•Ademola Aremu Photo: Sun News Publishing

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Chairman of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter, Dr. Ademola Aremu, has decried the lingering crisis occasioned by the March 2001 sack of 49 lecturers at the University of Ilorin, maintaining that the action had served no party any good.

Dr. Aremu, who stated that the sacking of the 49 high-skilled manpower, was a colossal loss to the ivory tower, berated the authorities of UNILORIN for the action.

The fiery union leader, who described the Unilorin saga as an action in bad faith, also took a swipe at the Senate Committee on Education, which intervened in the matter lately for handing out what he described as ‘inhuman’ recommendation against the sacked lecturers.

He told Daily Sun that ASUU had so far placed the matter in the public realm though further strike was not ruled out, urging well-meaning Nigerians to intervene.

He feared that axing 49 academic staff of the university had set standards at the institution crashing, adding that the signs were already there for everyone to see. He also spoke on government’s continued silence on the matter, condition of the lecturers, their families and dependants.

Excerpts:
Unilorin 49
Right now, I think there is a deadlock. We are in a period of inaction. Of course, ASUU is still waiting on the government. We want them to come forward so that we can put the manner behind us. The recent recommendation made by the Senate Committee on Education was too harsh on the sacked lecturers. To say the least, those recommendations were inhuman.

In the first place, the Senate Committee recommended that the sacked 49 lecturers should tender an unreserved apology to the University of Ilorin authorities. I don’t know what the Senate Committee wanted them to apologise for. The lecturers were sacked for no other thing other than their involvement in national strike declared by their parent body.

It was not a local strike; it was a national strike. During that period, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oba Abdulraheem wrote a letter to ASUU, UNILORIN Chapter asking for a concession for the national strike. The local chapter promptly replied him, stating that the local branch did not have that authority, that if he wanted any concession, he should write the national body, if that was what he wanted. But he never did that. What he did later was to open a register, which he wanted those lecturers to sign that they were no longer part of the national strike. After that, the lecturers who did not sign that register were sacked.

I want to recall that a clause in the agreement we signed with the Federal Government in 2001 was that nobody who was involved in that national struggle should be victimised. So, we see the sack as an act in bad faith. It was a flagrant violation of that part of the agreement.

The second Senate Committe recommendation was that the salaries of the UNILORIN 49 should begin on the day they assumed duty. And that they were going to lose their seniority. When one looks at those conditions together, they looked every inch an act to strip them naked. That means that the number of years they have worked comes to nothing. That is the interpretation … that one on whom injustice was meted should be the one apologising to his offenders. That is what Nigeria has turned those lecturers into.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this is a country that orchestrates the rule of law; we orchestrate justice; we preach justice for the common man. But look at what the common man is going through now.

ASUU’s position
ASUU has rejected those recommendations handed out to its members sometime in March this year. The committee was led by Senator Joy Emordi when they intervened. We placed every document before them so that they could see what happened. At the end of the day, all what they could come up with was that the UNILORIN 49 should go and apologise to the authorities of University of Ilorin as if those sacked lecturers were no longer Nigerians. It was as if they have no rights to justice. And the painful thing about it all was that those who make the recommendation were lawmakers. They were the people who make law for the generality of Nigerians to obey. Unfortunately, they did not look at the crux of the matter; they did not consider why those lecturers were sacked in the first place.

Implication of the sack
That sack has had a whole lot of psychological effect on the lecturers and others. They have wives, children and dependants. One can imagine that since 2001, they have not had salaries; they can’t put food on the tables for their families. The well-being of their families have been badly affected. They had children in schools before the sack.

As far as ASUU is concerned, those lecturers were illegally sacked. And because they were illegally sacked, they were paid no exit packages. Most of them have been in the service of UNILORIN for 20 years. All what the university could tell them was that they should go and pick their six months salary in lieu of notice. What could they be doing with that stipend? How can anyone equate that with their entitlements? It will take insanity for anyone to accept that after 20-25 years of service to an organization. As far as ASUU is concerned, those people were removed unjustly and it is clear.
It was a flagrant violation of agreement ASUU signed with the Federal Government in 2001. Professor Ayo Banjo, the then Pro-Chancellor of University of Port Harcourt led that government delegation. He signed the agreement on behalf of the government, while Dr. Dipo Fashina, the then ASUU chairman signed on behalf of ASUU.

Implication of sack on academic life
As I have always said, the university is not all about opening and closing. The academic life of a university depends on dissemination of qualitative knowledge and acquisition of qualitative knowledge. And you need a high level trained manpower. So, when a university throws out 49 trained manpower in various fields of learning, some of them professors, that means that what they have been doing between then and now is a charade… a ruse. They are just deceiving the whole world. Unfortunately, Nigeria is a country where there is no standard. So, there is no way anyone can measure correctly how low the University of Ilorin has slumped over the years.

However, just one measure is open to us. When the universities in Africa were rated recently, University of Ilorin was not rated among the first 100, yet they have not gone on strike since 2001. They did not even appear in the rating of universities in Africa let alone the world. Only University of Ibadan and four others could make Africa’s best 100. So, if the academic life of a university depends on when they open and close, University of Ilorin could have made the rating.

There is no way you can lay off 49 trained and qualified staff and still believe that you are running a university. Some of those thrown out were professors of medicine. How many of them do we have in Nigeria? Some of them were professors of engineering, how many of them do we have in Nigeria to warrant the university laying them off so carelessly.

It should be understood that some powerful people out there do not like that university, even when they are pretending to be serving its interest. That is the way I see it. No right thinking person will lay off 49 trained staff all in one day for not doing anything. If only those lecturers were charged, and the process allowed to run its course, that would have been another thing. They have a structure to try the teachers, but there were no charges against them; they were never arraigned before a panel. Their only offence was that they did not sign attendance register when there was a national strike.

In whose interest is the sack?
The guess of all Nigerians is as good as mine. The sack is in nobody’s interest except those whose attempt have always been to Ilorinise that university simply because it is located in Ilorin, Kwara State.
But what everybody should understand is that the University of Ilorin is a federal university. It is like the University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and every other federal university in this country.

If people want to indigenise the university, I don’t understand what they mean. Those who want the academic staff to be drawn from Ilorin or Kwara State got it all wrong. I don’t know what they mean. Because if you want to employ quality staff, you must advertise so as to attract the right manpower; people who are qualified should be employed by merit and not by any other consideration.
That is why the sack and failure to re-absorb the sacked lecturers should not be an ego thing. It is wrong to run a university based on ego. The university should not be about ego; it should be about everybody.
A university should be in the best interest of the nation. The university, comes from the word universitat, meaning something global, something international. But we in Nigeria unfortunately reduce the university to the vagaries of local politics. Unfortunately, when we do that, we make people around the world to begin to have a rethink about our system.

The way forward
What has happened at UNILORIN is of nobody’s interest because later the damage done there will start manifesting.

Right now, we are laying everything that is happening in the realm of the public. We are all stakeholders in what is happening in that institution and that is why we are calling on all well-meaning Nigerians to come out and prevail on government to do the right thing. Because we don’t need to resort to incessant strikes. But then, if that is what will solve the problem, we don’t have a choice since we see this as a gross act of injustice.

Our grouse is that this matter has not been given the right attention it deserves. And we fear that the deadlock may drag on for another four years. When you add that to the past seven years, that is equal to 11 years. That length of time is significant in the life of anybody. That is why we are calling on all well-spirited Nigerians to wade into the matter.

Some people are simply playing politics with that matter just because they are in power at the moment.