‎Enhancement of staff emoluments and revitalisation of varsities are both important

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‎JGN Onyekpe
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‎The welfare and conditions of service of the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, are and should be of primary importance in the struggle to save varsity education in Nigeria.
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‎ Indeed, but we cannot be blind to the state of the varsities and their basic needs, and their relations with the government concerning the issues of academic freedom and autonomy.
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‎The varsities should have a minimum level of funding, infrastructure, and facilities to function and deliver on their mandates, and to be globally competitive. Reference is frequently made by some ASUU members to the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, which focusses more on members’ emoluments and less on infrastructure and facilities.
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‎These ASUU members think it is the way ASUU should go. But these members cannot say, in all honesty, that, the health sector is delivering satisfactorily. The focus of the NMA strictly on members’ emoluments has not been, because it cannot be, enough to change the state of the health sector.
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‎How much can doctors and other medics do in the performance of their duties without basic infrastructure, equipment, tools, etc? As intellectuals we cannot afford not to engage the state (i.e, the government) on the problems of society with a view to finding solutions to them.
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‎ Whether we like it or not, we are the only group in a vantage position to do this, by virtue of our training and exposure. Should we fail to do this, then we would be no more important than salt without its taste. The point here really is that, while we focus more on our salaries, welfare, and conditions of service, in order to be financially afloat in the ever-worsening economic situation, we should not be blind to the deepening rot in the varsities. The varsities also need to keep afloat. One scholar once wrote that intellectuals are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Our great Union, ASUU, deserves commendation, not bagatellisation and condemnation, for what it has been doing over the decades to ensure that the public varsity system is adequately funded to enable it to deliver on its mandates.
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‎Prof. Nkem Onyekpe, FHSN.
‎Department of History and Strategic Studies,
‎University of Lagos, Akoka.