ASUU: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAYED FOR HAS COME UPON YOU!

Be Careful What You Pray For: You Might Get It

Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust. 2nd December 2013

Some years ago, as ASUU militants, we frequently lamented the fact that Nigeria had never been ruled by someone who had been through the four walls of a university.

We linked the lack of commitment of the leadership to maintaining and improving the university system to their lack of understanding of the value of education and prayed for a graduate president. God answered our prayers and we got two graduate presidents in quick succession, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. In the case of Jonathan, we got a PhD holder, a lecturer and ASUU member, what more can you pray for? This is the same comrade President who has just told the world this weekend that ASUU is no longer a trade union and is indeed a subversive organisation. Of course the President might have been smarting from the fact that ASUU sat him down, in his own words, “for the longest political meeting in his life time”. 13 continuous hours, and yet did not call off the strike.

While reading the riot act to ASUU and its membership, the supervising minister of education had given an ultimatum that lecturers must resume by 4th December or be sacked and replaced by newly recruited lecturers. His tone and demeanour was militaristic and many Nigerians would recall that they had seen that before. If the minister gets his prayers answered and the lecturers in their anger choose the option of being sacked, he might find out that there is no stock of qualified lecturers in the country to recruit from and it will cost the government more to recruit lecturers from abroad than to meet ASUU’s demands. The minister should have looked back and reflected on the fact that Generals Gowon and Abacha issued the same threats and had to eat their words. Minister Wike should reflect on what he is praying for.

ASUU for their part has maintained its threat that it will not go back to work until all their demands are met. There is no evidence that former ASUU member Goodluck Jonathan is having sleepless nights on the issue of the collapse of our university system. What happens if he calls off ASUU’s bluff and refuses to cave in for the rest of his mandate? Does ASUU have the capacity, political, organizational and financial to maintain the strike for another year or two? ASUU should be careful about what it prays for because this former member of their organisation might grant their prayers and allow the universities to remain closed for years. At the end of the day, ASUU needs to reflect on the wisdom of adding to the rot in the university system and negotiate an exit. I think they should jump at the offer of the NLC and TUC to mediate and end the faceoff.

Yesterday, the Anambra gubernatorial election was finally concluded with the declaration of the APGA candidate as winner. Unfortunately, the election was undermined by the call for a boycott of the polls by three parties – the All Progressives Congress, (APC), the Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party. Last Thursday, the leadership and members of the APC stormed the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in a protest march to demand the cancellation of the entire November 16 governorship election in Anambra State and order a fresh one. They argued that the supplementary election proposed by INEC was not recognised by the Electoral Act 2010 as amended. What struck me about their protest however were the calls for the resignation or removal of the Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega for the numerous flaws that characterized the Anambra elections. APC should be careful about what they are praying for because they may get it and it would certainly not be in their interest.

I disagree with their core argument that INEC deliberately sabotaged the election in Anambra in order to appease the PDP and grant the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, victory through illegal means. As is the case with all observers to that election however, I agree with the aspect of their argument that stated that the conduct of the election was grossly below any acceptable standard, whether local or international. Professor Jega himself has come out to accept openly that the election was indeed below standard and announce a number of measures to ensure that there was no repeat occurrence of performance that is below par and that those guilty of messing up the election would be sanctioned.

The best approach for the opposition, in my view, is to engage INEC on the issues that went wrong and make concrete proposals on how to correct them and ensure that future elections have high integrity and credibility. The opposition should be conscious of the fact that recent transformations in the country’s politics are creating historically unprecedented opportunities for them to win the forthcoming elections. Precisely because of this, they should recall former Chairmen of INEC that will knowingly announce fake election results in Abuja without reference to votes cast and collated in the states. If they pray for the removal of Jega, they may have their wish and see the return of such Chairpersons of INEC.

We are all upset with INEC for producing the marred Anambra elections but we should be constructive in charting a way forward. The advantage of Jega as INEC Chair is that when things go wrong, he has admitted same and made efforts at correcting the mistakes that have been made. This is a positive and sincere attitude, which we should engage with to make positive change continue to happen in our system of electoral administration. Opposition parties and indeed the ruling party, which is losing its dominance in the country’s politics, should sit with INEC and other stakeholders to work out solutions to the problems with the voter’s register and cards, logistics, money politics, security agencies, corrupt and inept polling officials that have been identified.