Friday, November 1, 2013

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

Dear friends,

This exchange is symbolic. As most African countries fall to the brigandage of those in power a few citizens draw a line in the sand and stand up to fight the brigands.  Majority sit idly by and appease the abusers and demonise the victim.

What have you seen done right in Nigeria in the last 40 years?  Is it the health agriculture or industry not to talk of education?  Everything will collapse around us as government apologists who should know better continue to offer weak and unconscionable on behalf of the thieving fools in government.

We better all smell the coffee and all rise up to send the message to this band of irresponsible thieves who claim to be governing us!

A word is enough for the wise.

IBK

Sent from my Windows Phone
From: orunmilababa@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: 1/11/2013 3:34 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Senator Adeyeye responds to ASUU

Moses, trying to do what? This pretence to higher intellect leads no where. Perhaps you need to read my post again; I admitted that there are ASUU members on this list but none of us is the official spokesperson of ASUU's. Thanks for pointing my attention to the obvious fact that ASUU is a corporate body too. You see, I was ignorant of that before this lecture from your intellectual eminence! Perhaps, you should go a little further to tell me the major and minor difference (s) between a corporate body and an individual.
I've read very constructive interventions to this debacle on this forum such as those of Prof Oke Iheduru's that showed very clearly an open mind disposed to pointing the way towards a better future for the education sector just as I've read those with one eyed view of the issues and your is one of them.
I've followed your style of picking a paragraph, sentence or clusters of sentences for analysis without opening your mind to salient issues in the body of the posts. Well, as I've noted, it's a style and you are entitled to it.
I won't be drawn into persuading you to look at issues more objectively, from all indications, you have your mind made up about ASUU and its members. Some of us are on the ground here and we know what efforts are made to give the little that we have to the system even though people like you feel that the quality of graduates being produced by our system is as a result of ASUU's incompetence or that of its members. Your intellectual eminence, the rot that ASUU alone is protesting against is worse in our primary and secondary schools. I was president of Rotary club of Igando-Egan, I have pictures of public schools' classrooms that will shame any nation and her citizens. The teachers stand outside of the classrooms to teach their pupils because of the heat and odour of sweats from pupils who are bundled together like chickens yet the teachers won't protest because they have to earn their daily bread.
I don't know how old you are but you may just consider sending your child to any of these schools and see if your perception will change or not.
As I've said again and again, the Diaspora must objectively investigate the rot in the education sector to see how they can work with those at home to save this endangered sector.
I don't know any scholar worth his/her salt who will love to be outside the classroom or libraries for even a month. If you think those of us here are enjoying this strike, then you're mistaken. Despite this, what has to be done has to be done to correct the situation.
My degrees from B.A to PhD were got in Nigeria and I was a victim of these strikes, too. If I was abusing my lecturers for being on strike then, now I know better. Were the conditions better, perhaps, I would have got more from my teachers at Ife and Ibadan. Now, I want to give my best to my students and the system is frustrating that! Moses, you don't know what is on ground. You really don't.
ASUU is not perfect, its strategies definitely are not, too but its intentions for the future of this country are noble. Whether Nigerians see this or not is a different thing. To roughly quote Mahatma Ghandi in his autobiography, "it is only the reformer who is anxious for change, those whose life he wants to affect positively may not care".
I wish you well.
TA
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:09:04 -0500
To: USAAfricaDialogue<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Senator Adeyeye responds to ASUU

ASUU is not an individual; it is a corporate body, a trade union, and there are several ASUU members on this forum who are defending ASUU vigorously and even attacking ASUU's critics for good measure. So, the equivalence you're seeking to posit is not tenable. Thanks for trying though.


On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 5:49 PM, <orunmilababa@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Moses, if it is cowardly to "attack the integrity of a man who is not on this forum" simply because he is not on this forum, then we have. No business here. We should only talk about and "attack" only those who are on this forum so they could defend themselves.
The last time I checked, a few members of ASUU and NOT ASUU are on this forum. Since ASUU or any of its official spokesperson is not on this forum to defend it, doesn't it follow that we should stop "aattacking the integrity of a union who is not on the forum?

TA
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:36:18 -0500
To: USAAfricaDialogue<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Senator Adeyeye responds to ASUU

OA,

I did not call you names. I called your behavior of continuing to attack the integrity of a man who is not a member of the forum and can therefore not respond or defend himself cowardly. It is indeed cowardly. I call it as I see it. If you don't like it, tough luck. It seems to me that those who are masters of ad hominem are the quickest to scream name calling, especially when their logical flaws are exposed. The reason this debate even went as far as it did is because you won't even be satisfied with someone agreeing with you; you have to invent contrast and disagreement that don't even exist. When I debate I debate with ferocity and passion because there are serious things at stake in these debates and these positions mean a lot to me. I do not apologize for my style. You don't have to debate me or respond to me if you're going to perceive my turns of phrase as name calling to garner sympathy and change the subject. Your response to my post started this discussion, not the other way around. You simply don't have to engage me. Especially if you think that you'd be engaging a "forum bully" (and you have the nerve to accuse someone of name calling) I won't lose anything.

 Thank you and have a wonderful day.


On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

MO

 

You seem to me to be well practiced in the art of calling people names when you disagree with them. I am not. You must be one of a tiny few who would remotely adjudge that it is cowardly of me to take the strident public position that I have, against Adeyeye's public statements on the ASUU challenge. The claims you make about Adeyeye have so far not persuaded me to change my mind about the rectitude of the man's position on the ASUU challenge. You speak for the man without any authority as far as I know. I appreciate that choice is yours to make. You have continued to make claims about the man based on newspaper reports and other unverifiable sources of questionable legitimacy. You expected one and all to accept your claims as factual truths because you peddle them. You seem to know the man better than the man knows himself.  I have no problem with that.

Yes, Obasanjo did fight corruption as president of Nigeria. He campaigned against it. He proclaimed against it. Is there however, incontrovertible evidence that he was not corrupt as president? How many Nigerians  believe that he was not corrupt as president? Do you believe I dare to ask you that the man was not corrupt, and in some cases more corrupt than some, he caused to be hounded by government security agents and criminally prosecuted in court?  Do you believe that he has ceased to advance or benefit from corrupt practices now that he is out of office, I dare to ask you? The man was and remains one of the more vociferous public critics of corruption in Nigeria. Hypocrisy is real in Nigeria's politics. Is Adeyeye's position on the ASUU challenge hypocritical to me? I believe that it is. What is your problem with that? Is it no longer my choice to believe as I choose to after evaluation of the verifiable information available to me?

I choose to participate in public conversations very carefully. When I do, I take my participation seriously. I listen to all arguments. I do not change my mind because of brief or lengthy forum postings. I do not change my mind because I am called names. I do not change my mind because a forum bully is out and about. I change my mind because I am persuade by verifiable and factual arguments made civilly. I also know when participation in a conversation is a wasteful employment of conversers' time and my mind.

You seem to me to be mostly interested in bullying people you disagree with regardless of the available facts. You drive to win even when it is not important to. Why else would you call people you disagree with names? Many people know that a position taken in fury is seldom informed by reason. They know that a case is not more persuasive because it is emotion and passion laden. My hope is that Adeyeye gets to be aware of my position on the public statements credited to him on the ASUU challenge. If he does, he might try to truly understand the reasons for my disagreement with him and then alter or maintain his position as he deems justifiable necessary. Let me make your day today. You have won. Let there be peace. Thank you.

 

oa

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:03 PM
To: cc: USAAfrica Dialogue


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

 

CORRECTED

 

When are these people from abroad who know so much about what must be done in Nigerian institutions going to go to Nigeria to lecture in Nigerian public universities and work in other Nigerian institutions?

 

Please, please, please, we need heroes in the front line.

 

Nigeria has many theorists, many intelligent people.

 

We need leaders.

 

Leadership by example.

 

They dont have to be in govt.

 

We have the examples of Soyinka, Fela and Beko Ransome -Kuti , Gani Fawehinmi etc

 

Is it not possible to go on leave from those wonderful places like the US and do some work in Nigeria, in a Nigerian university, among the struggling masses, not in fat cat govt jobs, giving a good example?

 

I have interacted online with some Nigerian social critics whose discourse drips with contempt for Nigeria and these people dont impress me in terms of leadership by example.

 

Even in  the little online kingdoms they manage they are no better than what they rail against in the name of being social critics of the mother country.

 

Please help us through active service in Nigeria. 

 

Theoretical postulations are valuable but we need more than that.

 

We need active leadership.

 

We need heroes.

 

thanks

 

toyin 

 

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tovadepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

When are these people from abroad who know so much about what must be done in Nigerian institutions going to go to Nigeria to lecture in Nigerian public universities and work in other Nigerian institutions?

 

Please, please, please, we need heroes in the front line.

 

Nigeria has many theorists, many intelligent people.

 

We need leaders.

 

Leadership by example.

 

They dont have to be in govt.

 

We have the examples of Soyinka, Fela and Beko Ransome -Kuti , Gani Fawehinmi etc

 

Is it not possible to go in leave from those wonderful places like the US and so some work in Nigeria, in a Nigerian university, among the struggling masses, not in fat cat govt jobs, giving a good example?

 

I have interacted online with some Nigerian social critics whose discourse drips with contempt for Nigeria and these people dont impress me at all.

 

Even in  the little online kingdoms they manage they are no better than what they rail against in the name of being social critics of the mother country.

 

Please help us through active service in Nigeria. 

 

The theoretical postulations are valuable but we need more than that.

 

We need active leadership.

 

We need heroes.

 

thanks

 

toyin 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

OA,

 

First off, I think it is cowardly of you to be throwing around negative insinuations about Professor Adeyeye and his election to the National Assembly when you know that he is not on this list to defend himself and return the salvo. But hey, he's a public figure so he is fair game. He signed up for this. I'll not take Panadol for Adeyeye's headache, as they say. If he chooses to join this list, I trust his feisty intellectualism will win the day. Nonetheless let me ask what is inherently bad in being a career legislator--if that is what Adeyeye is--after a career in academics? And how does serving two terms in the House and a half term in the senate make one a career legislator? 

 

Second off, you have yet to prove your charge of hypocrisy on Adeyeye. Perhaps you and I are working from two different definitional standards. How is he hypocritical when he has been a vocal, disruptive critic of waste and corruption in the public institutions in which he has served, has publicly declared many times that the salaries and perks of legislators are outrageous and immoral, has led protests within the House for cuts and probity, has demonstrated these ideals by rejecting many perks associated with his job and by donating anything in excess of what would be a fair salary considering his opportunity cost of leaving a US professorship. Would you do that, OA? What else would you have done that the Senator has not done? He would be a hypocrite if he had sucked up quietly these benefits while criticizing the culture of waste, profligacy, and vulgar compensation in the National Assembly and the culture of entitlement that is the most prominent marker of the modern ASUU. But he has consistently walked the talk.

 

"He knows that the resources expended on him and his colleagues for little or useless work can be better employed in the true service of the Nigerian people. He still finds it in good conscience and taste to  criticize concerned fellow citizens who at a high personal cost to themselves and their families, have undertaken to fight a good, public interest  fight that he is better than most Nigerians, positioned to fight but has meekly fought at best."

 

This is a classic case of barking up the wrong tree. Next, you'll be blaming Adeyeye for not solving Boko Haram, election rigging, corruption, inter-communal crisis, oil bunkering, and other challenges facing Nigeria. Are you suggesting that being a Senator robs him of his citizenship right to criticize ASUU or any other body he does not agree with? What can Adeyeye, as a lone Senator, do to single handedly solve the compensation culture of the national assembly? Beyond refusing to personally take what he does not feel he deserves and protesting on the floor and in the media---both of which he has routinely done--what else could he do? Please suggest the actions that Senator Adeyeye should have taken other than what he is doing? Perhaps you have a more radical physical or violent action in mind, or a resignation. Please do tell us. And, again, you lie blatantly when you suggest that Adeyeye "has meekly fought at best" the waste, corruption, and bloated compensation of the national assembly and the other branches of government. No, sir, he has been in the trenches, fighting the system from within, disrupting legislative sessions, screaming, and even joining external protesters. I presume that he has only slowed down because of age--the man is no spring chicken, you know. Adeyeye has earned his stripe, and he has the street cred and the moral pedestal to criticize both ASUU and the FG, which he is doing. More power to him!

 

 "All he seems to be willing to do is talk sometimes about waste in government. What about some action from him?" 

 

Repeating the same fallacy over and over will not make it true. Do a little research on Adeyeye in the Fourth Republic and see that, contrary to your statement above, he hasn't simply stopped at the level of talking about waste in government; he has taken action aplenty. You probably would do more if you were in his position but you haven't told us what you'd do differently, so like most of your points this critique, too, is hanging.

 

 "Has anyone thought for a moment about what might may continue to happen to higher education funding  in Nigeria, if ASUU had not brought this overdue subject to the front burner again? Adeyeye  and his colleagues would remain seated in Abuja, soaking in and sedated by corruption and waste, plundering Nigeria's abundant resources on themselves, families, friends, and frivolous causes."

 

Again, other Senators may fit the description here, but not Senator Adeyeye. For goodness sake is it not possible for a person to be in a corrupt institution and not partake in it--to guard one's personal integrity? I hope this is not a case of projection. 

 

"Like Adeyeye, many Nigerians have their children studying outside Nigeria. Unlike him, these Nigerians and I demand that the Nigerian government recognizes that the proper and competitive funding of public education in Nigeria is a higher priority than the undeserved and imprudent compensation of legislators and other public officials, and does what needs to be done.  Adeyeye talks about what he calls resentment driving ASUU members determination to change government's public education policy. What in the woods is wrong with legitimate resentment?  Resentment is sometimes justified. If Adeyeye is right, ASUU members' resentment is better than warranted. Enough of holier-than- thou posturing. Talk is cheap. Action is it. Let progressive change begin."

 

 "Unlike him"? You seem to be grasping and straining for contrast with Senator Adeyeye because on the issue of funding, he agrees with you completely; heck, he even goes further than you and ASUU in suggesting that the percentage of the national budget dedicated to education be increased beyond the 26 percent recommended by UNESCO. He has even gone ahead to lay out his ideas about how to raise the money to fund this increase. I don't agree with all his proposals, but at least he is putting something on the table as opposed to some people who just talk about funding this and funding that without making any concrete proposals as to how to achieve optimal funding levels. Adeyeye does not dismiss the resentment that is driving ASUU's demands. He recognizes it as legitimate. If he didn't he would not have suggested ways of eliminating that resentment by 1) cutting the salaries and perks of public officers including legislators, and 2) increasing funding many folds to education.

 

I hate discursive dishonesty. The least you can do in a discussion is to be faithful to what your interlocutor has written or to at least recognize what they've written instead of carrying on on false premises, erecting and knocking off straw men along the way. You keep repeating claims that you wrongly attribute to Adeyeye and you keep drawing contrast between you and ASUU on the one hand and Adeyeye on the other--contrasts that DO NOT EXIST.

 

 For goodness sake the man is no angel (none of us is), but give him credit for 1) leaving the US academy and getting into the filthy firmament of Nigerian politics, and 2) rejecting or donating the obscene compensation of the institution in which he is serving, and 3) criticizing, protesting, and exposing the corruption and shady businesses of his colleagues when he sees them.

 

Being a Senator does not mean ceasing to be a concerned citizen who is free to criticize the shenanigans of a union that many reasonable people, including a few former ASUU officials, now say has become part of the problem of higher education in Nigeria.

 

 

 

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

For some friends and supporters, Adeyeye can do no wrong. He cannot be a subject of legitimate commentary and other discourse even though it is his choice to be a Senator. He is now a career legislator.  I do not know the man.  I would not change anything though if I did.  I still  do not understand  that he finds the company that he is in, one he should be part of if he is the man that some people say that he is. Whether or not he was always duly elected to the high office of legislator is a conversation for another time. Everyone  knows about selections for elections in Nigeria.

MO may have read my post but may not have fully understood it. I question Adeyeye's posturing on the ASUU challenge which strikes me as roundly hypocritical. He sits there as a Senator, drawing compensation that he knows he and his colleagues have not earned, and are therefore undeserving of. He has lived and worked overseas. He must be presumed to be not oblivious of the imperatives of and compulsion for efficient budgetary  allocation and utilization of public funds, especially in a developing country.  He knows that the resources expended on him and his colleagues for little or useless work can be better employed in the true service of the Nigerian people. He still finds it in good conscience and taste to  criticize concerned fellow citizens who at a high personal cost to themselves and their families, have undertaken to fight a good, public interest  fight that he is better than most Nigerians, positioned to fight but has meekly fought at best. All he seems to be willing to do is talk sometimes about waste in government. What about some action from him?  Has anyone thought for a moment about what might may continue to happen to higher education funding  in Nigeria, if ASUU had not brought this overdue subject to the front burner again? Adeyeye  and his colleagues would remain seated in Abuja, soaking in and sedated by corruption and waste, plundering Nigeria's abundant resources on themselves, families, friends, and frivolous causes.

Like Adeyeye, many Nigerians have their children studying outside Nigeria. Unlike him, these Nigerians and I demand that the Nigerian government recognizes that the proper and competitive funding of public education in Nigeria is a higher priority than the undeserved and imprudent compensation of legislators and other public officials, and does what needs to be done.  Adeyeye talks about what he calls resentment driving ASUU members determination to change government's public education policy. What in the woods is wrong with legitimate resentment?  Resentment is sometimes justified. If Adeyeye is right, ASUU members' resentment is better than warranted. Enough of holier-than- thou posturing. Talk is cheap. Action is it. Let progressive change begin.

 

oa  

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 9:01 AM


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

 

Ogugua,

 

At this point I have to wonder if you're up to some mischief, since you chose to completely ignore everything I wrote and and go on a tedious tangent. You can't even take yes for an answer, as though you're simply hungry for a debate. You're are largely debating with yourself now since I began my post by saying I agree with you on everything you said about the government's failings, waste, corruption, etc. The Senantor clearly does too, going by his write-up. I don't waste my intellectual energies on the government. The government has enough critics, and there is no critique of the Nigerian government that is new or breaks new ground. One gets jaded after a while. But I digress.

 

You are completely wrong when you insinuate that Senator Adeyeye has not criticized the NAtional Assembly's excesses and outrageous compensation culture. Just plain wrong. For goodness sake, even his rejoinder to the ASUU fellow is dripping with radical, courageous criticism of the waste and corruption that plagues the government and the national assembly. To boot, it recommends very radical measures for curbing the compensation of National Assembly members and public office holders. Did you even bother to read his piece, or my piece before putting finger on keyboard? You're making the same mistake as Dr. Ajiboye, the ASUU official who attacked Adeyeye for using public funds and his national assembly jumbo pay to send his children abroad for education without first doing a basic background check, which would have revealed to him that Adeyeye left Nigeria in 1980 with his family, twenty years before he entered politics and that his children would have advanced in their various educational and professional pursuits by the time he entered politics in 1999. 

 

In your case, you categorically stated that 1) Senator picked on ASUU first or that "he has chosen to start with ASUU"; and 2) that he has not criticized the corruption and profligacy in public governance and among his colleagues in the national assembly. Both claims are categorical falsehoods. The first claim is easy to demolish since Senator Adeyeye has been at the forefront of the struggle for probity in the National Assembly since 1999, proving that ASUU is not his first target. Before now, I don't even remember him ever criticizing the union, at least not publicly. Conversely, he criticized his colleagues on the floor of the House several times for their excessive pay and perks, and for the Ghana-Must-Go culture of corruption that routinely plagued the House between 1999 and 2007. There are press clippings to testify to this if you care to go into the archive. Along with Hon. Uche Onyeagocha and one or two other progressive members of the House whose names I cannot recall, he protested loudly against the House leadership and his colleagues when the first Fourth Republic legislative scandal broke over furniture allowances. They were the so-called "trouble maker" caucus in the House, the spoilers detested by their colleagues for foiling and protesting against malfeasance and corrupt deals in the House. Adeyeye was not only a thorn in the flesh of his colleagues, he constantly railed on the floor of the House and in media interviews about waste, excessive compensation packages, and corruption in public governance. Yes, he and Comrade Uche Onyeagocha were outnumbered by their greedy colleagues and were never able to effect the radical anti-corruption and accountability reforms they envisioned for the House, but they at least never stopped protesting their colleagues excesses. Not only that, I remember that tiny caucus declining to participate in foreign travels, allowances, and perks they deemed questionable and excessive. They didn't just talk the talk, they walked it too. For me that's courage.

 

When the Third Term bribery scandal broke, most legislators were coy on the details and nature of the bribe loot. Not Adeyeye. He was one of a few who took to television and the airwaves to reveal the details of the bribing and how he turned down the money, all this at a time when OBJ and his folks were denying any bribery related to Third Term. When Nuhu Ribadu, Obasanjo's hatchet anti-corruption man publicly denied that huge bribes had been offered to legislators to induce their acquiescence to the Third Term gambit, it was Professor Adeyeye who publicly debunked Ribadu's claim and challenged the latter to a public televised debate on the subject. Ribadu never took him up on the offer.

 

Senator Adeyeye may not have been as vocal in the senate as he was in his two terms in the House, but to his credit he has not partaken in the outrageous perks either. Which is precisely why he has the moral and ethical standing and courage to criticize that culture in his write-up and to call for radical cuts to the pay of public officials and legislators, himself included. 

 

The man has earned his stripes and along with them the right to criticize an increasingly disruptive and misguided body like ASUU. It is easy and cheap to stay on the outside and take pot shots at politicians, bureaucrats, legislators and others inside the system. We all do it because it is easy, comes with no cost, and is no act of courage. What is not easy and denotes courage is to be an insider and be able to muster the gumption to criticize the system and one's colleagues. That's what Senator Adeyeye has CONSISTENTLY done since entering public life. I am pretty sure he has his failings like the rest of us but I know of no other Nigerian politician who is capable of playing this courageous role of an insider critic, a role which comes with costs that are both pecuniary and relational. And I know of no other politician in the Fourth Republic who has rejected excess salaries and perks and/or has donated the excess portion of their jumbo pay to charity and constituent projects as the Senator is doing. In Nigeria we prefer blanket labels that do not isolate cases that buck the narrative. And, of course, we see critics as enemies. That is one of ASUU's many foibles. They won't even take some responsibility for the obviously poor state of teaching in our universities, a reality that continues to doom the future of most of our university-going youths.

 

So far during this FG-ASUU wahala, ASUU and its members have blamed the following for the poor state of instruction in our universities and for the production of poor graduates: 1) Funding, 2) the NUC giving out fake or undeserved accreditations, 3) students who are distracted by ipads and ipods!!! No soul searching on the part of ASUU and its members, no taking of responsibility, absolutely no self-critique, and no self-critical conversations about improving the standards of instruction that would demand more from ASUU members.

 

Criticizing the government is the easiest thing a Nigerian can do. Criticizing a union like ASUU takes courage and conviction. I commend Adeyeye for the courage. He is criticizing both sides, apportioning blames and folly on both sides. He has not spared his colleagues or the system in which he operates. That, along with the fact that he is in solidarity with ASUU on the funding issue, should blunt any attempt to portray him as an ASUU-hating politician.

 

And to close, I am forced to ask what you'd do differently if you were in Adeyeye's position, resign from the senate--or stay away entirely from politics? Would that not amount to abandoning the prison to the prisoners? Is it inherently wrong to go into politics, to be a politician? Is public service a domain that academics should not venture into? I read your post and I can't quite understand what you expect of Senator Adeyeye. If you don't agree with his criticism of ASUU, fine. But you have failed to demonstrate what it is that you think he is doing wrong. 

 

The FG-ASUU agreement that you speak of has been litigated extensively on this forum and found not to be a cut and dried document that you and a few other folks portray it as. In fact because it started life as an ambiguous set of general principles, it has been the subject of review and renegotiation before--in 2012, a process that resulted in the oft-cited MOU. I lived in Michigan and I now live in Tennessee, states with a strong auto workers union,  and I know that the auto workers union routinely renegotiate signed contracts with the auto companies, with the former often giving concessions to the auto companies in the overall interest of the industry's survival and in the full knowledge that certain demands and aspects of signed contracts are either unimplementable or are too vague to be considered binding. In that spirit, Adeyeye is not saying that the government should repudiate agreements with ASUU; he is saying that in implementing these agreements, which are vague and open to multiple interpretations, each side should give some ground and that ASUU in fact should rethink some of its more unreasonable demands. What is wrong with this? After all, are the two sides not mostly haggling over how, when, and at what pace to implement the general principles already agreed upon?

 

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

Has the Senator ceased to be an academic? He calls himself professor does he not? He should start by exemplifying his righteousness with the corrupt elite group that he apparently is part of should he not? When and how often have you heard or read that he preached/preaches to his colleagues and other leeches in government on their profligate practice of public governance and betrayal of trust? Why has he chosen to start with ASUU?  "They" traditionally pick soft targets/victims  do they not? Thank goodness ASUU is not a too-soft one. The Igbo say that true beauty starts from the inside. Righteousness should too.

Who is to say that the National Assembly does not have a higher annual budgetary allocation than Nigeria's tertiary  education sector does, if all the Assembly's members' cryptic financial steals are properly booked and reported? Why does the National Assembly not insist that all in government keep all transactions' books properly and sanction violators? The Senator knows that that government cannot afford to keep an agreement it entered freely with ASUU, signed without duress, and announced to the Nigerian public. He does not seem to know however, that Nigeria cannot afford the cost and nature of government that he has been proudly part of. Is this ignorance of his one of convenient choice? We know of course that awareness and knowledge can be conveniently a'la carte for perfunctory politicians.

 

oa

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 12:44 PM


To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: 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

 

- 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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