March 8, 2014 by Gbenro Adeoye
President, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Mr. Chibuzor Asomugba
Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics President, Mr. Chibuzor Asomugba, in this interview with GBENRO ADEOYE,
talks about the seven-month strike that has paralysed the polytechnic
education system and how efforts to resolve it have come to nought
Do you feel disappointed that ASUP
has been on strike for this long during the administration of President
Goodluck Jonathan, who was once a lecturer?
I believe that concerned Nigerians are
really worried that this very unavoidable rupture has been allowed to
deteriorate in the polytechnic sector. The disappointment does not
necessarily have to do with the President having been a lecturer at some
point, but with the fact that the government which owes the critical
stakeholders in the sector the responsibility of providing qualitative
education appears insensitive to their plight. This is the seventh
cummulative month of the strike and the aloofness of government to the
situation is perplexing.
The Federal Government has said
the modalities for the payment of the N20.4bn arrears of the new salary
structure are delaying the payment, what are these modalities?
The supervising Minister of Education has
talked about modalities which are delaying the release of the fund
needed to settle the government’s indebtedness in arrears of the CONTISS
15 salary, but frankly speaking, we do not understand what exactly he
means. Up till now, nobody has shown us evidence that such procedures
have been initiated as regards the funding we are talking about. Perhaps
only the ministry of education will be able to explain what these
modalities are.
Why is it taking too long to reach a compromise on the modalities?
If we had a good grasp of these
modalities, perhaps we would be able to understand why it is taking too
long to reach a compromise, as you put it. Again you have to task the
ministry for an explanation on this. As far as we are concerned, the
issue of the arrears was supposed to have been concluded in July 2013.
What we ought to be concluding now should be the outstanding 10 or so
issues in the original list of demands, according to our schedule with
the government before the suspension of the strike on July 17, 2013.
If government improves your funding, what are the key areas you plan to focus on?
The verification phase of the Needs
Assessment of public polytechnics in Nigeria has just been concluded.
The exact funding needs of each polytechnic will emerge with the final
report. Principally, though, infrastructure, equipment and deepening
personnel capacity will logically demand priority attention from the
funding.
But the general public view is that
polytechnic lecturers are always fighting for selfish reasons at the
expense of their students’ education…
If there is one thing we have tried to
prove with the present engagement, it is to correct the misconception
that our agitations are usually fuelled by selfish motives. Even a
cursory glance at the 13 issues we brought to the discussion table with
the government will reveal that our agitation is not about the selfish
benefits of our members. We are principally concerned about
strengthening the legal and institutional framework of Nigeria’s
polytechnics, enchanting the capacity of academic staff and shoring up
the integrity of our certificates and graduates. When polytechnics get
more funds, ASUP won’t collect the money. If the legal framework of the
institutions is made stronger, will it not be to the benefit of the
system itself? If the discrimination against polytechnic graduates is
addressed, is it not the students that will benefit from it?
Many believe that past agitations have only benefitted the lecturers and that the current situation would not be different.
What the public should understand about
ASUP is that the union is not a strike-prone union. This is the only
instance when the union has engaged in any agitation lasting this long.
Whenever the union had been stirred to agitation, the resultant benefits
had been mostly for the system in terms of infrastructure,
administration, respect, and of course, welfare. The thing is that the
welfare content had always been trumpeted by government and the society
because of the capital they make out of it.
The Education Minister, Mr. Nyeson
Wike, once accused the union of prolonging the strike by not willing to
shift grounds, are you unnecessarily prolonging the strike?
We believe the minister means well in his
pronouncements on the strike, which may be in obvious contrast to the
understanding of the union. In fairness to him, he joined the fray
midway after the former minister had left the scene. Anybody who had
been there from the beginning would know that at the outset, there were
13 issues from which government opted to choose four which it could
resolve in two weeks. That was as far as ASUP was willing to bend
backward and get the strike resolved. It took government six months to
address even one of the four issues. Meanwhile, the other seven odd
issues are still not addressed.
For instance, the minister said that most of your demands had already been met.
As I pointed out earlier, the minister
could make statements based on the brief he had been given. But judge it
yourself. Out of 13 issues, only about two can be said to have been
addressed reasonably satisfactorily. Now does that by any calculation
amount to ‘most?’
What are the contentious issues delaying the resumption of your members?
The issues that have not been addressed
include the removal of the labour market dichotomy against polytechnic
graduates, the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUP Agreement, the review
of the Federal Polytechnics Act, the release of the White Paper on the
Visitation Panel to Federal Polytechnics, the implementation and funding
of the CONTISS 15 Salary Structure, the establishment of a National
Polytechnics Commission, a comprehensive funding portfolio for Nigeria’s
polytechnics, the reversal of the decay in most state polytechnics,
etc. As a union which operates on honour, ASUP is still willing to keep
its part of the bargain once government fulfils its own obligation.
Why did the union reduce its demands from 13 to four?
The union did not reduce its demands from
13 to four. Indeed it is noteworthy that in the intervening period,
some other developments which demand a place in the negotiation have
arisen. Let me explain the genesis of this misconception of our demands
being reduced to four. When the Joint Committee on Education of the
National Assembly intervened in the dispute, it came to a point where
all the parties agreed that what was most urgent was to re-open the
schools. In order to achieve this, government offered to choose issues
it could resolve in the short term and without much complication. In
return, ASUP was to suspend the strike while the remaining nine issues
would be taken up gradually. While government asked for two weeks to
resolve those four issues, ASUP opted to give government one month.
While ASUP kept faith with this understanding and promptly suspended the
strike on July 17, 2013, government failed to honour its own part of
the bargain and did not address any of the selected issues until October
4, 2013 when the union resumed the action.
Why did the union also remove
HND/Bsc. dichotomy/discrimination issue from its four key items since
the minister said it was a joint decision?
The union did not remove the dichotomy
against polytechnic graduates from its list of demands. It is most
uncharitable for anyone to even insinuate that. It took the union a long
time to come up with its list of demands and the removal of the
dichotomy has always been and remains a core demand of the union.
Indeed, ASUP is bold enough to say that if other stakeholders in the
subsector had taken this matter of dichotomy as seriously and diligently
as it has done, the results should have come faster. And as I explained
before, the issues that were slated for immediate resolution as of July
2013, were selected by government. We acceded then because we believed
we were dealing with an honourable system.
Is strike not an over-used option by lecturers in this country?
Who has overused strike? Tell me, who has
overused strike? When was the last time you heard ASUP went on strike?
ASUP has no penchant for embarking on strikes, and this should be noted.
Are your members under any threat to resume work?
I do not know of any threats to our
members from any quarters to resume work. Undeniably, there have been
tremendous pressure on our members to review the strike. This is
expected, though.
Is any of your children affected by the strike?
All students of the polytechnics are my
children and they are affected by the strike. And, if you must know, it
is a very debilitating experience.
Aren’t you worried that some of
your students have resorted to crime and other vices because they have
been made idle by the strike?
If it is proved, as is readily alleged,
that there is a direct correlation between the engagement and a
noticeable upsurge in crime and other vices, then that should worry
everybody. But then, must government wait for an upsurge in crime before
it can take the polytechnic sector seriously? It is an escapist
blackmail to relate the strike to any upsurge in crime. After all, the
strike is a temporary thing and will soon lapse. We should be looking at
the larger picture of the fate of these polytechnic graduates who are
faced with not just a bleak future of joblessness, but of a debilitating
disdain for their competences in the labour market. We should be
bothered that our polytechnics are not funded and equipped to provide
the students with marketable, functional skills.
What do you think about employers
of labour who complain that most of your graduates are unemployable and
that some are even unable to write application letters?
It is not enough to look at the indices
of falling education standards and lamely complain. The
institutionalised extinction of public education in the country should
call all Nigerians to action. It should worry Nigerians. The academics
in the tertiary sector are taking action from a particular perspective
and all the support they get from the government and the Nigerian
populace is criticism and condemnation. Focused democratic economies are
placing education at the peak of budgetary considerations. In Nigeria,
our policy makers and executors appear not to give a hoot. The rot in
the education sector is not a tertiary phenomenon; it starts from the
basic to the secondary. If we are going to start producing graduates who
can write application letters, we must take a sacrificial look at basic
and secondary education in Nigeria. How can we have strong, basic and
secondary instruction when scant attention is paid to the colleges of
education where the teachers for the basic level are supposed to be
produced? There is a systemic rupture which has taken root and
deteriorated over time. A radically extensive overhaul is what is
required urgently. The strike in the polytechnics at this time is a cry
of desperation to stem the tide of producing ‘unemployable’ graduates.
We must not sentimentalise it at all.
In other climes, polytechnic
education is well respected, but it’s looked down on in Nigeria,
particularly in comparison with university education, does this have to
do with the quality of your lecturers?
The disdain for polytechnic education in
Nigeria has nothing to do with the quality of lecturers in the
polytechnics. I can confidently say that the lecturers in polytechnics
possess the requisite qualifications to produce graduates at HND and
BTech levels. You will be amazed at the depth of academic personnel in
our polytechnics. This is despite the programmed brain flight to the
university sector which has tended to undermine a consolidation of
intellectualism in the subsector.
So what do you think is the cause of the discrimination?
It is rather the consequence of a
structured policy and psychological programme profiled in the aggregate
mentality of the Nigerian nation. The concept of polytechnic education
in Nigeria was at the outset left in the hands of persons who had
entrenched biases and empire building agenda in mind. They were mostly
university persons who set about their assignment with the mindset of
creating a system which must not in any way be made to compare with the
university. If they had adopted and adapted global paradigms, they would
have been able to fashion a parallel system, an aptitude, skills-based
alternative to liberal, theoretical university education.
What is the union doing to tackle the discrimination issue?
ASUP has not wasted any opportunity that
came its way to demand a restructuring of the existing system. The
present engagement is a culmination of all our frustrations at having
been rebuffed on several occasions by government and bureaucracy. We are
not deterred, however, knowing that the removal of this dichotomy will
be to the overall benefit of the nation.
Are you disappointed that government negotiated with ASUU without meeting the ASUP demands?
Of course, without taking anything away
from the authenticity and validity of our sister union, ASUU’s ‘good
fortune,’ we are shocked that government would always adopt a divisive
approach to resolving issues in the tertiary education sector. ASUU
resumed their long suspended strike three months into ASUP’s action, but
government has since addressed the present grievances of ASUU, but has
chosen to remain impervious to ASUP’s agitation. It is easy to interpret
this as part of the grand conspiracy to profile polytechnic education
as substandard.
Your demands are similar to those of ASUU, do you have the same challenges?
Without intending to reduce this to an
interaction with our respected sister union, ASUU, it stands to reason
that the subsectors in the tertiary education sector necessarily share
similar structures, and therefore, similar challenges. In the main, yes,
we share similar challenges as ASUU. The agitation of both unions is to
salvage the deterioration in tertiary education.
Does the union have any reservation with JAMB’s method of conducting UTME?
We do not have disputable differences
with JAMB’s present method of conducting the UTME. What we are at
variance with is the institutionalisation of discriminatory cut-off
marks and admission deadlines.
Do you have a disciplinary
committee to deal with lecturers found to be sleeping with or collecting
money from students for marks?
ASUP has internal mechanisms entrenched
in our constitution for dealing with members found culpable for acts
bordering on moral decadence. The principal instruments of sanction
though, are the staff manuals and other disciplinary procedures which
are statutorily germane to and entrenched in the administration of our
polytechnics. ASUP partners very closely with our individual managements
to ensure that academic service is delivered in an atmosphere devoid of
exploitation, intimidation and harassment of any kind.
Assess the quality of lecturers in Nigerian polytechnics
While we still have a lot of room for
improvement, I will say that lecturers in Nigerian polytechnics are duly
qualified and capable of producing graduates at the level we are doing
presently. Of course, there are challenges of limited spaces for
post-graduate training, inadequate number of lecturers, inadequate
funding and lack of enabling internal and external environment.
Government has put up a commendable initiative in TETFUND which has
appreciably addressed some of these challenges. The private sector,
especially the industries, should also move up the ladder to meet some
of these expectations.
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