PRESS RELEASE
Health, Education Together
I want to congratulate the University of Ibadan Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU-UI) for blazing the trail in activating our Union’s programme of activities for supporting Government’s efforts towards stemming the tide of the dreaded coronavirus in Nigeria. The event of today is in furtherance of the decision of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at its emergency meeting held on Saturday, 21st March 2020, at the University of Abuja, Abuja. At that meeting, NEC resolved that the Union should participate actively in the ongoing efforts to prevent and control the spread of the coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19. In the Press Conference that followed on 23rd March, 2020, we had declared:
To demonstrate our concerns for the welfare and well-being of the Nigerian people, ASUU members nationwide shall be willing to work with medical and paramedical workers as volunteers in their public enlightenment and professional intervention initiatives. All our branches shall explore areas of strategic collaboration with federal, state and local governments to provide support in terms of information and expert skills drawn from our membership across the nation.
For us in ASUU, this is not an occasion for blame game or buck passing. However, it calls for sober reflection on what we need to do differently with our health and education. We talk of our health because that holds the key to our wealth, and our education because, without it, we are going nowhere in the advancement ladder among comity of civilized nations. With qualitative and accessible university education, we can guarantee a storehouse of knowledge in scientists, doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists and other medical and paramedical personnel for coping with a global pandemic of the magnitude of the COVID-19. But it appears our universities have no place in the current efforts of government. Even with all the support, a functional healthcare system is only an evidence of a delectable educational menu serviced by contented academics and scholars at its zenith. See, for instance, how naked and empty our teaching hospitals turned out to be when threatened by the early wave of COVID-19. Yet, these are laboratories established to produce medical and paramedical personnel for our dear nation! Our aspiration for improved quality of life for Nigeria’s teeming population will remain a mirage for as long as the ruling class cannot see the ineluctable consequences of the neglect of university education for qualitative health services.
Accusation of Insensitivity
In the recent past, some questions have been raised about the appropriateness of the ongoing strike action by our Union: ASUU, why strike now? Are you not selfish and insensitive to go on strike at a time the whole world is confront with the COVID-19 pandemic? As we have said on several occasions, however, there will never be a time when ASUU strike would be approved by all the diverse interests connected with university education. The current action commenced way back on 9th March 2020 with the warning strike declared at the Enugu State University. We had thought the two-week window would be used by Government to respond satisfactorily to our demands on the non-implementation of some key aspects of the 7th February 2019 FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) and imposition of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS) on Nigerian academics. Instead, Government stuck to its gun on IPPIS, withheld payment of salaries and allowances of ASUU members and seized the check-off dues, cooperative society contributions and other third-party deductions made on behalf of the union and its members.
With the benefit of hindsight, ASUU has no regrets for rejecting IPPIS. Apart from its erosion of University Autonomy, our worst fears about the platform have been confirmed. The technical issues we raised about possible distortion, manipulation and amputation of salaries and allowances fully came to light with the forceful application of IPPIS to the payroll system in the universities in February 2020. If anyone is still in doubt, a chat with the victims, many of who have regrettably confessed to being deceived into enrolling in IPPIS, would certainly convince you. Therefore, ASUU feels very disappointed in some highly placed individuals and social commentators who still insist that “IPPIS is good for ASUU. They should come forward with the evidence of scientific proof of claims that IPPIS is the best instrument for fighting corruption in the universities or cite a university system in the world that applies the IPPIS which the World Bank designed for the mainstream civil service. However, notwithstanding the onslaught against members of our union from within and outside the corridors of power, we remain focused and undaunted. In fact, no amount of blackmail and character assassination would make us backpedal on our principled path, including active participation in the national efforts to defeat COVID-19 in Nigeria.
Our Collective Challenge
What has become a global pandemic today initially appeared as a distant epidemic. Way back late 2019 when coronavirus was first announced, the Chinese industrial city of Huwan then appeared so remote and unconnected. In fact, powerful nations like France, Germany, Italy and even the United States of America would probably not have been gasping for breath from the coronavirus or COVID-19 now had the expansiveness of its devastation had been contemplated.
The new pandemic, the coronavirus, has awakened our common humanity nationally and internationally. It has suddenly dawned on us all - the rich and the poor, the highly and the lowly – that we are interconnected, and we either face our challenge in togetherness or we sink together. Contrary to the misconception out there that COVID-19 is “a disease of the big people”, we live in shared community with many points of intersection – drivers and car owners, housekeepers and masters/mistresses, school teachers and parents, university students and professors, etc. Pretending to be safe when the lives of others with whom we come into regular contacts are endangered is just playing the ostrich. The truth is: we are not safe, physically, socially or epidemiologically, until others around us are free from the decapitating effects of COVID-19 and other afflictions. Rising to prevent and control the spread is, therefore, not just a matter of duty but the logical demand of our desire to live!
The challenge of our time calls for collective action and there is no room for complacency. In the last one week or so, many State Governors have reeled out several measures to regulate socio-economic and political activities in order to scale down the spread of the life-threatening COVID-19. Those measures were recently given a national endorsement in President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech two days ago when he finally locked down Lagos and Ogun States as well as the Federal Capital Territory for 14 days because of the emerging trends.
The statistics are staggering: from a slow start of the Italian contact case on 27th February, 2020 in Lagos, the slow increase of one or two per week has given way to doubling the numbers weekly with the threat of exponential increase in transmission either from undisclosed returning overseas travellers or secondary contacts who have had one thing or the other to do with them. As at Monday, 30th March, 2020, the number of confirmed cases was put at 131. However, figures from the University of Ibadan’s COVID-19 Committee on Data Analysis and Management indicate that “if the current trend continues, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is expected to be at least 312 by 3rd April 2020” – just three days from now!
We cannot confront the challenge by bemoaning our fate. What is expected is that we join forces to do what China and other well-organised societies have done to “flatten the curve”. ASUU acknowledges that public information, education and communication (IEC) is key to success, backed up with access to health facilities and basic medicaments. It is for this reason that we are flagging off our entry into the intervention networks through ASUU- UI today. In doing so, we hope our token efforts would produce the desired result in awareness creation for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in Oyo State and Nigeria.
Appreciation
I wish to place on record the unflinching cooperation and support our Union enjoyed from the Vice Chancellor and other management staff of the University of Ibadan in making today’s event a reality. We also appreciate the efforts of all our colleagues in pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, communication arts, languages and other fields who have contributed in one way or the other to the success of this project. Finally, we thank our comrades and compatriots from the media and the civil society. You have been worthy partners in progress in our collaborative efforts on the Nigeria Project. On this COVID-19 challenge, together we shall win. So, the struggle continues!
Thank you all for listening.
Signed
Biodun Ogunyemi
31st March 2020
