Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Responding to ASUU's Spokesman - Prof. Sola Adeyeye, Vice-Chair, Senate Education Committee

Let me start by saying that our dear Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic had already earned the indignation befitting his comments from my humble self and of course manynothers, immediately his vituperations went on air. If he said all of this as he claims, I was already making efforts to contact his constituents from Osun Central Senatorial District to set in motion the processes of a recall. The State of Osun, Ipinle Omoluabi, at this point of her development cannot afford to have a representative like him denting the good garment that Olodumare has robed us with, of whichI am a proud citizen, indigene and stakeholder.

If Prof actually made all this contribution on the floor of the Senate that day, was it the media that isolated the belly-twitching paragraph(s) that came to the public? But now that he has come out in his response to Dr. Ajiboye, ASUU Ibadan Chapter Chairman's take-on, is he not desperately trying to redeem his dented image, as in medicine after death? But since we are all working towards the resolution of this impasse which ASUU did not bring about, let us find it in our heart to forgive the erring Prof.

One wonders why Senator Chukwumerije is still archaic of the SenatebCommittee on Education. Have we all forgotten so soon his  despicable role in the Abache regime as a master propagandist or is this another man? With the response by Prof. Adeyeye, he deserve to chair that committee, that is if it is relevant to the development of the sector in the long run. At least Prof has been vindicated.

The Prof in his turn-around panacea to the lingering crisis listed some agencies and statutory bodies that the Nigerian state need in place before the education sector can enjoy some of the benefits his family enjoys in the US. But he is certainly not aware that the funds for the implementation of the agreement and the Needs assessment are to be sourced from some agencies such as the NNPC, CBN, PTDF, NCC, and so on as recommended and agreed to by both parties, according to information in the public domain. It translates that these institutions exist but FGN lacks the Political Will to bring them to work positively in this direction.

Prof is calling on every Nigerian worker to contribute 5% as education tax as from January 1, 2014 which coincides with our centenary as a country. But he forgets or does not know that most if not all Nigerian workers are already over-taxed, hence the on-going effort of government to harmonise taxes in the public and perhaps private sectors. I am not saying it is not possible for Nigerian to make this sacrifice, I am just pointing out that FIRS in the last three quarters of this year has already raked in trillions in taxes to enable government meet some if not many of its obligation to the electorate. What about Custom Service? And indeed other revenue generating agencies? We should look at this proposal again.

My good friend and colleague, Dr. Ademola , (former ASUU Ibadan Chairman, and my former Hall mate) suggested that the NASS can cut down its allowances and make the savings available for education in the country. Laudable! It tallies with Prof Adeyeye's proposal on this. If this is to be taken seriously, then he should be prepared for a big fight with his colleagues in the national assembly. The other day, one of them, the chairman of Information committee or so was bandying his pay slip before a protesting group over the ASUU crisis at its early stage, that he could boldly show them his salary! Who is talking about salaries? 

If a public launching were to take place, we will see the likes of Dangote, Otedola, Adenuga, etc.,etc making huge donations. Why can't people like this come up and make endowment available for public institutions in Nigeria? Or are just mere political hand-maidens, only to serve business ends and patronage?

The solution to this Jonathan-induced crisis in the sector is in our hands. A stitch in time saves nine, they say. It appears we have commenced our own national dialogue on education even if President Jonathan, who is also a PhD like me cannot summon the courage to convene same. It is a pity death snatched President Yar'adua from Nigerians. That fine gentleman was a thoroughbred academic and stateman. He inherited a myriad of national problems (militancy, insurgency, etc.) and was in the process of finding lasting solutions to them, the incessant ASUU strikes inclusive before...

May his soul continue to rest in peace!

Shalom!

'Diran Ademiju-Bepo PhD

Department of Theatre and Film Arts

University of Jos, 

Nigeria.

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 28, 2013, at 21:41, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:

My People:

Here is the context of Senator Adeyeye's response:...for those who missed it earlier.

Bolaji Aluko

THE NATION 

ASUU to NASS: Plug spending leakages in government

Posted by: Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan in News Update 4 days ago

The Academic Staff Union of Universities on Thursday asked the National Assembly to go beyond "begging" ASUU to call off its strike, but assist in plugging spending leakages in government in order to allow for provision of needed infrastructural facilities for Nigerians.

The union also lashed out at the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Education, Prof. Sola Adeyeye, over his comments on the ongoing ASUU strike.

Adeyeye had reportedly asked why a professor will demand payment to supervise postgraduate students.

A release signed by the Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye, and tagged- "The Goofing Prof. Adeyeye: Senate and begging comments," said, Prof. Adeyeye is using public funds to train all his children abroad, hence he lacks knowledge on the situation of things in the Nigerian universities.

Ajiboye also condemned the Senate President, David Mark's comments that ASUU will lose public sympathy if it does not call off its strike, saying such was a careless talk as the Senate had already lost its credibility among Nigerians over its bogus allowances and its perpetual anti-masses stance as opposed to the progressives in the House of Representatives.

"We are fighting a just cause. Can the Senate members wait for four years of their tenure before their allowances are paid? Can the Senate members seat in the chambers without air conditioners? What role has the Senate played to increase budgetary allocation to education? It is even funny for the Senate President to feign ignorance of the ASUU agreement as the sitting Senate President in 2009."

THE NATION

ASUU: Jonathan was party to pact

Posted by: Bisi Oladele and Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan in Featured, News 4 days ago

UNIVERSITY teachers replied yesterday to Senate President David Mark's comments on the 2009 agreement, which they are asking the Federal Government to implement.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) explained how the agreement was signed. ASUU has been on strike for over four months.

The union's National Treasurer, Dr. Demola Aremu, said President Goodluck Jonathan was part of a long-drawn negotiation in 2009, which was reviewed in 2002 in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Mark said the government officials who signed the agreement "did not know their right from their left" and that the ASUU officials who negotiated exploited their ignorance.

Aremu said ASUU had rejected the pleas from senators to call off their strike. He advised the lawmakers to beg President Jonathan to implement the agreement.

Aremu recalled that it took ASUU and the Federal Government team, led by Mr Gamaliel Onosode, three years to arrive at the agreement, pointing out that it is pretentious for any top government functionary to claim that the government negotiating team did not understand fully what they signed with the teachers.

According to him, ASUU went to the negotiation with a 300-page charter, which was reduced to a 60-page agreement after the union shifted so much ground on many of its demands.

He said Dr. Jonathan, who was then the Vice President, asked the government to sign the agreement after thoroughly going through it for six months.

"He perused the draft agreement and asked the government team to sign every page of the document. Our President also signed it. The content of the agreement we have today is not what we took to the negotiation table. That shows Nigerians how greatly we've shifted ground. So, the team knew what they went into."

Aremu explained that the Federal Government also came up with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the implementation of the agreement in January last year. He asked: "So, if anyone assumes that they didn't know what they were doing in 2009, did they also not know what they were doing in 2012?"

The union leader compares Nigeria's tertiary education with a cancer patient. He said no palliative measure could help heal cancer, pointing out that the patient will die.

"Begging will not bring any solution. Nigerians should rather beg government to face this agreement squarely and implement it. That is where our future lies," Aremu said.

He said senators could also cut their allowances and contribute them to education for the benefit of all citizens.

The union also urged the National Assembly to go beyond "begging" ASUU to call off its strike, but plug spending leakages in government to allow for provision of needed infrastructure in the universities.

The union also lashed out at the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Prof. Sola Adeyeye, over his comments on why a professor will demand payment to supervise postgraduate students.

A statement by the University of Ibadan (UI) chairman of the union, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye, titled: "The goofing Professor Adeyeye: Senate and begging comments", said Adeyeye was using public funds to train his children abroad, besides lacking in knowledge of the situation in Nigerian universities.

Ajiboye described Mark's statement that ASUU will lose public sympathy, if it does not call off its strike, as "a careless talk" because, according to him, the Senate has already lost its credibility among Nigerians over its huge allowances and its perpetual anti-masses stance as opposed to the progressives in the House of Representatives.

"We are fighting a just cause. Can the senators wait for four years of their tenure before their allowances are paid? Can the Senate members sit in the chambers without air conditioners? What role has the Senate played to increase budgetary allocation to education? It is even funny for the Senate President to feign ignorance of the ASUU agreement as the sitting Senate President in 2009," Ajiboye said.

ASUU said people, such as Adeyeye, ought to keep quiet when education is being discussed as "his immediate family members are not in Nigeria with all his children schooling and living abroad, using the millions of public funds being earned by their father in Nigeria to live large abroad.

"As a professor at the Duquesne University USA, Professor Adeyeye enjoyed flexible single and family healthcare coverage, including vision and dental insurance, disability benefits and life insurance, tuition remission for employees and family members, retirement savings plan with a generous eight per cent university contribution for employees with immediate vesting schedule, family leave, paid time off for vacation and holidays and unpaid time for personal leave of absence, comprehensive employee training programmes which promote professional development, access to a recreation centre and wellness programme.

"The question Prof Adeyeye should answer is, where in Nigeria does a professor enjoy all these with conducive learning environment? What is the ratio of students to a lecturer in Nigerian universities? Where else in the world will a professor supervise up to 35 students in a session?

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Michael Afolayan <mafolayan@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

Reading this posting of Professor Sola Adeyeye further underscores the pettiness of Nigerian politics and the sickening model of what the Yoruba call "ignoring the deadly leprosy while giving undue attention to mere skin rashes!" But to be fair, I have to say I am not privy to the relationship between ASUU and/or ASUU's point person and Senator Adeyeye, which precipitated this unpleasant write-up. I did not follow the conversations that generated this response; if there was one on this discussion group, I missed it. In all honesty, it may have been a part of my huge gallery of spam mails (I know if I saw the name "Adeyeye," I would most likely be drawn to that mail). Therefore, that I may not become an "agbejo enikan dajo" (one whose judgment is based on a one-sided appeal), which would always make one's judgment to be seen as warped, I should just make a surface comment here.

 

 

With due respect to him as among the finest of them all, the exalted Senator from Osun (my gentle state) stretched and overstretched the micro and the petty at the precarious expense of the macro and the fundamental! I seriously did not know what to make of the wasted valuable time of personalizing political insults from ASUU and having to showcase and defend his education, his IRA portfolio, his Duquesne appointment, promotions, salaries, his family (wife, children) – OMG!  The consequence? The intelligent politician now sounded like the rest of them, having been forced to spend only minimal time discussing the reality of the issue with ASUU and the state of higher education in Nigeria, which he, as an American trained intellectual, knows very well is a dangerous pendulum swinging out of balance, capable of snapping out of the socket of time!

Brother Sola: If you read this mail, I encourage you to go over your write-up and zero in on the part I've highlighted below. I have inserted comments in bold prints – parenthesized and underlined. It is in making the kinds of declarations you made here (not in the defense of your personal and professional life) that could earn you, as a politician, a great deal of dignity, and a place of honor, respect and authenticity in the pantheon of genuine politicians. Everything else gives the painful reminder of typical Nigerian politics that has done nothing but kept us crawling when even those naturally beneath us are already soaring high.

 

Here is my favorite part of it all . . .

". . . Now, even as I did during my contribution on the floor of the senate, let us direct our attention to some practical solutions to this most national pressing crisis. (Yes, practical solutions are what Nigeria needs and it would take literate minds to divert attention to such practical issues – please be aware that my definition of being literate has nothing to do with having been in school).

First, the National Assembly of Nigeria should henceforth appropriate at least 26% of Nigeria's current revenue to education alone (Actually, for a country with so much at stake in all spheres of development, a minimum of 40% should go for quality education – please, go and take a quick read of what the two most advanced nations in quality education are doing with their money – I am talking of Singapore and Finland) . 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. (Honestly, I do not understand this second point, but I am confident you know what you are talking about).  Third, to raise revenue for funding a national redemption program in education, all imports should attract a mandatory education tax of one percent. (I am not sure how this is relevant to quality education BUT, again, I trust your judgment on this as well, and until I am able to think and/or read more about similar models, I will say yes to your proposal). 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. (AMEN! Actually, this should not just be a 4-5 year deal; it should be for at least a ten year period, which would make it easier to follow its rend of success or failure, and given opportunity for viable maturation. In addition, the severe penalty should apply to any and ALL forms of embezzlements and misuse of national monies. However, the notice of January 2014 is too short - 2015, may be).   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. ((YES! And please remember to include the cancellation of the so called Ministries of First Ladies and the inexplicable stealing called "Security Vote!")

Finally, as a member of the Education Committee during my tenure in the House of Reps and now as Vice Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, I have almost always been the strongest advocate for the well-being of Nigerian universities. At a senate hearing not long ago, a chieftain of the Nigerian University Commission disparagingly lampooned academic staff of Nigerian Universities for depending too much on Government rather than obtaining extramural funding as is the case abroad. I was the one who immediately and robustly came to the defense of the academicians. I explained that the comparison was in error for two reasons. First, well funded private grant agencies like Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Howard Hughes Foundation, etc do not exist in Nigeria. Second, it was egregiously incorrect to assert that most research grants in the USA came from outside government. I pointed out that the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture were Federal Government agencies from which principally fund research in science, health, and agriculture respectively. With the absence of such agencies in Nigeria, I submitted that it was unfair to blame the academicians." (Thank you; I am 100% with you! BUT Bro., it is for those same reasons that I have to call you out here for comparing your Duquesne experience with what the typical Nigerian university professors have to experience – often left high and dry to fetch for themselves – on their own)!   

In all, I say thanks for what you are doing. Be sure your conscience (the small, still voice) as well as your faith (those inner convictions) are still relevant in your MO, because politics and public service will come and go and there will certainly be a day of reckoning for everyone who participates in the ruining of Nigeria.

Blessings!

 

Michael O. Afolayan

(From Outside Looking In) . . .

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