Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Senator Adeyeye responds to ASUU

Yes, yes, and yes, to all that you wrote above. But you seem to have completely missed the overarching point that Adeyeye was making, which is distilled in a single sentence, which I am reproducing here: "our task [as academics] is to curb needless privileges rather than add to them."

And that is the point, that academics should not be comparing themselves with politicians, or their pay and benefits to politicians.' In the US, academics never reference politicians' remuneration in discussing their needs or greivances. During the economic meltdown, state legislators were cutting and slashing allocation to state universities. Did they cut their own pay and perks? No. In fact many state legislators increased their perks in the midst of the recession, causing public outrage. Yet in lamenting the cuts to public universities' budgets by states, I never once heard or read academics reference the salaries or perks of those responsible for the cuts--state legislators. That's because they knew that it would be a losing argument, a form of self-indictment when you begin to draw comparisons between your needs and what is recognized all over the world as politicians' penchant for awarding themselves outrageous benefits while denying same to regular citizens. Nigeria may be an egregious instance of this, but it is global phenomenon.

Academics and their expectations and tastes are not supposed to mirror those of politicians. If your value system mirrors that of politicians, you should never have entered academia to begin with. Which is precisely the problem in Nigerian higher education: the system is filled with many folks who don't belong there, who don't subscribe to the humanistic values of academia, who are motivated solely by pecuniary impulses, and who, as a result, frame their demands and priorities using baselines established by profligate politicians and their fiscal conducts.

Senator Adeyeye, to his credit, has been a lone voice in the national assembly, beginning from his days in the House of Rep, calling for a radically downward review of salaries, allowances, and benefits for legislators and office holders. When he won the senatorial election two years ago, he publicly declared in a Saharareporters interview that, given his well known objection to the outrageous salaries and perks of legislators, he would take from his senate salary what he would have been earning as a Professor in the US and donate what is left to his community/constituent in the form of projects and charity. He is the only federal legislator to my knowledge who has made such a public declaration. 

He has again declared that advocacy of pay cut for legislators and political officers in the write-up under discussion. Quite courageous if you ask me. He cannot be called a hypocrite on this matter. And he cannot be portrayed as a typical politician, as intolerant ASUU officials are trying to do, because he is not a typical politician. He is a heterodox political figure bucking and upending the trend. If anything, he is being very modest as some of us know the fight that he and people like Hon. Uche Onyegocha fought against corruption in the House of Rep between 1999 and 2003. How many of us will be able to maintain our moral and ethical commitments in the orbit of a corrupt, rotten institution like the Nigerian senate? I particularly like the fact that senator Adeyeye is not behaving in a politically opportunistic manner in regard to the strike, especially as an opposition who could have easily slammed the FG's handling of the crisis and aligned himself opportunistically with ASUU as many opposition figures have already done to score political points. This, to me, shows courage and conviction. 

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

"He (Senator Adeyeye) is saying what some of us without loyalty to ASUU have been saying---that some of the demands and expectations of ASUU are simply unreasonable, even outrageous when juxtaposed with academic cultures all over the world… Sometimes I wonder what some of these demands and expectations are modeled on.  "

 

Mo

 

It is heartening to know that the Senator has something to say about the " demands and expectations" of a tiny, tiny, select, leechy minority of Nigerians- legislators and other public officials whose demands and expectations are equally "outrageous ( or even worse) when juxtaposed with public service cultures all over the world " and are met without fail?  Many Nigerians and I sometimes wonder what some of those demands and expectations all of which are regularly met out of government budgets, regardless of budgetary constraints and stresses are modeled on.

 

oa

 

oa    

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 11:49 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Senator Adeyeye responds to ASUU

 

Okay o, di show don start o. I'm happy that our progressive friend, Senator Sola Adeyeye has waded into this matter with commonsensical, constructive suggestions and reasoned critiques of the ASUU position.

 

I know Professor Adeyeye personally, and he cannot be branded an establishment person or a hater of ASUU. He is calling it as he sees it. He is saying what some of us without loyalty to ASUU have been saying---that some of the demands and expectations of ASUU are simply unreasonable, even outrageous when juxtaposed with academic cultures all over the world. Sometimes I wonder what some of these demands and expectations are modelled on. I know we like to copy things from other climes and cite academic conventions from the West as gold standards of compensation, but most of the remunerative demands and innovations that ASUU has pushed and continues to push are alien to American, British, Canadian, and other Western academic systems.

 

I agree with Senator Adeyeye "that the implacable demands by ASUU are fueled by resentment at the cult of obscene privileges which Nigerian politicians have become." However, this comparison is misleading and misguided, for as Senator Adeyeye stated, "our task [as academics] is to curb needless privileges rather than add to them"

 

 I hope that Dr. Ajiboye will take Senator Adeyeye up on his challenge to debate the ASUU-FG problem on prime time Television. It would go a long way to enlighten the public and cut through the all the sophistry.

 

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 10:31 AM, Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com> wrote:

"First, the National Assembly of Nigeria should henceforth appropriate at least 26% of Nigeria's current revenue to education alone. Second, Government in Nigeria, especially the Federal Ministry of Education, has been denigrated into a beast of burden. The metastasis of asphyxiating bureaucracy demands the streamlining of the endless parastatals that drain resources while making little or no contribution to national well-being and progress. Third, to raise revenue for funding a national redemption program in education, all imports should attract a mandatory education tax of one percent. Fourth, beginning from January 1, 2014 till December 31, 2018, all workers in Nigeria must contribute 5% of their income as education taxes. Embezzling any amount of these revenues targeted for education should be taken as an act of treason. This should attract the most severe penalty such as impeachment, imprisonment and perhaps death penalty. Fifth, the costs for running the offices of all elected and appointed political office holders should immediately be pruned by 50%. Something tells me that the implacable demands by ASUU are fueled by resentment at the cult of obscene privileges which Nigerian politicians have become. But our task is to curb needless privileges rather than add to them."

- Senator Sola Adeyeye

 http://xokigbo.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/senator-sola-adeyeye-responds-to-asuu/

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

 

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