The perceived show of might between the Rivers State Governor Chibuke
Amaechi and the striking lecturers of the Rivers State University of
Science and Technology (RUST) under the umbrella of ASUU has taken a
different dimension on Monday 26th November 2012, as the governor
intended for a withhold of the salaries of the university preceptors.
It was known that since August 13, 2012, the university coaches have
been on strike and their salaries have not been paid them. This was
following the reengagement of the RSUST Vice Chancellor, Professor
Barineme Fakae, by Amaechi. In what was dubbed “no-work, no-pay
principle”, Amaechi was of the opinion that the university is not on
strike, just that there are university instructors he perceived are
deserters who have chosen not to come to school. In Amaechi’s own
word: “The university (RSUST) is not on strike. The school is open,
but some teachers decided not to come. I have directed the Ministry of
Finance not to pay the teachers. Lecturers are to teach and not to
appoint a VC. I have appointed the VC whether they like it or not. The
law said it is the governor that appoints VCs and not lecturers.”
What is amazing to stakeholders in the state and observers concerning
this matter is that since the purported mortification of some
lecturers in the RUST, there has not been any dialogue to discuss the
crux of the matter, and now is a double-rider from Amaechi telling the
whole wide world that the salaries of the university lecturers would
not be paid them if they don’t go to work. And if the lecturers don’t
go back to work, would the Amaechi place an advert asking qualified
people from around the world to apply and replace the positions of the
erring lecturers? What about the fates of the students? How are they
put into considering while the fray last? They are mostly the ones
bearing the brunt while the squabble last!
Unlike a new school, RUST seemed not to deserve the embarrassment it
is facing today, having been created in 1980, as the first state
university and first University of Science and Technology in Nigeria.
What on earth could have caused this disintegration that is beyond
mere reappointment of a VC! It was not the perception of those who
fought for the establishment of the school that there should be
restricted access between those who were supposed to comport the
students’ right and their ilk. Why have they resolved to wash their
dirty linen in the open?
The school was well run before the devil of disunity crept into the
school in the year 2000 and caused the bad effect that can be seen
today on-going in the school. Saying that what this demon called greed
has caused the school is just the strike is being economical with the
truth. The nitty-gritty is that the school is retrogressing. For one,
how could a school that was offering say about 39 academic programmes
only eight were certified by the National Universities Commission
(NUC) in 2005? People like Hon. Justice A.G Karibi-Whyte (rtd),
frowned at the downplay of the school. With people like the deeply
revered Karibi-Whyte who’s the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the 10th
Governing Council of the school, instated on August 19, 2008, RUST is
not supposed to be tottering downwards. In news reports of his
acknowledgement of the problems with the school, Karibi-Whyte had said
in 2011, when the school had a combined convocation ceremony thus: “On
account of conspiracy of various disparate factors, the institution
had not lived up to the expectation of the founding fathers…”
What is happening in the RUST today is against Amaechi’s precepts to
the 10th Governing Council, to set free the university from its
physique of shame, as he had always wanted the RUST to be able to come
to affirmation with the realities in the universities of the 21st
Century. But the result coming out of the school is beyond the
realities of the century; the hounding of Professor Fakae by his
fellow teachers does not really meet the eyes. It subjects one to ask
where were the teachers when Fakae apparently brought back to life, a
school that was supposedly nearly out of service. A statement
confirmed it thus: “For instance, when the Architecture department was
visited by the NUC in November 2005, it scored only 20.7 per cent a
far cry from the minimum score of 70 per cent. The institution was
also said to have lost its licence to run MBA programmes…Before the
emergence of Prof. Fakae, the institution was notorious for things
like high level of cultism, over-admission due to admission
racketeering, infrastructural and environmental decay, lack of
records, academic corruption/examination malpractices, obsolete
financial administrative system, low morale in both workforce and
students, improper data handling, low Information Communication
Technology (ICT) literacy, incessant strikes and disruption of
academic programmes, total breakdown of discipline, law and order in
all ramifications, among other vices.”
Inter alia, it was the believed foresightedness of Amaechi in
appointing Fakae, who later brought the rather dying school to life,
that propelled a lot of Rivers residents to say that more of the
Amaechis are needed, not only in Rivers State, but indeed, in Nigeria.
The people insisted that Amaechi should make sure that a round peg is
in round hole, to avoid disparity, and should not mind the
renegade-lecturers, who are just frowning, because Amaechi has blocked
all the petty frauds portals that once characterized the school among
the lecturers. But instead of ASUU to see things the way they should
be seen, it started to call Amaechi names, forgetting that he can
throw the lecturers out of the school’s property most of them are
occupying. ASUU has proven the bad dogma it operates with if it was
shortsighted in seeing things this way. And this shortsightedness has
been the bane of the country!
Few people will say that what Amaechi did was wrong, when they have
not reasoned that he is not wholesomely the problem with education in
Nigeria, but ASUU’s compass navigates to scoring the ugly result in
this. Imagine that ASUU increased lecturers’ retirement age from 65 to
70 yrs, in what many observers have described as selfishness of the
body. There will never be gainsaying that ASUU, which was supposed to
be a crystal education body, has navigated away from its duty and went
politics and caused avoidable strike that kept vulnerable students at
their various homes for months, if not for years. With the expositions
against the lecturers, their strike is tailored towards the fact that
Amaechi is fighting corruption that has existed among them for years
and they are finding it very hard to eschew. Is ASUU not causing
redundancy in Nigeria with the increase in the age requirement of the
lecturers? This is a body that has often talked about increment in the
lecturers salaries when most students have complained that their
lecturers are not committed to effective teaching. The lecturers, who
were supposed to be highly regarded and placed, regrettably, have
manners semblance of the politicians they were supposed to be
head-high in their front.
The lecturers forgot to know that the era when they cough and the
country would be shaking is gone, because their antics have been
exposed and known to all and sundry. This is the precept that Amaechi
wants the lecturers to understand. And while Amaechi may have some
challenges in governance, his reengagement of Fakae has been said by
many as a step that is not in the wrong direction. Amaechi being a
product of a university
where they said that he studied English,
should not be expected to just tap the lecturers at the back with the
kids’ glove. And he is winning this battle no matter any discordant
voice that will be telling him to ask those in government before him
their fight with ASUU, how they suffered.
It was initially that rulers trembled before ASUU, and that time was
even when lecturers of integrity manned its affairs. No more! Did ASUU
read Amaechi very well that it is the sole right of the governor to
appoint VCs and no other person, but ASUU can give its opinion and not
say it aloud? Are the lecturers not returning to school before their
salaries are expended in other pressing needs of the state government?
Does pride not come before the fall?
They should have commended Amaechi for bringing Fakae in the RUST, who
has transformed the school. Today, the students no longer go to the
lecturers to check their results; they go online, making randy male
lecturers not to prey the female students. Somebody should ask the
striking lecturers why some of their colleagues have been teaching.
Suffice it to say that a minuscule quantity among the lecturers has
accepted change while majority do not want change. ASUU is even
trivial to fight Amaechi. What ‘due process’ is ASUU talking about in
the reappointment of Fakae? ASUU and its counterpart of Labour Union
represent dictatorship, and Nigerians do not want this.
Though, Amaechi might be brag, but ASUU’s is so significant. There
should be a lasting peace restored in the school. The lecturers should
see teaching as their call and have infinitesimal love for who
appoints the CV, except the Constitution gives them such power. The
renegade-lecturers should not see those of their colleagues in the
school teaching as feeble people; these are the ones hearkening to the
call of their profession. Or, do the striking lecturers want Amaechi
to employ new lecturers? The lecturers should do something reasonably
and should stop playing politics with the fate of the students that
they were supposed to teach and guide.
How does one justify that! Some students have been in the school more
than they are supposed to. However, it is known that Amaechi has a
bizarre approach of using aphorisms, but this has been classified as
better than the lecturers’ disingenuousness. Possible, the lecturers
should challenge Amaechi in the court, while still in the school
teaching, pending the court’s rule, instead of showing this unmannered
way of addressing issues. But it seems that the lecturers believe much
in the strike rather than in the court, because ASUU is a product of
the military rule, whereas Amaechi is a product of the democratic
rule, and he is teaching the renegade-RUST lecturers the tenets of
democracy.
It would not worth the salt if Professor Fakae resigns for the sake of
slippery peace to reign in RUST.
