When your boss and your employer are summoned by asuperior boss and ultimate employer to judge you in absentia, you take solace in the National prayer. May the God of creation direct our noble cause; and guide our leaders right. In what may seem like a divine intervention the Federal Government was inspired to seek audience with the Pro Chancellors and Vice Chancellors of Federal Universities in Nigeria for a well-coordinated review of the situation, including building a consensus aroundsucceeding actions regarding the lingering ASUU strike. This action could not have come at a better time when tension is building high and clandestine bloggers are busy amplifying the contentious issues. In a dicey situation of this form, it is only reasonable for both parties to shift grounds through effective counsel in a swift move.
More importantly, to reach a consensus with any party you need to understand its perceptual dynamics. Pro Chancellors are seasoned technocrats and elder statesmen or women of high repute who preside over the Governing Councils of our universities. They could be active in partisan politics of the day, but they have a hard-earned reputation and professional integrity which they jealously guard. While a Vice Chancellor is an erudite scholar of appreciable academic standing and moral integrity who heads the Management Team of a university. As with most academics, our Vice Chancellors are digitally sharp in their thoughts and articulately blunt in their statements. They don’t know how to fake, but not every plain fact could sip down the throats of others without fervent national prayers. May the God of our motherland embolden them to unravel the civil facts with diplomatic reverence and courageous eloquence as Moses spoke in the presence of Pharaoh.
It is an undeniable logic that the wages of unintentional acts of commissions are unintended consequences. Blanket application of the obnoxious no-work-no-pay policy has failed to spare the Vice Chancellors and their management teams for being Academic staff without regards to their primary assignment as school administrators rather than classroom teachers. For sure this alien policy has weakened their confidence in the structured hierarchy of command. Notwithstanding the harsh treatment meted on their individual personalities, as principled academics, they keep to their duties according to their oath of office. They have convinced their Management team and other vital organs of the university to keep functioning in the interest of posterity. If the Vice Chancellor, under whose office is the security unit, should shut-down a university for 24 hours, it would never be the same again.
Among the unwarranted victims of no-work-no-pay policy are staff released on study fellowship abroad or on sabbatical leave elsewhere. By regulation none of them is on strike as they all pursue their mandates outside the Nigeria’s University system. Depriving them their salaries is akin of unintentional economic sanction because of the original sin inherited from their colleagues on strike. Other collateral victims of the no-work-no-pay axe are suchacademic staff visiting or on sabbatical at some non-university federal higher education institutions that are not on strike. It is not a penalty meted on them for not working because they are actually on work, but an economic sanction for being University Dons. The worst hit group consists of those academics that manage in-house differences with their respective ASUU Branches and have formally pulled out of the Union or are serving a period of suspension. Technically they are not on strike and they are more than willing to teach if their students were to be on grounds. Since unionism is voluntary they are upright before the Law, withholding their salaries because the university is closed is an unprecedented double jeopardy. It is still fresh in our memory an ASUU National President rejected a similar group of members from some state-owned universities as quacks and irrelevant in the affairs of the Union.
These antecedents invigorated the University community’s misgivings towards IPPIS as a centralised payment system usurping the human resource managerial functions of the Vice Chancellor and the Governing Council. Such irregularities were not tenable when the heads of these autonomous universities were in control of their personnel emoluments. Despite being victims of unconditional salary stoppage, some Vice Chancellors have excellently managed to facilitate the exemption of Academic staff at some University Teaching Hospitals to salvage the wellbeing of Nigeria’s citizenry. Although there are isolated instances where some Vice Chancellors allowed certain staff unions to direct who among the members and non-members should get what.
Nation building is our noble cause and education is the cornerstone. No amount of material sacrifice and self-denial in the quest for nation building is unbearable to a patriotic citizen. Even as fresh University graduates, wetook an oath to pay the supreme sacrifice if needs be in order to give back to the nation what was given to us. Hence, as University staff no one would hesitate to forfeit their earning to bring the Federal Government to a meaningful negotiation and balanced agreement. But it is only fair if the FG would involve the appropriate organ of each autonomous federal university to painstakinglyidentify the staff that may qualify for provisionalapplication of its no-work-no-pay policy while the parties discuss. In the interest of industrial harmony, such transient deprivations are often retracted through a mutually agreed and beneficial non-victimisation clause. It is neither a matter of coercion nor that of blackmail from either party.
Every action is said to have a price, including opposing rigidities which dragged us to this uncertain situation. In the interest of continuum in governance, the process of collective bargaining should be respected. Unilateral option of take-it-or-leave it by the FG to ASUU ought to be relaxed to give way for a balanced engagement, at least for now. Similarly, ASUU’s reaction with a vow to shun further dialogues with this regime is equally not a healthy option. Subsequently, the FG is at liberty to amend Laws, policies or practices for good governance after due consultations with relevant stakeholders, at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. Nothing is as permanent as change provided it is legitimately derived. Both parties should see reason to exercise optimum restraint against unnecessary mutual provocations and work at close ranks. Like many stakeholders, I do not subscribe to these endless loops of iterative strikes because you cannot keep repeating the same thing in the same way and expect a different result. There are concerted efforts to evolve beyond the age long strategy from different schools of thoughts but this will be a topic for another day.
Professor Abubakar Sadiq Bappah.
ATBU, Bauchi (asbappah@gmail.com +2348030462741)
