Ilorin 49: When Enough is Enough

The lingering crisis between the Federal government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the re-instatement of the 49 sacked lecturers of the University of Ilorin (“Ilorin 49”) has become an open sore which if left untreated today could become a great destabilizing factor in the nation’s tertiary education.
Between Monday, February 18 and Friday February 22, ASUU had embarked on a one-week warning strike to press home its six-year old demand for the re-instatement of the sacked lecturers. The grievances that led to the aforesaid ASUU warning strike are well known to all. 1n 1981, 1982, 1999 and 2001, the government, pursuant to international bargaining principles, entered into four different agreements with ASUU on how to resolve such vexed issues like salaries and conditions of service for academic staff, University autonomy, academic freedom among others.
But the Federal government defaulted in keeping to its own part of the agreements, causing ASUU then to embark on strike to draw government’s attention to the details of the said agreements.
But the strike however became a big problem in the University of Ilorin, as the then Vice Chancellor, Professor Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem chose to sack some 49 ASUU members who participated in the strike. Ever since then, all entreaties from top and influential members of society and even the academia, to re-instate the sacked lecturers have fallen on deaf ears. Even when the ASUU took the matter to court and secured an order to re-instate the sacked lecturers, the order was not, obeyed, until the Unilorin authorities chose to appeal against the order almost a year after, where upon the Appeal court reversed the order of the lower court. ASUU then went to the Supreme court, where the case is, as at today.
Not even the frequent strikes called by ASUU to press home that demand could thaw the ice of obduracy on the part of the Unilorin authorities, as it soon became an ego war.
Consequently, the academic calendar of the nation’s universities has been disrupted many times over.
That was the impasse both ASUU and the Federal Government had got into when the tenure of former president Olusegun Obasanjo who supported the Unilorin position expired.
It thus became a source of refreshing relief when President Umar Musa Yar’Adua promised to deal with the Ilorin 49 issue within six months. In no small measure, the promise doused the tension in the university campuses nationwide. But eight months after, Mr President has not responded to the issue.
It is said that suddenly, the President has chosen to wait for the pending court cases to resolve the issues at stake.
We believe that the President can use his father figure to encourage both parties to settle this issue out of court .If nothing else, for the sake of ensuring smooth academic calendar for the students, the Federal government must seek for expedient ways of breaking the jinx over the Ilorin 49. To attempt to use the courts to forestall the ASUU strike is surely not the way to go. Meaningful and sincere dialogue can help break the logjam. To allow the issue to keep re-occurring does not portray the Federal Government in good light.
We also believe the said lecturers, four of whom have died now, can be re-instated and posted to other universities if they must not remain in Unilorin.
The nation can hardly afford a further disruption of the already distorted academic programmes of the universities. The future of the nation’s leaders cannot be sacrificed on the banal altars of cheap politics. The Federal Government must thus rise above the fray and decisively deal with the Ilorin 49 issue, once and for all.