PROFILE
I am Not a Radical
By Muyiwa Akintunde
Attahiru Jega, ASUU president, earns his laurels for his principled stand in the university crisis
A few weeks ago, Newswatch asked Abubakar Abdulkadir Jega, a judge of the federal high court, to do a character sketch of Attahiru Muhammdu Jega, his maternal first cousin and national president of the banned Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. Says the judge tersely: “He is very determined and resolute in the pursuit of whatever he believes in. Once he sets out on such a goal, he never looks back.”
Jega, the judge, should know Jega, the university teacher, very well. They grew up together and shared the same bed as kids. Last year, Jega, the academic, confirmed the assessment of Jega, the judge. He led his rag-tag army of lecturers against the military government to advance his crusade of lifting the Nigerian university system from the valley of decadence to the mountain of excellence. Like the biblical David, he did not allow his underdog position to shake his resolve. In the end, he brought the Goliath of a government wobbling on its knees, ready to answer the lecturers’ prayers. In recent years, no Nigerian government has been so worsted, one of the reasons he won the Newswatch Man of the Year award for 1992 in the first ballot.
For Jega, the battle against government’s neglect of the university system started almost as soon as he signed on as graduate assistant with the then Bayero University College (now Bayero University), Kano in 1979. He witnessed the decay of physical facilities, the over-crowding of hostels and classrooms, the dearth of books and the flight of bright academics to other sectors where the pay is plum. Then America opened his eyes, as it were, “to what universities ought to be.” When he returned in 1985 from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States, where he earned a Ph.D in political science, he met the Nigerian universities in a more deplorable state than he left them. He decided to play a key role in stemming the rot.
The opportunity did not take too long in coming. In 1987, Jega, who was barely 30 years old, was elected ASUU president. His first major assignment was to fight for a new wage structure for university workers. In January 1988, the federal government introduced the elongated salary structure, ESS, as part of the civil service reform. It erased the 20 percent salary edge which university staff had over their counterparts in the civil service. ASUU, together with two other university unions – the Senior Staff Association, SSA, and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, NASU – demanded for the restoration of the 20 percent differential. Idris Abdulkadir, the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, replied that that would only be possible if the protesting workers were ready to lose pension and gratuity. ASUU, insisting on enjoying the best of the two worlds, gave the federal government a deadline of June 30 to meet the demand or have an industrial crisis on its hand. No side yielded ground. After seven months of muscle-flexing, the lecturers went on strike July 5.
Government acted swiftly. The day after, Jibril Aminu, a professor of cardiology and the then minister of education, appeared on network television to warn the lecturers that government would sack those who failed to return to work in 48 hours. The lecturers did not take Aminu seriously. But the government did. On July 8, the hammer fell on ASUU. It was banned. Jega spent a few days at the Ikoyi prisons, while other top officials of the union were harassed and prevented from travelling out of the country. Like soldiers humiliated at war, the lecturers retreated hastily to the classroom.
But the struggle continued for Jega. In 1990, he was given a second chance to lead the union after the ban was lifted August 28. His subsequent action was a testimony that he had learnt a few lessons from the 1988 clobbering. His new resolve could be summed up this way: Never again will ASUU make a selfish demand. In its June 15, 1991 letter with which it sought audience with Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, a professor of education and minister of education, on the crisis in university education, ASUU did not limit its demand to salary increase and special allowances. It asked for increase in funds allocation to the universities and a return of autonomy of the universities eroded by the NUC and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB. That earned ASUU instant support from a public that was equally worried about the near collapse of university education.
It was a more united and determined ASUU that took on government in 1992. Unlike the 1988 episode, the May 25 strike action that followed a fruitless two-month negotiation engulfed virtually all the universities on day one. It was suspended five days later to allow the Industrial Arbitration Panel, IAP, look into the dispute. When the action resumed in July, it elicited the same prompt response from the branches. The government responded by applying the same old method of coming down hard on ASUU. Two days after the July 22 re-banning of ASUU, Vice President Augustus Aikhomu acted like a Lagos landlord: He issued a 24-hour quit notice to striking lecturers living in university quarters. That did not move the lecturers.
ASUU had read the government very well. Weeks before the ban, the union had worked out details of a new body – National Association of University Teachers, NAUT – render the proscription of ASUU ineffective. It reached out to human rights groups and distributed “Strike Bulletin” which admonished members not to be cowed by threats from government. According to one of the “Five If's” of the bulletin: “Legally, as tenants, we are entitled to stay in university houses for at least three months even if we are dismissed. It is not possible to physically eject 8,000 academics.”
Dolapo Akinsanya, a Lagos high court judge, to whom Jega complained on behalf of his colleagues, agreed. A strike task force was set up in most campuses to deal with saboteurs. In several universities, students, in solidarity with their lecturers, formed a protective shield around the lecturers’ quarters. In Jos, Ebele Amadi, wife of the deputy vice chancellor of the University of Jos, Unijos, and other lecturers’ wives, demonstrated around town in support of ASUU. A peace meeting of “representatives” of the universities called by Fafunwa was largely unsuccessful as ASUU leaders shunned it. Jega and his colleagues were prepared to fight to the end.
The government was panicky. It stopped talking tough but rather appealed to well meaning Nigerians to plead with striking lecturers. A number of eminent Nigerians called for truce. Ibrahim Dasuki, the Sultan of Sokoto, offered to broker the peace talks. ASUU insisted it was fighting a patriotic cause and was, therefore, ready for peaceful resolution of the crisis that paralysed the universities. But there was a catch. Said Jega: “If government is genuinely interested in funding solutions to the impasse, it should recognise the genuine representations of the academic staff of universities and negotiate with them.”
Eventually, the government/ASUU negotiation team got back to the conference table. Every point in the lecturers’ shopping list was well articulated with supporting data. When government berated the union for parading the fat salaries of their colleagues in poorer African countries without considering the inflationary rates in such countries, Jega replied swiftly: “The market for academics is international because research materials, books, journals, etc are not published here.” He then quoted the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, salary structure to prove that salaries of academics are horrible even at home. At the bank, the starting point for s senior supervisor is N40,000 in a year, while his equivalent in the university (a graduate assistant) earned N6,894. A professor was on a salary of N14,280 yearly, as against N135,000 for a CBN director.
The government negotiation team was persuaded that the university teachers had a good case. It proposed a 45 percent increase across the board. That was only 25 percent of the basic salary demanded by ASUU. Besides, the government proposal was silent on allowances for books, journals and research materials. ASUU turned down the gesture, breaking up the negotiation May 12.
The government complicated matters the next day when Senas Ukpanah, former minister of establishment, announced a salary package under which the highest paid academic staff would earn N83,000 yearly. To Jega, that was “an act of bad faith” as it did not represent the N44,000 starting point for a graduate assistant which the government reportedly made available to the union during earlier negotiation.
ASUU lost the protest. The agreement, signed September 3, placed a fresh graduate assistant on a yearly package of about N36,000, a great improvement on the former N6,894. A professor, who used to take home N19,280 in a year, is now worth between N70,000 and N100,000. A revolving housing loan scheme of N200,000 per beneficiary was also approved. According to Fafunwa, the implementation of the September 3 agreement will cost about N2 billion.
In a year that recorded a low price for petroleum product on the spot market (an average of $18 per barrel as against $21 projected in the 1992 budget), this seems a huge financial burden. The payment of the new salary package is already causing ripples in state universities which are in financial distress. Edo State University is still looking around for the N7.2 million salary arrears of its academic staff. Many state universities are pleading to pay 50 percent of the salary package.
The burden is not for governments alone to bear. By the agreement, industrial and commercial concerns are to contribute a pre-tax profit of five percent to an education fund. All universities would be entitled to draw from this fund. If all goes well, such funds would go a long way to substantially redress the inadequacies on the campuses. This is one big feather to the cap of ASUU under the leadership of Jega.
Jega is a study in paradox. His iron will was the push for ASUU during the last crisis. Yet, he bends to majority will. His colleagues at ASUU think of him as a democrat. Says Muazu Mohammed Yusuf, chairman of the Bayero University branch of ASUU: “At the level of ASUU, we acknowledge his ability to conform to democratic principles. In spite if the political environment created by the Babangida regime, which is partly of suppression of opinion and coercion, the democratic principles enshrined in the banned ASUU remains the source of our strength. The last strike was rooted in the popular support of every member of the union. At the meeting of ASUU, if there is contrary opinion, he considers it.” Having reached a popular decision, he follows doggedly the resolution without looking back.”
If every newsmaker were to hold on to the same principles as Jega, people-oriented publications would have run out of business. He does not talk about himself. The Newswatch team that spoke to him on two occasions recently applied all the tricks in the books but Jega stood firm on his resolve.
Newswatch: Now, let’s get to know about Dr Attahiru Jega, the private man...
Jega: (cuts in) I warned you, if this interview is about my person, you won’t get anywhere.
Newswatch: It is necessary for us to know what kind of childhood you had. At what point did you develop this radical posture...
Jega: (cuts in again) Radical? I don’t know what you mean by that.
Newswatch: You mean you’re not a radical, someone who desires change?
Jega: It’s not necessary to answer that question. Next question.
Newswatch: Okay, who are the lecturers that inspired you to make a career in...
Jega: No, I won’t answer that.
Newswatch: You graduated in 1978 during the Ali-Must-Go era. What role did you play?
Jega: That is not necessary.
Newswatch: You should tell us. Isn’t there a link between the role you play as ASUU president and your...
Jega: (cuts in again) Should there be a link? I think that has come out of a very uncritical consumption of Freudian psychology which tends to attribute people’s idea and practice with their own basic historical origin and socialisation process and I think it is a very faulty psychology. It is not only counter-productive, it is diversionary and I think as a nation, as an under-developed, neo-colonial country, we have had enough of diversions. We should spare ourselves those kinds of diversion. That is why I think that it does not serve any useful purpose for us to study, particularly, the personality of somebody who is barely 30.
Such modesty from a man who, at only 35, has walked his way into the hall of fame as Newswatch Man of the Year, 1992.
With Tony Iyare, Jonah Achema and Akanimo Udo-Akagha
INTERVIEW
‘Ideas, Not the Person, Interest Me’
By Muyiwa Akintunde
Attahiru Jega, national president of the proscribed Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, spoke for over two hours with Newswatch’s assistant editors, Muyiwa Akintunde and Tony Iyare on the decay of the universities, the ASUU struggle and related issues. Excerpts:
Newswatch: It was quite possible for you to live a quiet life as a lecturer. Why did you choose to get involved in the ASUU struggle?
Jega: Anybody who has been in the Nigerian university system since the 1970s would have witnessed tremendous changes in the system. These changes were profoundly negative. There has been profound deterioration of physical facilities. There has been inadequacies of these facilities. There has been more or less intellectual stagnation because of lack of books and journals and materials. So anybody who has been in this system has only two options really: either to leave it or struggle to improve it. Many of our colleagues probably felt that the state and successive governments have been unconcerned about education; that our priorities have been misplaced; that although no serious country ever develops without paying attention to education in general and to universities in particular; that in Nigeria, our leaders don’t seem to give a damn about what happens to education. This is a serious dereliction of responsibility. And many of our colleagues, having been so trained, many people in the universities cannot be paupers by choice. Anybody who leaves the university system with a Ph.D can walk into any area of economy and still survive. So, many people who could not wait to struggle took the other option of checking out. They either check out and remain in other sectors of the Nigerian economy and still do better than they were doing in the university or they even check out of the country because, as intellectuals, we are internationally competitive. And they do even much better than they could have done if they had remained in the country.
But for some of us, the first option, we thought, was not in the interest of this country, because if everybody runs away from a problem, then in the end, that problem catches and encapsulates the whole nation. At a point, somebody has to say: “Look, this problem has to be addressed and that we are prepared to contribute to finding the solutions to that problem.”
So my motivation, clearly, is that I have witnessed the massive deterioration in the Nigerian university system. At the time I joined the university, I had higher expectations. After a while, I went to study abroad and even saw what universities ought to be. And by the time I returned to this country, I found that even what I left, there was further deterioration and dilapidation of the system than it had been when I was first there. At that point, since I was not prepared to leave. I decided that I will contribute in any way I can to find a solution to the problem that confronts us as a nation, particularly in the area of education.
Newswatch: What are the factors for the decline? Are you saying government should carry all the blame for the decline?
Jega: Oh, yes! First of all, education is a fundamental right. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The United Nations itself recognises that. But for Third World countries in particular, it is even more important as a right because an illiterate nation is a doomed nation. At the level of literacy, broad universal education is a fundamental right and every serious government must give it priority. At another level, if you want to develop, you must use those who have skills, those who have training, in order to build your own repository of manpower and skill for the development processes of the country. And that means that universities must be recognised as significant to national development and they must be given the priority they deserve. Universities, without sounding patronising or in any way condescending, are the single largest collection of people with skills and training for invention, research and for training the manpower needs of any country. So, once you ignore that, obviously you are doing that at the expense of the development of the country.
Unfortunately, most of our governments simply do not care. People are more interested in putting money in where they can get contracts and get something out of it. They are not interested in spending for classrooms or chemicals and laboratories and for buying books for people to study or for funding research.
In the context of successive military regimes in this country, there is even a profound anti-intellectual disposition, apparently based on their inferiority complex. Anybody who criticised them, they interpret it in the military context of an enemy. If you are against us, then it means you are an enemy. And intellectuals are people who do not take things for granted. They question things, enquire into things and take principled positions and military culture does not allow for that. And so, many military regimes in this country simply identify intellectuals as extremists, enemies of progress, subversives, and therefore, perhaps by so doing, consciously or unconsciously, also neglected education.
Newswatch: How far did the agreement with government address the problems?
Jega: The agreement we signed with government attempted to address some of these problems. But a lot more needs to be done. And that is why we are even much more worried by the fact that government is not implementing the agreement with the seriousness it deserves. We hope that these problems will be resolved, otherwise the problem that we are trying to resolve will remain with us and that more profound crisis will also be generated in the system. Crisis in the universities is not in the interest of this country and government has to do everything to avoid it. We have been showing remarkable restraint, for example, even over the implementation of the agreement. We signed an agreement which everybody, including government, believes was in the national interest. You agree on so many things that need to be done but not more than 20 percent of that agreement has been implemented. So, that gives one a cause for concern. We will continue to show restraint but there is a limit really to how far things can go.
Newswatch: You said earlier that a lot still needs to be done to stop the rot in the universities. What else are you worried about?
Jega: It is true that our conditions of service have improved as a result of the agreement. But, still, we believe very strongly and we are yet to be convinced to the contrary, that academic staff, even under the new package, are not being compensated for the value of the service they offer to this country. There is a very serious disequilibrium in the wage structure in this country. And unless a total review of that wage structure is undertaken, a proper demarcation of the remunerations of the different sectors of the Nigerian economy will continue to be problematic. Secondly, we agreed, for example, on the criteria for funding of the universities and what we consider to be the quantum of need, that is the minimum amount of money needed to fund the universities. What we agreed upon was bare minimum because we were all operating under the assumption that Nigeria is now in very difficult times and that everybody has to sacrifice and so on. If we want this country to develop, we cannot keep things at minimum level and expect it to produce the best. That is why we said what is contained in that agreement is a good beginning, it is an excellent beginning.
And then, of course, there are also certain inactions on the part of government that are making many of our colleagues to come to the conclusion that there is demonstration of bad faith. For example, people could not understand why the ban on ASUU has not been lifted up till today. We have shown goodwill, we have shown that everything that we have done is in the national interest. So why should the ban on ASUU not be lifted?
Newswatch: You insist that you will not talk about yourself. What is the guiding principle for this attitude?
Jega: Well, I don’t know. I think over time, maybe thorough my training, through my socialisation, I have come to the conclusion that our country can only move forward if we stop discussing personality and personal issues and we start discussing issues as issues. I think people should be more interested in the ideas that a person professes. What he wants to contribute and what he wants to do, rather than his background and what makes him as a person. If you have good ideas, if you have good, substantive contributions, then generations will live to benefit from those. So when we talk to somebody, when we become interested in somebody, we should become interested because of what he believes, because of the ideas that he represents, not because of his background and how he became what he is. I think once we begin to move from that, this country will move.
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