Strike is an organised action involving
work stoppage by a body of workers to enforce compliance with demands
made on an employer or a group of employers. It is usually a form of
protest to force recalcitrant employers to respect the value of labour
and accord the latter its rightful place taking into consideration the
historical exploitative relationship between labour and capital. In
organisations or countries where the principle of collective bargaining
is not respected by the employers of labour, the tendency for workers to
employ the strike option is very rife. Workers with deep class
consciousness and a strong capacity to understand the intriguing
manipulations of their employers always exercise their democratic rights
to fight industrial injustice and dictatorship.
The implication of the above is that the
character of states and the nature of employers determine the frequency
of work stoppages in a country or in an industry. Experience has shown
that societies that are underdeveloped with an accompanying
irresponsible leadership go through all kinds of strikes and industrial
crises with their deleterious consequences on the people. This is
because, as usual, the ultimate sufferers of these strikes and
industrial conflicts are the ordinary people and other victims of the
society including the striking workers. Apparently, because of the
hypocritical nature of the society, the striking workers who ought to
deserve the sympathy of the public at all levels become derided and
dismissed as agents of destabilisation. In most cases, the issues that
would have led to the strike are ignored by commentators who in their
exasperation would want the workers to go back to work .Some do not even
want to know “who is right or wrong”. All they want is industrial
peace.
Quite a lot of people have responded to
the ongoing strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. There
are three broad categories of people: Those who are in support of the
union; those who are opposed to the strike and even strikes in general
and those who are playing the Ostrich game. This piece is meant for all
the three categories of people. It is true that strikes by their nature
are disruptive and that the university lecturers’ strikes have been too
frequent. The immediate question is: Why does ASUU always embark on
strike?
In answering this question, it will be
important to look at the whole gamut of ASUU/FGN relationship over the
years since the coming into being of ASUU. ASUU grew out of the Nigerian
Association of University Teachers (NAUT) which was formed in 1965.
Those who formed ASUU in 1978 felt that NAUT was more like a “middle
class fraternity” which did not have the much- needed vigour and
orientation suitable for the development of Nigeria’s university system
in particular and education in general. Nigeria’s post-colonial state
had been hijacked by the military and allied forces who mismanaged the
oil boom of the period. The freedoms of the people had been eroded;
education at all levels was not getting the required attention; the oil
boom, instead of catalyzing the development of the country became
ironically a source of underdevelopment and real curse to the nation. It
was in the midst of these contradictions and disenabling environment
that ASUU emerged as an intellectual force to challenge the
powers-that-be and offer a credible alternatives for our country.
Universities by their nature are
democratic institutions, hence they are opposed to any manner of
imposition either from within or without. The 1978 Uthman Mohammed
Commission Report which took away the disciplinary functions of the
Governing Councils of Universities provided a litmus test for ASUU. This
was because the government of the period in question used the report as
a basis to direct some University Governing Councils to dismiss certain
members of staff from their posts without giving them a fair hearing.
In 1980, ASUU declared a Trade Dispute with the Shagari government,
making the issue of autonomy an important matter.
ASUU also fought Shagari’s government
following Justice Balonwu’s Visitation Panel Report which had directed
the Council of the University of Lagos to remove six senior members of
the academic staff from their jobs. Given the nature of its mandate,
ASUU fought the Federal Government under Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1980
and 1981 on issues bordering on funding, salaries, autonomy and academic
freedom, brain-drain, the survival of the university system in
particular and the direction of the country in general.
Throughout the military era, ASUU waged a
lot of struggles revolving around conditions of service; funding;
university autonomy/academic freedom; the defence of the right to
education; broad national issues such as the anti-military struggles;
actions against privatisation, SAP and other neo-liberal policies of the
government including the World Bank’s attempts to take over the
Nigerian University system through its $120million loan under the regime
of Babangida.
It should be recalled that ASUU had
battled the Buhari/Idiagbon regime’s policy of retrenchment of workers
and freezing of wages; gave support to the Nigerian Medical Association
(NMA) and the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) when they
went on their patriotic strike to rescue the deteriorating health
services in Nigeria in 1984. ASUU, through strikes, also supported the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the National Association of Nigerian
Students (NANS) to protest the brutal murder of the Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU) students by Mobile Policemen in 1986. Again, in 1987
and 1988 the union was in the trenches. The union fought the illegal
dismissal of its president, Dr. Festus Iyayi, and others in 1987. It
participated fully in the 1988 general strikes occasioned by the effects
of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which the Babangida
government had imposed on the country.
The earlier Elongated University Salary
Scale (EUSS) which the government was to implement was abandoned. ASUU
was banned but the academics organised themselves under the platform of
Universities Lecturers Association (ULA) and it was on this platform
that the anti-World Bank Conference to resist the Babangida regime’s
attempt to obtain the $120 million loan from the World Bank was held at
OAU, Ile-Ife, in 1990.
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