ICON
Prof. Festus Iyayi I was asked to pack faeces with my bare hands in detentionBy TONY OSUAUZO
Sunday, April 29, 2012 | |
Festus Iyayi
• Photo: The Sun Publishing |
| |
At 64, Professor Festus Iyayi, university don and rights activist, has fought many battles. An apostle of good governance and social justice, he took on the military headlong and fearlessly. The former radical president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), at different times was battered, bloodied and incarcerated. But the award-winning author of Heroes, Violence, Awaiting Court Martial and Contract remained unbowed and uncowed.
"I was stripped naked and thrown into a cell and asked to pack faeces with my bare hands. The police there then asked the inmates to beat me up", Prof. Iyayi recalls. Thirteen years into democracy, Iyayi is still pained that Nigeria is yet to make appreciable impact in terms of development. The Head of Department of Business Administration, University of Benin, blames the situation on a visionless ruling class who he accused of lacking ideas to transform the country.
"If I were younger, frankly speaking, I would have been much more active in creating an opposition that would smash the current regime because this ruling class is not taking us anywhere," he says.
Professor Iyayi speaks extensively on many issues, including his early childhood, his ASUU leadership days, among other issues:
Early childhood
I grew up within a very large family. My family was the most prominent in Ugbegun, Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State. My grandfather was very industrious. He was the first to introduce cocoa plantation, rubber plantation, palm tree plantation, cotton plantation and orange plantation. He had lorries and vehicles. He was in the Action Group. He never changed even when the NCNC in those days terrorised opponents. They destroyed our house. First, they tried to get my grandfather to change. They said he should come and pay money. Later they said he shouldn't pay money. Later they said they would give him all kinds of things, but he refused. He remained in the Action Group.
He was very principled. Any time there was a dispute in the village people would come to him. If you came to report anybody to him or report to him that somebody said this about him, he would sit you down and send for the person.
He encouraged people to go to school, sent his children and grandchildren to school.
He was a very principled man. The European District Officer at that time used to visit him. My cousins, my parents and myself drew a lot of inspirations from him. He was a very progressive, principled and industrious man.
To what extent did that shape your life and your involvement in unionism?
As I said, if you came from such a background, you are bound to be affected. Then, of course, I went to Annunciation Catholic College (ACC), Irrua. It was a school where discipline was a core value. We had Rev. Fathers, like Father Angiune; he was very instrumental then to our upbringing in the secondary school. Again, you experienced fairness. For example, when I got to Annunciation Catholic College, I discovered that everybody had to be a Catholic, but when I left Ugbegun for the college
I was already baptised and confirmed as an Anglican. At ACC, they said I should come and baptise a second time. I said no. They tried to persuade me but I refused. So, I was the only non-Catholic in an entirely Catholic school and it didn't change the attitude of the Reverend Father towards me. They would go and say their mass, I would join them but I won't perform any of the things that they did. Then, of course, Government College, Ughelli was also a fantastic school in terms of academic standards. So, those influences were very important in determining what one eventually did in life.
Did you feel odd that you were the only non-Catholic at Annunciation College, Irrua?
I didn't feel odd at all. I was myself. I didn't see why I had to be baptised a second time and had to become a Catholic. I just said no and that was it. I just didn't believe that it was necessary to change.
My leadership of ASUU
The leadership of ASUU is different from the leadership of other organisations and even trade unions generally. In ASUU, people ask you to lead the union, rather than you coming out to canvass and campaign to be the leader of the union. People identify you and say we want you to be the leader of the union. People identify you and say, please, we want you to provide leadership, especially at the time we were there during the military because we knew certainly that given the stand of ASUU on various national issues we were bound to be in clash with the military.
So, you had to be somebody that people thought could stand the stress and the conflicts that were bound to come. So, people approached you to be the leader of the union. We tried to maintain that tradition. Even right now you can't tell who becomes the leader of ASUU. We identify people we think can lead and we plead with them. Leadership of ASUU is unlike what obtains in national politics where people spend a lot of money buying votes.
You led ASUU under the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. How were you able to cope and would you compare your time then and ASUU of today?
Frankly speaking, a military dictatorship is certainly more repressive than a civilian dictatorship. The military wields power without concern for rights or the constitution. In fact, they suspend the constitution and so the risks are great. But under the military, cohesion among the opposition forces is also greater because there is only one force that you are opposing. Under such circumstances, the question of ethnicity, religion and things like that does not come in. Repression is greater but the foundation for unity among the oppressed is stronger.
Under civilian dictatorship that we have – I call it a dictatorship, because elections apparently are held but the basis for election is selection. People just decide who will stand for election. The votes are manipulated but then there is a constitution. Though Nigerians, of course, didn't take part in making it, there is this semblance of some rights. But then, under a civilian dictatorship, different wings of the ruling class from the different ethnic groups try to manipulate ethnic identity for their own personal purposes and that creates a major challenge.
So, the situation is much more complex under a civilian dictatorship as against a military dictatorship such that uniting a union or unions like NLC, TUC and all the others becomes much more difficult because people respond more to ethnic and religious sentiments than they would under the military. The challenges are great. So, it is a matter of pride for me that in spite of the great complexity and challenges now, the leadership of ASUU has kept its head above waters. It has done very well.
Did you as a result of your perceived radical posture then as ASUU president suffer any victimisation?
Of course. Then, they could throw ASUU leaders into jail but now they may not do that but they have other things that they do. Even as chairman of the branch in Benin (the University of Benin), we were regularly raided by the SSS, detained, and our books and papers seized. Under Babangida, Attahiru Jega, Toye Olorode, Idowu Awopetu, Asobie Assisi, myself and many others were detained.
The late Dimowo was with me in Lagos in an underground cell where we were detained. So, those things happened. Even in Benin here, I was stripped naked, thrown into a cell and asked to pack faeces with my bare hands. The police there then asked the inmates to beat me up. Those things happened. They cannot happen now. But there are different ways in which the current regime exercises those same powers but not in the crude form the military did. They make agreements, but they don't honour them. You will even want to negotiate, but they would refuse. They made laws that make it more difficult for unions to struggle. Voluntarism in terms of membership, payment of check-off dues – all those things are in place.
So, different regimes, based upon the foundations of their power, devise different means for exercising the same type of authority, and control over unions.
How would you describe attitude of government at all levels to education in Nigeria?
Frankly speaking, no Nigerian government, especially at the federal level, has been committed to education. It is a tragedy; and that partly accounts for our underdevelopment. If you want to develop an economy, there are two or three key sectors that you must do something about– education, energy and infrastructure – roads and things like that. If people have education they would know what to do. If they have energy they know what to do. They can now use power to transform what they know into things that people want. You train people in schools, they come out with ideas about what they want to do. They now have electricity to transform materials into things that people want and transportation to move things around.
If you know the price that we pay by the fact that we have large numbers of people who are uneducated, you would be shocked. In fact, the passivity and opportunism that you see, all this rigging of elections and all of those things are part of the price.
Then power; you are in a place and there's no light, you can't do anything. Then look at roads. See how much time it takes to travel from one place to another and then see how many deaths occur on the roads. In a country with Nigeria's resources, you would have railways.
That is the mass transit that people talk about, connecting the different parts of the country so that goods and people could move en masse. That is not happening. Instead, you have a lot of small buses and taxies on the road, and all the streets are parked full. What you have is chaos. The ruling class has foisted chaos on the country and it is a miracle that Nigerians are able to make sense of anything that is going on. It's a miracle because the level of disorganisation and chaos in Nigeria is not experienced anywhere. At least, from my experience, I haven't seen it anywhere else.
Sir, to what extent would you say strike as a tool has achieved the desired objective in improving the Nigerian university system?
People are saying ASUU goes on strike, ASUU is strike-prone and so on. I want to say that it is not ASUU that goes on strike because it is the refusal of government to implement agreements or to enter into negotiations that lead to strike.
But let me give you this example, because even people who were in the labour movement are now saying look, Nigeria has the highest record of strike at the university level in the world, that strike cannot achieve anything. When (Nelson) Mandela was asked in the British parliament whether he still supported the armed struggle that was used in South Africa during the Apartheid regime, his answer was very interesting; he said, "Look, the enemy dictates the strategies of the opposition."
If people are carrying leaves, waving leaves and government fires guns and bullets at them, it would be stupid for the people to continue to wave leaves. So, if government is also carrying leaves, then it would be a different thing. But if consistently you carry leaves, you carry placards and the response from government is brute force, it would be irresponsible of the leaders of the opposition to continue to advise that people should carry placards.
Anything that ASUU has got, that the university system has obtained since the 80's, since Babangida's time, has been through the force of strike– changes in university condition, improvement in funding, marginal improvement that has occurred, marginal improvement in the conditions of service, all have occurred as a result of strike that the universities have engaged in. Without those strikes nothing would have happened.
From results often released by WAEC, NECO and even JAMB, performances of candidates have been a source of worry. What can be done to improve the situation?
The performance will continue to get worse. You have to ask yourself, what are the conditions that determine performance? If you look at the children themselves, from what background do they come? Nutritionists, psychologists, biologists would tell you that the type of food you eat when you are a baby will have implications for your Intelligence Quotient (I.Q) and other things.
If you are poorly nourished, it will affect your mental life and so. If people come from very poor background, bad nutrition, no book in terms of going to school and in many of the schools no teachers, no facilities; what you are going to get is the kind of things that WAEC and co are talking about. The result will be dismal and so, if you also look at it, you will find that the children of the rich and middle class persons, who have all these things, tend to do better on the average than the children of the poor who cannot afford the things that the middle class and the rich do for their children.
As an author of many books who has won accolades, how would you describe Nigerians' reading culture?
Nigerians like to read. There is no doubt about that, but then, reading is a function of empowerment. You must be educated. You must also have the freedom to read–freedom from poverty and want. The struggle for survival must not curtail your opportunity to read. Nigerians are daily struggling for survival, so they cannot read. So, only a few people read. If you take the University of Benin now and you take the population, maybe only 10 percent of the population of students would be able to fend for themselves through the support of their parents. Others are scrounging, doing all kinds of things to make ends meet. Some are establishing barbing saloon, some are doing nail polish; some go to the market to sell garri e.t.c. How are they going to read? They cannot read. Again, that is a problem.
But when they read also, many tend to read not the books or novels published by Nigerians, but by foreign authors because, again, the psychological nature of the country in terms of the rulers is that we are oriented outwards, not inwards. So, Nigerian rulers and government would prefer that books are produced in America and brought here for sale instead of trying to develop local ideas. So, you see a Nigerian youth wearing T-shirt with the inscription, "I love New York", "I love London", "Texas State University". You won't see anyone wearing a T-shirt, "University of Benin," "I love Benin", "I love Lagos", "Abuja is great" or things like that. You won't find them because these things are done on purpose.
In the U.S. they do those things so that when you wear a shirt that identifies a particular place, your thinking automatically also goes in support of such a place. Nigerian ruling class who wants to be manufacturing shirts and doing those things is not there.
Look at the number of cars and motorcycles on Nigeria roads; none of them is made here. Calculate the average cost of each one and then multiply that by the number of vehicles and other things and see the amount of money going out of the country. Our people, frankly speaking, are not being oriented to define themselves within the context of their own country. They are defined by what others are doing outside. Their identities are shaped largely by the images that come from outside, not by the symbols or images that are created within, because all that the Nigerian ruling elite can offer Nigerians is nothing but shame, corruption, hopelessness, thievery and pessimism.
If we had a ruling class that was really optimistic about Nigeria and doing things for Nigeria, you will find that there will be a difference.
If you take films made in America, Hollywood films, every film would say something positive about America. You find a man driving a car, with an American flag inside. There would be something that is pro-America in the car. All those things shape how we think and what we do. That doesn't happen in Nigeria.
As I said, the ruling class in Nigeria makes each one of us diminished, and to feel ashamed. So, there is nothing to celebrate.
From your experience, going through the journey of life, is there anything you have done that if given another opportunity you would have loved to do differently?
That is a difficult question. First, I feel very happy with my life. I feel that within the context of the things that have happened, within the circumstance under which I operated, I did my best based upon my definition of what was necessary or legal at that time.
To do things differently, maybe if I were younger, frankly speaking, I would have been much more active in creating an opposition that would smash the current regime because this ruling class is not taking us anywhere. If I were much younger, we would create a platform or movement that would lead to the total transformation of the country. I wish there were younger people out there who feel the pain that most Nigerians feel and who would want to do something in a way that it transforms the country. Otherwise, for me, I have had a very great life. I am very satisfied with the way I have lived.
If every Nigerian has the opportunities that I had, this country would be totally different. But, of course, what one has had not come through luck. It has come through hard work. I worked very hard and I believe that if you work hard, you are disciplined and you have integrity, everything will come.
What are your hobbies?
You can see books. I read a lot. I like watching movies. I like watching films. I hope to go into film production later on; films that really tell the story of life the way it should be told, not the kinds of films that we see now. I have not seen human interest films; films that dramatise the challenges that face the ordinary individual. I don't see films that show how, in spite of all the rot, difficulties, challenges and hopelessness, people still can smile and laugh.
You go to the market, you see people sitting under umbrellas in the sun, in the rain, selling a few cups of corn and they are laughing and joking. I often wonder, how is this one possible?
That shows that there is something deep within the individual that makes people believe that they can overcome any difficulty. Those are the kinds of films that we should be making–the triumph of the individual effort. The triumph of courage and determination over any difficulty that the environment brings out
No comments:
Post a Comment