A former ASUU activist saying that the union has overplayed the strike hand, with diminishing and predictably mixed outcomes. He argues that they ought to dial back on the use of strikes and instead try less disruptive methods of struggle.
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust 13th October 2013
This is a difficult conversation for me given my history of active engagement in ASUU, especially during its formative years. My comments might be dismissed as the words of an ASUU renegade. To attempt to prevent this this type of response, let me start with my CV. As a young lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University in 1980, I was already in the progressive caucus when Biodun Jeyifo, (BJ everybody calls him), and Uzodinma Nwala, newly elected pioneer President and Secretary of ASUU, stormed our Samaru campus to bring the good news. The transformation has occurred they proclaimed, by the law of 1978, the Nigerian Association of University Teachers, then existing in the five pioneer universities was dead and from its grave has emerged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a trade union. We were in exquisite excitement as BJ explained to us that intellectuals can now join the working class struggle as trade unionists and bring our intellectual support to the larger struggle to improve the educational system, but even more important, make our contribution to creating a progressive Nigeria.
I was in the team that dashed off to the Department of Electrical Engineering to inform Buba Bajoga, the last head of the association that a new regime has arrived. We organised elections and George Kwanashie and Raufu Mustapha emerged as the first leadership of ASUU in ABU, the bedrock of campus radicalism in Nigeria. We immediately engaged in organising the first ASUU strike and in 1982, I spent months in the Ibadan headquarters providing support for the ASUU negotiating team. In 1983, I became the secretary of ASUU in ABU with Yahaya Abdullahi as Chairman and the struggle continued. That was the year I defended my masters thesis. My examiner, the late Claude Ake commended me on a good thesis but told me off for spending five years writing a mere masters thesis. I was upset with him and mumbled that I had been spending all my time with the ASUU struggle and had little time for the thesis and as a comrade; he should understand the urgency of the ASUU struggle. He offered me an advice, get your PhD he told me, and you will be surprised that the struggle will still be there waiting, and you will be better equipped for it.
My Head of Department, Ibrahim Gambari, looked at me and smiled. Shortly thereafter, Gambari called me and gave me a scholarship letter to pack my bags and go to France for postgraduate studies. I told him bluntly that I was not going because the ASUU struggle had reached a critical stage and ABU was its cerebral base so I had to stay and continue my coordination role. Secretly in my mind, I was afraid of going to France because Mrs Waldron, my French teacher in Barewa College had sent me out of her class on the basis that I was incapable of learning French. God bless Gambari, he just told me I must go or he will sack me, I succumbed to the threat. The Caucus was of course very upset with me for jumping ship at a time in which we believed we were successfully cornering President Shagari to grant all our demands and finally create a university system with full autonomy and sufficient resources. My response was that the reason we operated in a caucus was not to depend on an individual.
I went to France, successfully learnt French and started the postgraduate programme but came back two years later to find out we were exactly where we were before my departure. A year later, I went back to France to finish the doctoral programme and returned to find the ASUU struggles was still where I had left it. The lesson for me is that our history teaches us that there is no formula for a final resolution of the ASUU struggle.
Through the 1990s, I continued with the ASUU struggles but with a more realistic vision that we need to have a more incremental approach to the struggle until I was forced out of the university system. Subsequently, as Country Director of Global Rights, an organisation engaged in facilitating legislative advocacy, I contacted the ASUU caucus both during the three-month old 2001 and six-months old 2003 ASUU strike that they should focus on the National Assembly and lobby them for sufficient funding rather than focus on President Obasanjo. They dismissed me as a renegade trying to dissipate their energies. We will force Obasanjo to deliver and eventually, the deal was signed, AND OF COURSE NOT IMPLEMENTED. We are still there today.
ASUU is strong. It has the capacity to carry out long strikes, keep students at home and get them to pressurise their parents to pressurise the President to sign a deal. Presidents through the ages have all been forced to sign, but signing is the simple issue, implementation has always been the bane of policies in Nigeria. ASUU is weak because its too focused on grandiose victory that often yields little in real results. The fact of the matter is that the Nigerian Government is irresponsible and never fully implements deals it signs. The struggle for a responsive and accountable government is a much larger one and goes far beyond the ASUU struggle. ASUU must go into introspection and learn what every trade unionist knows, gains in the struggle are never total, they are always incremental.
The key question in the faceoff is finance and financial matters are addressed in budgets. The President proposes budget estimates but our Constitution gives power to the National Assembly to make the budget. Let's reflect on Nigeria's budgets. Budgets are laws, which our Constitution says must be fully implemented by all governmental agencies. We know however that since 1999, no budget of any government ministry, department or agency (MDA) has ever been fully implemented. The Federal Universities are government agencies and their expectations that the agreement they have, which is not even a law, must be fully implemented, is correct in principle but does not reflect current practices. It is despicable that Government signs without any intention of full implementation but we need to start asking ourselves whether strikes will change the course of Government business.
In 2004, President Obasanjo introduced a new fiscal policy based on what is called the "oil price rule". Each year, the government sets a pre-determined price for petroleum at a level that would be certainly lower than the market price. The government then saves the difference between the pre-determined price and the actual price to build foreign reserves and create confidence in the economy. Based on this criterion of fiscal prudence, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) authorised its Policy Support Instrument (PSI) for Nigeria in October 2005. The agreement with the IMF on fiscal policy was done surreptitiously and Parliament was not consulted. The Obasanjo regime therefore made commitments on significant cuts to public expenditure without the accord of the Nigerian people. This treacherous act of the regime in cutting funds for social expenditure is celebrated in many IMF and World Bank reports.
It is the on-going policy that no appropriation shall be fully disbursed and implemented. President Goodluck Jonathan brought back a certain Ngozi Okonjo Iweala to continue this policy. The fact of the matter is that the macro-economic policy framework of the Presidency is to continue to curb investment in the social sector, in particular, on education and health. Progressives must engage this struggle with zeal and on a wider front but its resolution cannot be the basis of re-opening our universities.
The prognosis of the ASUU struggle is clear, Government will eventually be forced to commit to full implementation, ASUU will go back to work and receive arrears for the months of work not done and Government will once again renege at the level of full implementation. It will take ASUU two more years of massive mobilisation to get lecturers back on strike and the cycle continues. ASUU must start a conversation about a profound change in tactics. More minimalist and attainable targets must be set and advocacy must be broadened to address the National Assembly and other institutions. My ASUU comrades, the struggle is our life but this does not mean that we cannot get real. Did BJ not tell us in 1980 that there are two struggles, one for the university system and another for a progressive Nigeria?
On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
Moses:May your tribe increase! When you are referred to slyly, and you don't answer, the Yoruba say that you are a coward. Ikhide obliged, having once lived in the Yoruba axis.But I still blame Ikhide for mixing it up with Chidi on this matter. He should allow us lesser beings to do the mixing-up.And there you have it.
Bolaji AlukoPS: I read elsewhere that Ikhide is alleged to be something like my factotum over this ASUU matter, with Tolu Ogunlesi as a back-up trumpeter. The guy who wrote so - I hear a Professor - is an illiterate, I understand. Ikhide and I don't even agree on ASUU, even though his angst is understandable, and I could not tell Tolu Ogunlesi from Adam or Eve.By the way, I am more optimistic this minute than yesterday that the ASUU strike will end soon...stay tuned.--On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 12:34 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:While I join my brother, Professor Okpeh, in calling for a ceasefire on the personal stuff, it should be noted that Ikhide did not ask for this personal fight. It was brought to him by Chidi, whose familiar three to four line contributions on this forum often contain innuendoes, veiled accusations, insinuations, and other mischievous asides. Chidi always has a bête noir for every week or month. When he's not railing against diaspora Nigerians for being elitist or distant in their politics and priorities, he is fuming at diaspora literary figures for defining the valuational parameters of African literature and thus devaluing his and other home-based writers' work. It's always one contrarian angst or another with Chidi. Because of the tendentious and substantively empty character of these gripes, folks often ignore him, but you can only throw out so many silly, unfounded, and deliberately vague accusations before the intended target(s) answer back. An African proverb says that if someone continues to fart in your face and you do not call them to order, they might actually think that you enjoy the company of their flatulence.The other day, Bolaji had to respond to Chidi's baseless insinuation that diaspora Nigerians who are critiquing the status quo in Nigerian higher education, including ASUU's many foibles, are actually angling to be called upon to take over the running of the education system because "they feel they can do a better job." He takes care not to mention names in these diatribes but his targets are always clear to the discerning, and often they are diaspora Nigerians. Pius Adesanmi once had to put him in his place after one of those vague innuendoes directed at Pius. The genesis of the current spat is that Chidi made a vague gossipy comment about Ikhide telling him something in an unguarded moment of their interactions in PH, giving the impression that what Ikhide told him contradicts what he says on the forum--all of this without specifying this "thing" that he alleges Ikhide told him and without indicating what exactly is the relevance of this "thing" to the discussion on ASUU. Even after being challenged by Ikhide to reveal this huge conversation that we're supposed to believe has consequences for the debate on the ASUU-FG wahala and Ikhide's contributions to it, Chidi has demurred and is instead spewing irrelevant interactional details from Ikhide's PH visit. This is despicable intellectual and personal behavior that must be called by its proper name. No need for pretend politeness here.But it is not just Chidi who is culpable. Recently another Nigeria-based commentator flatly stated that Ikhide was being used by President Jonathan to destabilize ASUU. I shook my head when I read that nonsense. It was probably fitting that Ikhide, the target, and others ignored that ridiculous tactic of accusatory blackmail. Some of these defensive outbursts by supporters of ASUU, do not deserve the dignifying aura of a response, for they skirt your contentions and attack your person and your motive.The forum was told recently that I was infected by "coloniality mentality"--whatever that means, that I was pedestrian in my analysis, that I was misinformed, and that I and others in the diaspora who would not repeat the ASUU official line had been corrupted by the white man's ways of seeing and knowing. Is that a productive trajectory of debate or the continuing obsession with diasporans as interlopers in the Nigerian higher education debate?The other time it was Okey Iheduru who was attacked with vicious innuendoes, subtle accusations, and petty, irrelevant comments.So, Chidi's infraction is not isolated. It fits into a pattern of folks abusing and making unfounded accusations against diaspora Nigerians when they dare to interject critically into debates and discussions that home-based colleagues consider their experiential and intellectual fortes. Their effort to discredit and delegitimize us as critics of and stakeholders in the Nigerian higher education industry range from absurd accusations about pecuniary motives to the claim that we're ignorant of events in Nigeria, never mind that some of us are a lot more informed about Nigerian realities than some of those at home, thanks to multiple technological, telephonic, and human streams of information, thanks to the interconnectedness fostered by social media, and thanks to regular personal visits and multiple collaborations with colleagues and friends at home.We cannot have a productive dialogue on the issues ailing our higher education industry if home folks regard diaspora voices, especially critical ones, with suspicion, insist on delegitimizing us, ask us to return home if we care so much, question our motive, alternately accuse us of ignorance and arrogance, and generally aim to shut us out of the debate with fair and foul tactics....On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 6:36 AM, <okpehookpeh@gmail.com> wrote:
Ikhide and Chidi:
Please, while you reserve the right to disagree, please don't take this further. We have all enjoyed your profound interventions in the ASUU/FGN debate. We respect both of you...a lot. Please don't disappoint us.
Having said that, may I request the Moderator's intervention. Oga, we know say u still dey enjoy your birthday celebration. But dis our uncles dem hold each oda for neck. Abeg, help us settle matter.
Dont mind my fractured pidgin.... LOL.
03.Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.From: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 02:45:27 -0700 (PDT)ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comCc: Chidi Opara<chidi.opara@gmail.com>; Toyin Adepoju<toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>; Ikhide<xokigbo@yahoo.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement | AgùntáṣǫólòSorry, I mean to say "I did not request those photos........"
On Monday, 14 October 2013 09:44:41 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:Let me hasten to add that I did not take those photos, Ikhide's "Personal Assistant" did with Ikhide's camera at his request and it was Ikhide who first posted them on his facebook page from where I downloaded them.CAO.
On Sunday, 13 October 2013 19:28:51 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:Ikhide,
I will not respond to your usual venom, but let me say this, on the way from the University Of Port Harcourt, in the bus assigned to members of PEN in which you and I rode, a discussion about the relevance of books ensued between the chap who authored "Fine Boys........" , Tade and I, I mentioned what I referred to then as "one of one Ikhide's comments on the relevance of books" Tade asked if I know Ikhide in person, I said I don't, he drew your attention and introduced us, whereupon you became excited and came over to where I was seating and other things followed. At the hotel presidential, you were all over me to the annoyance of Kaine Agary whose invitation to the gala night at the government house you turned down. Most of your friends went to that gala night, but you refused to go because you said you wanted to be with "Poet Chidi Anthony Opara", you said this openly and even confirmed it on this forum while commenting on a post by Pius Adesamni, immediately after the event. Truly, you were paying the bills, because you were the one who wanted my company.
Apologies for my bad grammar.
Be well.
CAO.
On Sunday, 13 October 2013 16:27:57 UTC+1, Ikhide wrote:"One "critic" in an unguarded moment told me things in Port Harcourt..."- Chidi OparaChidi,I bowed out of this ASUU discussion a while back, not sure what is going on with you. But f you notice, I have ignored you out of compassion. I am sure your parents did not raise you to be a snivelling cowardly gossip. You have made poorly veiled references to me - in your disrespectful "ode" to Professor Falola, and now in this your latest, you insinuate that I told you things that the world would very much like to know about.Please share with the world what I told you in Port Harcourt. Let me assure you that I told you nothing. I certainly told you nothing that I don't want the world to know about. Again, please, please, please, share with the world what I told you, or shame is forever yours. You are the one that parades pictures of you with me all over the world, you have a fixation on being associated with certain people, "writers", "critics", etc. Yes, I visited Port Harcourt's literary conference on my own dime and you were all over me, I could not get rid of you.I was in Port Harcourt, seated by you in a vehicle and you started this story about "what Ikhide said," not knowing that I was by your side. Tade Ipadeola laughingly asked, "Do you know who is seated by you?" You almost fainted from shock. From that point on, you were a groupie, never leaving my side. I was happy to spend time in Port Harcourt, at my own expense. I paid my way everywhere I went, you invited me out, that was kind of you, but I ended up paying for everything, I did not take a penny from you. I am glad I did not let my guard down in your presence, I was surrounded at all times by witnesses. Know this, you have just done this forum a great favor, you are not someone to share time with, ever.As for your insinuations, know this, yes, I am damn proud of my achievements in life. Folks here know me as just Ikhide. But go and google me, the history of public education in my county, in my state wil be incomplete without my name in it. What I do here, I do merely for fun, but the hours I spend daily on our literature some have made professorships out of them. Again,I do not define myself by my writings, I have made more substantive achievements in life than that, google me. And despite your insinuations, if I have to brag, it is not about how many wretches beg to take their pictures with me, not about followerships. And yes, I count myself as a personal friend of Professor Toyin Falola, ask him. And I have contributed a chapter to a scholarly book on him (talk about scholarship! Hiss!0. Google that. I did that for free and I will do that again and again.Chidi, I am proud of myself, I don't need you to affirm who I am. But hear me, I am even prouder of you. Here you are in the fringes of life, your life thoroughly mismanaged by a confluence of rogues, and you are still here proudly soldiering on, flitting from one half-baked project to the other, your miserable life defined by the rank mediocrity of your circumstances. In that respect, you are a better man than me. In your wretched shoes, I would have jumped into the nearest ocean, who needs that? It is for people like you, for your offspring that I even bother. Trust me, I don't need Nigeria's money, I certainly do not need you, you have nothing, absolutely nothing to offer me.Now that you have my attention, I beg you, please share with this August audience what your unnamed "critic" told you. I will take out my red pen, correct your half-sentences and your lies and send you back to the creepy crawly cave you came from. Nonsense.- IkhideStalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/Follow me on Twitter: @ikhideJoin me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
On Sunday, October 13, 2013 10:05 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Toyin,Do not bother. The discerning do not agree with those positions whether challenged or not. One "critic" in an unguarded moment told me things in Port Harcourt,Bravo all the same for independent mindedness and profundity(qualities which ironically earned you dismissal from two reactionary literary listservs.)CAO.
On Friday, 11 October 2013 22:50:55 UTC+1, tovadepoju wrote: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 SpiritWell 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 OpportunityI 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 NigeriaI 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 NarrativesWhat 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 KnowledgeFoundations and Continuity in Nigerian Academia : LandmarksI 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 PublicationThe 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 ExperienceWhat 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 muchtoyin
On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Femi Segun <solor...@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.FemiOn Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovad...@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.thankstoyinOn Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovad...@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 <meoc...@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, <shina7...@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...@gmail.com>Sender: usaafric...@ googlegroups.comDate: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 03:17:35 -0700 (PDT)ReplyTo: usaafric...@ googlegroups.comCc: Mobolaji Aluko<alu...@gmail.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ASUU Part Quatre: We Have An Agreement | AgùntáṣǫólòYou 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.
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