got some exposure to higher education in England and their academic strategies of unionisation, which is very active at both local and national levels.My History with My Teachers at the University of Benin as Central to the Creative Shaping of MyselfIf I were to write in detail about the roles of my Nigerian university teachers as teachers, guidance counsellors, guides in how to study, people who assisted me well after I had graduated and they were no longer employed by my university, who bought me gifts from their journeys abroad, who paid their own money for applications for me to US schools and sent the forms themselves, who tried to get me jobs abroad, people whom I had nothing to give except my appreciation, which I did not always give anyway because I did not always appreciate the value of what I was being given, and if I add to this the stories of my sisters, my friends and other acquaintances,would I not make a book?Please note that I am a man, as most of the teachers I refer to are men, so would have nothing to offer in the dept some say Nigerian teachers have become specialists in.As to my sexual orientation, you can guess that from my list of blogs and my Facebook account and the list of Facebook groups I founded and all those I belong to.
So, there would be nothing happening in the reverse side of sexual possibility on account of my being male.I mention all this because with the way Nigerian academics have been fiendishized here, one wonders what justifications for their being human in treating me as a fellow human being the way I have described could be brought up in some people's minds.I have already written and published online an essay "Professor Ogo Ofuani and the Resonance of Memory Across Space and Time", posted on this group, on May 19, 2013, on Ogo Ofuani, who taught me in my BA, MA and part PhD in the Department of English and Literature and was later my academic colleague, and have more writing on him in preparation.I have written two essays on Iro Eweka,who taught my sister at the University of Benin Theatre Arts dept, a lecturer I used to admire from a distance.The first, "Unforgettable Teachers: Iro Eweka" is an email conversation between Akin Solanke and myself, schoolmates in different entry years in the Department of English and Literature, University of Benin.The second, "Iro Eweka : The Human Face, the Human Mind, and the Possibility of a Mysticism Inspired by Benin Olokun Symbolism" discusses the impression of his appearance represented by the accounts of Akin and I in relation to Eweka's work on Benin Olokun symbolism.
Why Discuss Your Parents/Teachers in Public?: When They are Being Described as Uniformly Evil
I used to think that talking publicly about your teachers is like coming to the public to discuss your parents.They mean a lot to you, they shaped what you are, and so?Everybody has their own story. Some good, some not so good, some bad, some a mixture.In the general run, however,they would be stories of humans struggling to make meaning of a huge responsibility which no one really fully understands how best to manage because the human being is largely a mystery.So,why come to a public space and tell stories that most people can replicate in their own accounts?Until I came across the open season on Nigerian university lecturers on this group, , with stories of gore being told as if the student account of studying in a Nigerian university in the past 20 years begins and ends from such hells.The second and third parts of my account of my experience at the University of Benin are in preparation.I place the experience in the context of my philosophical and spiritual quest.thankstoyin--On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovadepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Something Is Wrong Here : Unfounded Assumptions Projected as FactA lot of unfounded assumptions on ASUU and the Nigerian university system as a whole are being presented here as summative valid points.It seems one has to pay more attention and speak up consistently.One cannot claim to be too busy to address those making up false stories about one's home, mixing fact and fiction, meaningful comments with preposterous claims, thus giving the impression they are being fair.Who knows who is reading all this stuff?On the Relationship Between the Structural Integrity of ASUU and the Past and Future History of Nigerian University Education1. This is is a NO GO AREA :'Moreover, the important imperative of ASUU's functional decentralization has been put on the table and it will remain there until it is embraced in one form or another.'
Moses Ebe OchonuYou are ON YOUR OWN with Ikhide in that illusion.That statement you made does not grasp what is at stake.I had written a rejoinder that expressed graphically my sense of outrage at that statement on ASUU but it seems it might be better to approach the issue in a more urbane manner.We are discussing the union that took me from a person earning 600 naira a month, a person looked down upon by many in society as being in an unserious job, a person whom my father was pleased that I had been offered the lecturing job, but advised me that he would not have been able to achieve much of what he had if he had remained a teacher, so why I dont I let him get me a job as an editor in a publishing house, since I loved books so much;the union that took me from from the years of managing because one believed in the academic calling, resisting statements like ' you will die in poverty','can he mould a block'?; the union that took me from being person whom when one of my classmates learnt the dept had retained me as a lecturer came to tell me 'I have come to commiserate with you'-I keep wondering if she made a mistake in her words, but she was a graduate of English and Literature like myself and would not mistake 'commiserate' for 'congratulate'; the union that fught through great sacrifice for my dignity as a person who, in the 12 years I taught at Uniben, the faculty of arts staff toilet never had running water, leaving the indefatigable Ehimika Ifidon who believed body and soul in the system, to fetch water with buckets to flush them before and after use, a level of commitment I could not muster, leaving me to pass water by the side of a tree in the faculty grounds, on which, on one occasion, a passing student greeted me 'good afternoon sir'...the sheer ridiculous hilarity of it all wont let me continue.What is the point here?ASUU is the force that makes being a lecturer with some dignity possible in Nigeria. A national ASUU with teeth.Remove that and you have nothing.You become a football of the politicians.You cannot be taken seriously as a decentralised group.
What is your bargaining power?The argument should not be 'ASUU must not go strike 'but what do we do to make strikes unnecessary?'Students in Nigerian Universities and ASUU
This, too, is not a representative view-'ASUU's indifference to the plight and interests of students.'
I suppose you want ragged teachers to teach the students?
Teachers who run barbershops and butcher shops, as in the hard old days?Then, we shall know what is called 'indifference to the plight and interests of students.'Muzzled teachers who have no one to speak for them, are never on strike, always in the classroom, come rain or shine, teaching what?Fela- 'teacher, no teach me nonsense.'
At least the teacher is teaching.'This vast online army of young commentators and bloggers got ASUU supporters worked up and gave them a window into what students, the most important stakeholders in the system'.
You clearly missed those students calling for a nation wide demonstration in favour of ASUU and those whom the govt send a mobile police detachment to suppress their pro-ASUU demonstration.Wonderful Student Experiences in Nigerian Universities from BA to PhD Across the YearsI have been composing an essay on this issue of ASUU which its clear I need to complete and publish. Yes. Posting online is publishing.Im so grateful for this group inspiring me to write about my teachers at the University of Benin.I have such wonderful stories too from my sister who studied at the University of Calabar.
She talked so much about Emelia Oko, Imme Ikhide, Rukmini Vanamali and others I knew their names by heart.
I can bring you Charles Ugu's stories of the University of Ibadan, with the names of his teachers falling from his lips like incantations.
Is it my teacher Ogo Ofuani who was forever talking about his University of Ibadan PhD as an immersion in a place where reality of knowledge reigned and the descent to Uniben was moving to a lower plane?Is it Max Wagbafor of Political Science who kept talking of his University of Ibadan PhD as if he became a human being at IU, and compared to Uniben he was among barbarians?Yet, both Ofuani and Wagbafor were teachers at the very university of Benin where Moses has described my account of my education there as a 'first class education by stellar lecturers'.Some of the most notable African-American and English scholars today in England and the US came to University of Ife to get their PhDs, after which they returned home.Am I to write about the University of Calabar yearly international conferences in African literature, the presentations of which were published as books?The Central Impact of the Nigerian University System, from its Beginnings to the Present, on Modern African Culture and Scholarship on this CultureAm I to give a history of the University of Nsukka school of art, over the decades, from the days of Uche Okeke, to Obiora Udechukwu, to El Anatsui, to Olu Oguibe to Sylvester Ogbechie to Dimprozukike and the impact of this school on African art?Do I survey the achievements of the Ibadan and Ife schools of the humanities, from the 50s to the present, their shaping of the agenda in African historiography, African literature and literary criticism, and theatre arts?The Ife art school from Ona, with Moyo Okediji and others to Victor Ekpuk?
What about Yaba polytechnic and its art school?University of Lagos and its school of philosophy?The achievements of Okike journal at Nsukka, and the dept of philosophy and its journal?
What about Akiwowo and the Ife school of indigenous sociology?It is not possible to discuss scholarship about Africa in the humanities without discussing the past and present achievements of the Nigerian university system through its teachers and students.Any other story is not based on fact.ASUU: Strategies and Creative Impact in Comparison with Other Academic Unions in Western CountriesIf one were to write on the meaning of ASUU, its strategies and its profound positive impact on Nigerian academia, it would be a long essay.I will attempt at least part of such an essay.
I was a student at various levels at the University of Benin, and a member of Uniben ASUU exco and so got some exposure.
Happily,I have also got some exposure to higher education in England and their academic strategies of unionisation, which is very active at both local and national levels.My History with My Teachers at the University of Benin as Central to the Creative Shaping of MyselfIf I were to write in detail about the roles of my Nigerian university teachers as teachers, guidance counsellors, guides in how to study, people who assisted me well after I had graduated and they were no longer employed by my university, who bought me gifts from their journeys abroad, who paid their own money for applications for me to US schools and sent the forms themselves, who tried to get me jobs abroad, people whom I had nothing to give except my appreciation, which I did not always give anyway because I did not always appreciate the value of what I was being given, and if I add to this the stories of my sisters, my friends and other acquaintances,would I not make a book?Please note that I am a man, as most of the teachers I refer to are men, so would have nothing to offer in the dept some say Nigerian teachers have become specialists in.As to my sexual orientation, you can guess that from my blog list and my Facebook account.
So, there would be nothing happening in the reverse side of sexual possibility on account of my being male.I mention all this because with the way Nigerian academics have been fiendishized here, one wonders what justifications for their being human in the way I have described could be brought up in some people's minds.I have already written and published online an essay "Professor Ogo Ofuani and the Resonance of Memory Across Space and Time", posted on this group, on May 19, 2013, on Ogo Ofuani, who taught me in my BA, MA and part PhD in the Department of English and Literature and was later my academic colleague, and have more writing on him in preparation.I have written two essays on Iro Eweka,who taught my sister at the University of Benin Theatre Arts dept, a lecturer I used to admire from a distance.The first, "Unforgettable Teachers: Iro Eweka" is an email conversation between Akin Solanke and myself, schoolmates in different entry years in the Department of English and Literature, University of Benin.The second, Iro Eweka : The Human Face, the Human Mind, and the Possibility of a Mysticism Inspired by Benin Olokun Symbolism" discusses the impression of his appearance represented by the accounts of Akin and I in relation to Eweka's work on Benin Olokun symbolism.Why Discuss Your Parents/Teachers in Public?: When They are Being Described as Uniformly EvilI used to think that talking publicly about your teachers is like coming to the public to discuss your parents.They mean a lot to you, they shaped what you are, and so?
Everybody has their own story. Some good, some not so good, some bad, some a mixture.In the general run, however,they would be stories of humans struggling to make meaning of a huge responsibility which no one really fully understands how best to manage because the human being is largely a mystery.So,why come to a public space and tell stories that most people can replicate in their own accounts?Until I came across the open season on Nigerian university lecturers on this group, , with stories of gore being told as if the student account of studying in a Nigerian university in the past 20 years begins and ends from such hells.The second and third parts of my account of my experience at the University of Benin are in preparation.I place the experience in the context of my philosophical and spiritual quest.thankstoyinOn Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
For the record, I fully support Bolaji's four-point (or is it five-point?) road map for resolving the ongoing impasse. The suggested measures seem fair to both sides and accomplishes the task of getting our students back to the classroom---with the hope that, once this crisis passes, ASUU, government, and other stakeholders will begin the tough, uncomfortable conversations that can bring lasting stability, decent infrastructural conditions, and INSTRUCTIONAL excellence/integrity back to the system. I'd only add that as part of the resolution, ASUU should at least pledge itself to some basic, rudimentary gestures of self-scrutiny and student-centered accountability. An anonymous student evaluation system would be a good place to start, and its weight in lecturer performance evaluations can be negotiated with each institution. Later, we can talk about other metrics of performance evaluation, as well as the need to institute transparent hiring practices that can police entry into the academy and deal with quackery on the front end. The phenomenon of "I'm just teaching" that Professor Iheduru eloquently analyzed is at the root of poor, unethical instructional conducts. Folks should not enter or remain in the academy if they're "just teaching" until something more lucrative and glamorous comes along. Mba!From the very beginning of this discussion, I've been focused like a laser on ASUU. It should be obvious to any observer that the government is also a culprit, perhaps a bigger one, in the crisis of higher education in Nigeria. We're already familiar with that story, and there are enough people going over that terrain, including those making ASUU's case in public spaces; I didn't want to join the ASUU propaganda choir. But only a few people were willing to entertain the increasingly obvious fact that ASUU is now deeply implicated in the crisis that it often decries. This tone-deaf insularity can happen to even well-intentioned organizations; they become cocooned in their self-created narratives and their members and sympathizers repeat the organizational line without stepping back to examine shifts that may have occurred and flawed strategic assumptions that may underpin the organization's propaganda.My purpose was to put the spotlight on ASUU's own miscalculations, its failure to read the public mood, and more crucially, its refusal to frontally confront the big elephant ultimately responsible for the production of poor graduates--poor instruction and poor ethics. I can see that this point has been made, and a consensus has developed around it. I will not take credit for this consensus. Rather, I will give the credit to the students and recent graduates who, through punchy, robust blogposts, status updates, and vigorous online discussions and commentaries, put ASUU on notice that it will no longer be business as usual and that the union could no longer keep asking for stuff without giving up some of its impunity or accepting some responsibility for what ails university education in Nigeria. This vast online army of young commentators and bloggers got ASUU supporters worked up and gave them a window into what students, the most important stakeholders in the system, really think of ASUU's indifference to the plight and interests of students. Moreover, the important imperative of ASUU's functional decentralization has been put on the table and it will remain there until it is embraced in one form or another.--On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 7:02 AM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
When Oyinbo land like this, we usually exclaim
GBAM!!
Three gbosas for njakirism/yabisism!!!
Chidi, I clap o jare.
Adeshina AfolayanSent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTNFrom: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 03:17:35 -0700 (PDT)ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comCc: Mobolaji Aluko<alukome@gmail.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement | Agùntáṣǫólò--You guys should spare this forum these unnecessary Intellectual showmanship, (gra-gra in motor park parlance), aimed at ego boosting and unnecessary intimidation of the other person. Even when the discussion degenerates into "I can lecture you……..", you guys still think you are "proffering solutions". Most of your posts have only entertainment value (apologies to Toyin Adepoju).
Any way shaa, I can lecture all of you on the "Intellectualization of njakirism or yabisism"(una no go clap for me?).
CAO.
On Monday, 7 October 2013 10:38:08 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:One of the problems ASUU has at the moment is the ambition of some persons in the diaspora to take over the administration of education in Nigeria. They armed their attack dogs with one sided facts and unleashed them on the Internet, ASUU must be made to look bad so that they would be invited to come and "help". Unfortunately, ASUU, presently, is too weak to match them propaganda for propaganda. Nigerian literature suffered the same fate not quite long ago.CAO.
On Sunday, 6 October 2013 19:54:04 UTC+1, tovadepoju wrote:On the National Unity of ASUUTo the best of my understanding, the idea of dismantling ASUU is ultimately inimical to the Nigerian university system.
In a system like Nigeria's political context, you need a national ASUU to address the issues of academics and universities.ASUU can be improved, but to dismantle the union in the name of having only local branches, looks to me like a journey to hell.Operating from local unions alone is a recipe for powerlessness, and therefore ineffectual relationship with the federal government, the employer of the universities.Feyi Fawehinmi describes Nigerian academics as among the better paid in the world.
His claims are contested by respondents on his blog who state his figures are not consistent with their own experience as Nigerian academics.These respondents also place his general criticism of ASUU in what looks to me like a more balanced context.Whatever the reality might be, however, any gains academics have have made is because of the strength of a national ASUU.Remove that national strength, and you have no power.In five to ten years time, that salary being described as so big could shrink to your pre-1990 position as the Nigerian economy fluctuates.Then university decay would begin in earnest.We need a discussion about and action on how to make sure ASUU and the govt are always on the same page or on a page close to each other, on how to improve academic development, on how to make sure academics are more conscientious, on how to make sure those monies made available to universities are maximised, on how to improve student well being as much as possible -eg. any university in the world that does not have 24 hour Web access for students - at both individual use and dedicated computer rooms with a sufficient number of computers- and staff might never be part of the global knowledge stream in a significant manner, in my view, but removing a national ASUU from the equation might be to ensure these developments will never emerge.Ideas are being canvassed about the govt doing its duty more diligently with reference to universities, but who is to ensure that those duties are fulfilled?On Nigerian vs International Publication of Journal Articles and BooksFeyi Fawehinmi described Nigerian academics as being largely locally published alone.
He presents a beautiful description of the value of international publication.An academic responding on Fawehinmi's blog who disagrees with his comments on academic salaries agrees about the local publishing charge and gives reasons for that, indicating a very disturbing scenario for scholarship in Nigeria.While I acknowledge the value of publishing outside Nigeria, I think we might need to rethink the publishing paradigm implied by the concept of international publication.My ideas on this are still not definite but I would like to make some provocative statements followed by suggestions-The Current Situation : Difficulty of Access by Continental Africans to Western Published Books and Journals
You might publish a book a year, as Biodun Jeyifo is described as doing did when he left Ife for Cornell, climaxing in his monumental last book on Soyinka, at which point he moved to a Harvard professorship; you might almost be a God of knowledge like Toyin Falola and Abdul Karim Bangura, whose range of subject matter and volume of publication make them institutions in themselves, most likely inexhaustible fields of study, but even though Falola's work is staunchly rooted in Africa and Bangura is a die hard Afrocentrist, if I am using the right terminology with reference to Bangura, one needs to ask- what communities of learning are being served by their universes of publications?To what degree are African scholars, students and universities able to buy their books?These books are academic publications, academic publications being consistently the best in non-fiction, in my experience, but, as published by Western publishers, which I expect they and other academics in the West are published by, they are consistently the most expensive.The high end of such expensiveness might be represented by some academic publishers like Cambridge University Press, who publish the cream de la creme of uncompromisingly academic work, often without any concessions to a non-academic audience, concessions the equally academically robust but perhaps more adventurous Oxford University Press achieves with its general range like the Very Short Introductions, a great idea, presenting the most up to date research on a subject in a succinct manner that still does not eschew disciplinary rigour.Cambridge UP, on the other hand, is characterised purely by high end works, to the best of my knowledge, encompassing the absolute academic rigour and specialist character of a good number of Oxford UP publications, but without Oxford UP's range of audience scope and pricing, Oxford UP interestingly, also publishing new children's fiction, suggesting their range, while Cambridge UP seems to me to represent absolute hard core academic work, and with prices to match, their only fiction seeming to be classics of Western literature.Their books, however, represent a concentration of some of the very best, the most ambitious, carefully conceived works, some rightly taking years to research and write.I will not bore you any further with reflections arising from my salivations in the Cambridge UP flagship bookshop on Trinity Street, Cambridge, but leave you with the observation of a bookseller that those books are not really meant for individuals but for institutions to buy.When you encounter their fantastic many volumed series on the history of science-they are very good at many volumed series- then you might be compelled to assess yourself and see the point of that bookseller.They sell to individuals, though, and give a 20% discount to students and staff of Cambridge university and neighbouring academic institutions, along with recurrent discount sales.I have also been able buy some books there, even without the discount, recognising the place as a necessary destination.Patronising them is a necessity in certain contexts.There is quality, and there IS quality.In a world in which the most globally representative books and journals are published outside Africa, what should Africans do?To what degree can their communities read even the works of continental Africans published in those journals, in a world in which even Harvard, possibly the world's richest university, once announced it can no longer afford its scope of journal subscription, a world in which Timothy Gowers, Fields medal winner (described as the highest honour in mathematics), and Cambridge university professor of mathematics, led a successful boycott on working with journals published by the prestigious academic publisher Elsevier, in protest at the publisher's pricing policies?Suggestions : Persisting In and Improving Nigerian Journal and Book Publication1. I suspect that those creating journals in Nigeria and publishing in them are doing the right thing in the long run for the interests of the cognitive ecosystem represented by the Nigerian educational system and its social context.I suspect the real challenge is how to do it as well as possible and keep doing it, expanding the global membership of the editorial board, the international demographic represented by those who write in the journal and the international range of its distribution.Web access would make a world of difference in all these cases.One could have Web only journals.One could use a blog as a journal template as is already being done.One could even use Facebook.Moyo Okediji is doing some wonderful work at the Facebook based University of African Art, particularly with his with every Monday free conferences on African art, enabling so many who had been shut out of the world of sophisticated art discourse to take part in the development of discourse in the field by scholars and artists.The possibilities that initiative opens up are so many.One could also use both Web and print options, as some journals do at present.2. I suspect that those writing and publishing books in Nigeria represent the foundations of an indigenous cognitive and educational ecosystem.I suspect the real challenge is how to do it as well as possible and keep doing it.
Are Nigerians able to readily import academic books?If not, nothing prevents one from writing a good book and making money from it.The entire country would be a wide open market, and, to a lesser degree, even other African countries.I am not aware of the current situation in Nigeria, but I doubt if lecturers need to compel students to but their books as some have done.Textbooks are for general student use, and summations of the field,while others are directed at advancing the field and are addressed to specialists and those prepared to read at that more advanced level.Web access could also make a world of difference here.One can publish online, to address both a global market and even a local market accessing your work on mobile platforms like phones and iPads, as well as publishing in print for the local market.thankstoyinOn Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 1:42 AM, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Bolaji:Many thanks for taking the time off your busy schedule to provide us from your private treasure trove, rich data that informs the ASUU wahala, data that is now coming out in dribs and drabs thanks to the great efforts of in-your-face critics like Feyi Fawehinmi. I chuckled at the predictable response by Professor Akin Oyebode to Feyi's robust analysis. Feyi is what is known as a Twitter Overlord, @DoubleEph has 8,500 followers on twitter, the face of today's Nigerian youth, incredibly influential. ASUU should follow him and not heckle him. People like Feyi know mass communication and on social media (Twitter and Facebook) they are giving ASUU the royal finger - sweetly.Yup, ASUU and the government should listen to Feyi and the others. Put the student in your documents and in your plans. Emulate how these young folks break down data. And do the same. It is free. And you know what? All these young folks are not abroad like Ikhide throwing rocks from Babylon. They are in Nigeria. Again, social media is important. There are new leaders in that culture. Many young leaders have thousands of followers. A single tweet from them shared all over could make a difference. Someone like Tolu Ogunlesi has 44,000 followers. Follow @toluogunlesi. It is free ;-) This is the 21st century people, folks should unshackle themselves of ancient paradigms. And begin by partnering with the young - in a respectful manner. It is their life after all.
It is useful to restate your recommendations here:"There is enough blame and misunderstanding on all sides, but what we need right now is statesmanship on both sides to end this strike, after which our whole Nigerian University System should be re-evaluated to grant GREATER AUTONOMY to individual universities; have the federal government (and the NUC) play a less intrusive role in university governance; declare the education sector a national security matter; and have collective bargaining / strike action be more local rather than national. Towards that end:1. The Federal Government should truly commit to increasing funding to the education sector, starting with the 2014 Budget. It should include ALL monies going NOT only to the Federal Ministry of Education but to ETF, PTDF and any other MDAs that spend money on education in the calculations.2. ASUU should accept the N30 billion earned allowance paid now as DOWN-PAYMENT, and when the Vice-Chancellors in consultation with the Governing Councils have disbursed same, should be able to return for more as found necessary. IN the time being, the Federal Government should budget N30 billion for it in the 2014 budget, to build trust.
3. ASUU should accept the N100 billion NEEDS assessment money given to all universities by the Federal Government, after being assured that this will not affect statutory TETFUND money. [By the way, all VCs and Pro-Chancellors are being invited to Abuja next on Tetfund affairs.] Again, the Federal Government should budget N100 billion in the 2014 budget for special ADDITIONAL intervention in the next year, and the following two years, and ensure that all trapped TetFUND monies are released promptly..
4. The Federal Government's No-Work No-Pay rule on this particular strike should be rescinded forthwith; It sours relations, in the opinion of Vice-Chancellors, because there are academic staff who may NOT be teaching, but are doing research and community service, and some are actually doing administrative work (Heads of Departments, Directors, etc.)."Bolaji, mark my words, your recommendations will be ignored like the ones before them. We are only having this conversation because ASUU is feeling the heat from disgusted stakeholders and is beginning to sense what it feels like to COMPETE. More needs to be done to make ASUU and the government responsible and accountable to those who are unfortunate to be their customers. You have said it all in your opening context to your recommendations. It won't happen without a structural shift. ASUU at the national level must be disbanded. All employee unions should remain at the local level. It is a matter of national security concern that the country catches malaria each time ASUU sneezes. Nonsense.Bolaji, even you have struggled with the numbers. No one knows for sure what the numbers mean, where they came from. I can tell you the numbers are a careful product of SWAG - Serious Wild Ass Guessing. ASUU and the government are not serious. You need an assessment of EACH facility in EACH institution with discrete dollar figures for each institution. There should be a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) - preferably a multi-year CIP for each institution. Ideally many of those facilities in those horrid pictures should simply be torn down and modernized. That would require an annual layout of CIP and maintenance money in the budgetary base every year. It won't happen with the Soviet style unitary system we have in place today. There is no competition and no incentive for improvement because ASUU and our Government do not answer to anyone and do not care.The money ASUU is asking for is enough to institute a Marshall Plan to rescue our institutions. Again, this is where I say ASUU and the government are not serious. Where did those figures come from? Where are the details? Bolaji, you know that as an educational administrator, this is what I do for a living, it is logistically impossible to spend that kind of money annually - you do not have the infrastructure in place to do what needs to be done. I can bet you, the money will be released - and promptly looted. Has anyone ever asked what ever happened to the money that the institutions got in the past? Your guess is as good as mine.The government's best hope is to convert all those funds into grants, give them to the institutions, wash hands off them and assume an oversight role with a real NUC and with help from external evaluators in tertiary institutions. It can be done, but between ASUU and our worthless government the children of the poor are royally screwed. We are stuck, Bolaji.I cannot say this enough: ASUU is a victim of its own success, the perennial shutdowns have been so successful, not many seem to care anymore. ASUU has helped to devalue the worth of a real education. Bored, our kids now turn to other pleasures and vices to kill the time. Between ASUU and a criminal government the children of the poor are royally screwed. Yup, ASUU has a huge problem, not just an image problem. And anyone that does not see it is in severe denial. Again, and again and again I will say it, ASUU's mode of communication is outmoded and inarticulate. You don't believe me? Here is an editorial by YNaija an online journal based in Nigeria:
Folks, please take the time to go through it, see the charts, how attractive and succinct they, see the section on ASUU, look at what they did with figures showing what NASS has gobbled up, AND what it would do for ASUU's demands. Now, that is mass communication, that is how to reach people. Compare that to the only thing remotely compelling about ASUU on her website, the Needs Assessment and you see why ASUU is seen as an ancient behemoth only invested in an outmoded system of entitlement and privilege. There is absolutely zero excuse for ASUU to be like this. There is so much good material on that "needs Assessment" that could be highlighted on charts, blogs, social media, etc. And it is FREE. All this racist liberal nonsense about how it is nice to be in America to view nice websites should fill us with shame and rage. Some of the best websites in the world are owned by Nigerians. There is something that happens to us when we get that contract to do something for an organization/state institution.
The people that are doing this to children, many of them got their degrees abroad, many lived here, they know their rights from their wrongs. They come home and suddenly, it is open season on children. It should not be possible for one union to shut down an entire nation's education just like that. It makes no sense and it is a national security issue for heavens' sakes. ASUU in its current configuration is sounding the death knell of public tertiary education and we know the victims of this horror. It is the children of the poor.
Bolaji, for the avoidance of doubt, my focus is squarely on ASUU, the government of the day is beneath contempt. I hold ASUU responsible for our situation. If ASUU would spend the time to think about a sound communications plan that consists of a one-text, charts brimming with data about what the issues are, what the needs are and what it would take in the short, intermediate and long run to fix the crisis (including a decentralization of unions to local universities, autonomy for local universities, etc), millions, including youths and parents would line up behind them for the mother of all protests.
I say to ASUU, you need data. Data is key. Anything without meaningful data is simply opinion, and mostly BS. Again, it is in ASUU's interest to have basic data that relates to its members. I have been on ASUU's case since 2009. Nothing has changed with them, they seem incurious. Many of them are here on Professor Toyin Falola's USA Africa Dialogue listserv where I have been on a running battle with them for years. Some of their executive members are on that listserv. I first complained about their website years ago. Nothing has changed. ASUU is just plain lazy.In summary: We are at a pivotal moment, our educational system is in total disarray, and I agree with you Bolaji, it is a matter of national security, what is (not) happening to our children in those classrooms. Focusing on the tertiary institutions, we need a massive, massive, massive infusion of funds into public universities, colleges and polytechnics. First things first, in return for those funds, ASUU should preside over its dismantling. ASUU as a national organization needs to go. It is simply crazy that a cookie-cutter approach is being used for pretty much every public tertiary institution out there. Block grants should be given to each state to restore infrastructure, universities should have real autonomy, and union membership should only be for each institution. ASUU as a national body should not exist. It is cancer that must be excised. In the name of the children of the poor.- IkhideStalk my blog at www.xokigbo.comFollow me on Twitter: @ikhideJoin me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>; Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>
Cc: NaijaPolitics e-Group <NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com>; naijaintellects <naijain...@googlegroups.com>; OmoOdua <Omo...@yahoogroups.com>; ekiti ekitigroups <ekiti...@yahoogroups.com>; Ra'ayi <Raay...@yahoogroups.com>; "niger...@yahoogroups.com" <niger...@yahoogroups.com>; Yan Arewa <YanA...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 5, 2013 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement | Agùntáṣǫólò
Ikhide:First, as a Vice-Chancellor and concerned citizen, I continue to be saddened by the prolongation of this strike in the Nigerian University System (NUS) that has now entered its third month - which is a third in length already of the super-long 2002/2003 strike of yore. After the meeting of five representative VCs, ASUU representatives and the Vice-President Sambo on September 16 in which certain reasonable decisions were reached, one thought that cooler heads would prevail. But alas, significant distrust and some missteps between the contending parties leave the situation un-resolved, with no end in sight yet.Secondly, you have been a fly in ASUU's ointment, and have been joined by Feyi Fawehinmi (FF) in his four-part blog series, [http://aguntasolo.com/] which I have thoroughly read. I commend him - a university brat himself - for his yeoman effort. It is not easy to be a social/public critic - and using data too, because opinions are easy, facts sacred, and you must develop a thick skin when people come after you. When you also get the attention of a Prof. Akin Oyebode (who has been on both sides of the isle on this matter) with a rejoinder (I repeat the rejoinder in the Appendix below), then you know that FF has hit a raw nerve.However, Ikhide, for the sake of transparency, I made available inall the ASUU, SSANU, NASU and NAATS 209 agreements with the Federal Government. Notice that it was not ONLY ASUU, but the other three unions. So the total EARNED allowances being demanded is NOT for ASUU alone - and that point must NOT be forgotten, and ASUU should not be held as if it is demanding ALL of this money for itself. That is a point that FF must acknowledge moving forward, and not pour all invectives on ASUU. Non-academics too must also share the blame in the rot in our university system. In fact, if you read the EARNED Allowances portion of the other unions other than ASUU, some eye-popping and hair-raising agreements were made which, to my mind, should not have been made AT ALL, not to talk of setting NAIRA RATES to them.The third point to be made is that while principles of funding and financial rates were agreed with respect to certain allowances, the total number of staff to be paid (and students to be served) by each university; who between the federal government and the university that would make the payments; and most especially the CAP of the total amount paid were really NOT part of the agreement. This was the MAIN flaw of the agreement, and has really led to the impasse.In order to correct this flaw, back in September 2011, all the Vice-Chancellors of Federal Universities - we nine new ones included, barely six months old then on our jobs - were asked by the Federal Minister of Education to submit the financial implications of the 2009 agreement on our campuses for ALL employees (academic and non-academic) for the period July 2009 to December 2012. An initial compilation in November 2011 was incomplete (not enough universities responded) because of confusion about what was to be included or not, but by April 2012, a fuller compilation was made by the FGN/University-based Unions Agreements Implementation Monitoring Committee chaired by Dr. Wale Babalakin, and revealed to us: a sum of N106.7 billion, itemized according to the following table.
According to the IMC, a close study of the submissions showed too much inflation, and universities were once again asked to go back to tighten their figures, leading to a revised figure of about N92 billion (I don't have that table with me, but that amounts to about 90% of the above figures).Where we are now then is that the Federal Government has offered to pay - and has paid - N30 billion, asking the universities and their Councils to source for the rest, to ASUU (and Vice-Chancellors') chagrin.I suspect that Government suspects that there is still inflation in the figures, but has indicated that the universities should use what has been given NOW, and then return LATER to report what is left to be paid, and that will be considered. (This is an outcome of a meeting with the Vice-President, and what the VCs have recommended previously.) I believe that that is a fair demand - but ASUU is not trusting enough of government's intention, not without reason - but it must trust, for the sake of the nation.Ikhide, you asked whether I agreed with FF's analysis. I will now stick my neck out and indicate my own official position as Otuoke VC to the IMC when it asked for a revision. This is what I wrote in a paragraph as opinion - and I stick to it even today:There is a fourth point to be made. If you study the "agreements" closely, some of the agreements were "agreements to recommend", NOT agreements themselves. A recommendation can be agreed to or rejected, but to act as if the agreement to RECOMMEND amounts to the RECOMMENDATION itself causes a perception problem.For example, take this section of the ASUU agreement:Does this section REALLY mean that the Federal Government has AGREED to fund universities to the tune of N1.518 trillion? Not at all....it just means that the IMC has AGREED to make that recommendation to the FGN, which in fact it did. It is now UP to the FGN to accept or reject it. We might be very UNHAPPY that the recommendation was not accepted, but it would be disingenuous to state that the FGN has ACCEPTED to provide N1.518 trillion, but is now only offering N400 billion.Same principle goes to this section of the ASUU agreement:
Ikhide, I have provided this long piece to give you my own knowledge of the history of this impasse, and to provide some insight into my own line of thinking. There is enough blame and misunderstanding on all sides, but what we need right now is statesmanship on both sides to end this strike, after which our whole Nigerian University System should be re-evaluated to grant GREATER AUTONOMY to individual universities; have the federal government (and the NUC) play a less intrusive role in university governance; declare the education sector a national security matter; and have collective bargaining / strike action be more local rather than national. Towards that end:1. The Federal Government should truly commit to increasing funding to the education sector, starting with the 2014 Budget. It should include ALL monies going NOT only to the Federal Ministry of Education but to ETF, PTDF and any other MDAs that spend money on education in the calculations.2. ASUU should accept the N30 billion earned allowance paid now as DOWN-PAYMENT, and when the Vice-Chancellors in consultation with the Governing Councils have disbursed same, should be able to return for more as found necessary. IN the time being, the Federal Government should budget N30 billion for it in the 2014 budget, to build trust.3. ASUU should accept the N100 billion NEEDS assessment money given to all universities by the Federal Government, after being assured that this will not affect statutory TETFUND money. [By the way, all VCs and Pro-Chancellors are being invited to Abuja next on Tetfund affairs.] Again, the Federal Government should budget N100 billion in the 2014 budget for special ADDITIONAL intervention in the next year, and the following two years, and ensure that all trapped TetFUND monies are released promptly..4. The Federal Government's No-Work No-Pay rule on this particular strike should be rescinded forthwith; It sours relations, in the opinion of Vice-Chancellors, because there are academic staff who may NOT be teaching, but are doing research and community service, and some are actually doing administrative work (Heads of Departments, Directors, etc.).And there you have it.
Bolaji AlukoAPPENDIXQUOTE Rejoinder from Prof. Akin Oyebode to FF's "We have an ASUU Problem"Dear FF,I couldn't resist responding to your jibes and vituperation. It is full of generalizations, errors, inexactitude and inanities that could make one want to throw upPlease be informed that the time UNILAG had three Harvard alumni on its Law Faculty was over two decades ago. I should know since I went to the big H and have been on the UNILAG staff list for nearly 40 years and the only member of the troika still on ground.I agree that some of us love teaching and, or are deeply patriotic but there's a lot more to taking the jump to a greener pasture abroad. Please be informed that most of us still around remain not out of lack of rosy offers and promises of a better life but because of our firm belief in the necessity to ensure that the roof did not cave in on Nigeria's education system.I'm surprised you failed to recite the line of cynics that those who can, can and those who can't, teach. Having been in the business of teaching lawyers for quite a while, helping, in the process, to produce 50 SANs and 25 law professors, I should be in a position to make averments regarding legal education in Nigeria and matters incidental thereto.When one of my children came back to the country after concluding his LLM in a US Ivy League Law School and succeeded in addition to crack the New York Bar (at first attempt, by the way), he was full of praises for the quality of legal education he had obtained here in UNI:LAG. I'm sure you must have come across numerous Nigerians in your country of sojourn making good with Nigeria's university education which you have derided so much.You argue that the quality oft our pedagogy was suspect but the evidence on the ground does not justify your wholesale condemnation. Of course, we can use greater input and modernization of the education process but we are still striving to perform or task in the face of paucity of facilities and inability to attract and retain the best and brightest. I can tell you that Harvard had nearly 100 libraries when we were there some 40 years ago. The main library had nearly five million volumes…I do not, in the least wish to turn this conversation into a point-counter-point discussion but let me tell you this: the ball lies squarely in the court of the Nigerian State for disparaging the old legal maxim, pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be implemented in good faith). The disdain for Nigerian academics shared by people of your ilk within a general anti-intellectual environment is so suffocating that one has to wonder why our universities and other higher institutions of learning had actually survived thus far.Way back in the 1990′s, I happened to have acted in the role of legal adviser to the ASUU negotiation team that brought into being the first FG-ASUU Agreement which the government of the day later felt it worthy to thump its nose at. A decade later, I had become a V-C and was a member of the government team that midwifed a revised version of the 1992 FG-ASUU Agreement. Characteristically, the government of the day again went back on its words. Now, we are once again faced with the scenario of discounting an agreement signed, sealed and delivered by the selfsame parties in 2009. It would have been funny if it was not tragic.I pause to ask, when would the Nigerian State learn to put its money where its mouth is? The real issue is re-furbishing the infrastructure of our universities in the face of a student population bursting at its seams while the rich, famous and powerful dispatch their children and wards to the US, Europe and better organized environments such as South Africa, Ghana and even, Benin Republic next door. It would seem Alphonse Kerr knew what he was saying when he observed, " Plus ca change, plus la meme chose… ( The more things change, the more they remain the same…)Since ASUU is demanding a mere fraction of what the country expends on running its bureaucracy, importation of fuel by an oil-rich enclave, humongous emoluments for its legislators, sundry acts of corruption and squandermania, the path of reason is to make the necessary adjustment in the country's scale of values and priorities in order to rescue Nigerian universities from ultimate perdition. Anyone who says that ASUU is asking too much or acting unreasonably needs to put on his thinking cap in order to understand clearly what the current struggle is all about.UNQUOTEOn Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 6:39 AM, IKHIDE <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
--"As I've said several times before – this dispute is all about pay and nothing else. The thing with recommendations is that they are just that; recommendations. You cant take someone to court for not following a recommendation. So it was up to the government to follow those parts of the agreement or not. But ASUU weren't messing about with the parts that concerned them. The numbers were clearly specified which is why today they can say the government is owing them N92bn in earned allowances or whatever the figure is. It is also the same reason why the government feels it can throw N30bn at them and ask them to 'manage' it. Afterall its ASUU's word against the government's.You hardly come across the word 'student' in the agreement at all. And there is nothing specific about infrastructure in there other than the large sums of money the government was supposed to give the universities. There are many people today making ignorant noises about government 'honouring the agreement' and even coming up with things that are not in said agreement as 'ASUU's demands'. There really isnt anything for anyone in here other than ASUU so personally I'd say, leave them to fight it out with government."Fascinating, if hilarious analysis of the ASUU-FG agreement. I wonder if Bolaji Aluko agrees with the analysis. He does nail ASUU something awful on the self-serving nature of the agreement. More alarming, he makes the great point that no one truly knows how much every year this agreement will cost. No budgetary numbers, just pay. All the government needs to do is just pay ASUU. Why are we like this? A must read. Read the rest here:
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsub...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsub...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.
---Mohandas GandhiYou received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
No comments:
Post a Comment