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From without, the opposition-allergic Obasanjo administration is closing in on organized labor insisting on its pulverization and perhaps ultimate disbandment through the force of legislation. Never in the mood to give up anything, talk less his much cherished desire to institute an opposition-less democracy in Nigeria, President Obasanjo has gained a lot of mileage trying to persuade the Nigerian legislature to rubberstamp his decision to annihilate the last vestige of opposition to his administration represented by organized labor. And because the Nigerian president handpicked a sizeable majority of the members of the present legislature of Nigeria, labor is not likely to win this particular battle, its best efforts in the fight notwithstanding. All labor can hope for is to muddy up the process through the courts and perhaps pray that the judicial process will slow the speed with which the ever-determined Nigerian president intends to destroy labor's opposition to his semi-absolutist administration in Nigeria. But no matter whatever happens, ultimate victory belongs to the president. He will definitely have his way because the majority of the legislators in Nigeria are in fact his employees.

From within, some of the constitutive branches of the NLC, especially those seemingly allied with the Obasanjo administration, have begun to sabotage the very unity relied upon by labor to fight its wars against the Nigerian government. Some of them have chosen this most inauspicious period to announce their imminent secessions from the organization. It seems that the Obasanjo administration has successfully infiltrated the ranks of labor and is successfully persuading many of the branch leaders to rebel against the central body. In other words, the administration is not only fighting labor from without, it is working very hard to weaken it from within. And from all indications, it has made a tremendous progress in that. As things stand, it seems safe to predict that organized may be enjoying its last days in Nigeria. Needless to say that this has ominous consequences for the Nigerian nation because as labor goes so does the nation.

Among the organizations that appear to have been recruited for the singular purpose of rocking the boat of organized labor from inside is the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT). This last Wednesday the western chapter of the NUT announced its decision to split off from its parent body, in order to form an autonomous organization for teachers of the nine states that make up the old western region of Nigeria. At a rally of teachers at the Teachers' House, Ring Road, Ibadan, Oyo State, the new leader of the breakaway faction and the former NUT west chairman, Tola Onafuye, blamed the national chairman of NUT, Abdul Waheed Ibrahim, for nudging his new organization towards secession from the national body. Onafuye accused the leadership of the central NUT of being "incompetent, inept, lack(ing in) courage and political will to act objectively" (ThisDay, August 26). The NUT breakaway leader alleged that the Northern and Eastern chapters are conspiring against the Western chapter of NUT, hence their decision to "pull out."

And with a strange fanfare, Onafuye announced, "the NUT has from this day of declaration lost its national status. It has once again returned to its regional formation as the entire western region of Nigeria, made up of the nine states of Edo, Delta, Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, Kwara, Osun and Ekiti (EDOLOOKOE) hereby proclaims its severance from the national body to operate as NUT West (EDOLOOKOE) henceforth". Continuing he said, "outright conspiracy of the East and North against the West, mutual distrust and suspicion and undue manipulation of the leadership through blackmail, deceit and lies by the East as well as political and office horse-trading at the expense of the West have all culminated into a situation where the West is now compelled to pull out of the unhealthy alliance set up by the East and North and to remain on its own" (Vanguard, August 26). Onafuye declared, "all the allegations raised, part of which centered on ethnic cleansing (of the West) were treated with levity and dismissed with a wave of hand…. We of EDOLOOKOE cannot continue to operate under a system where truth, objectivity, fairness and justice are no longer values and virtues to be cherished and upheld. We can no longer be a part of a system where rewards for service and honesty have taken flight."

Unfortunately, the new leader of the breakaway western teachers' union could not quite make the case why and how his new organization arrived at a decision to secede from the parent body from an experience of "ethnic cleansing, conspiracy against an ethnic group, mutual distrust, deceit and lies." Assuming that what Onafuye had claimed is true, namely, that the East and the North are conspiring to marginalize the West; is this enough reason to declare secession from the national body? I do not think so. Even if the claim were true, [and we only hope and pray that it is not], it only means that the West is a Johnny-come-lately to issues of ethnic marginalization, deprivation, conspiracy and deceit. The Igbo nation has been living with such tragic experiences for the past four decades in Nigeria. The Igbo have far more grouse against their Western and Northern brothers and sisters in this regard than whatever Onafuye and his groups might have experienced in the national NUT.

Moreover, if such experiences were a justifiable basis for secession, the Igbo would have long seceded from Nigeria. Were the allegation of Onafuye ever to be proven true, all the Igbo need to say to their Western counterparts is: welcome to the world of ethnic deceit and marginalization which is a part and parcel of the post-civil war culture in Nigeria. Mr. Onafuye and his group must accept part of the responsibility for the culture of deceit and marginalization in the Nigerian polity. The late political sage of the Western region, Obafemi Awolowo, was this culture's principal creator and author in Nigeria. Perhaps it is fair that his political progeny should experience a little bit of it in order to see how it feels to be deceived, exploited and marginalized in the Nigerian political power play. The Igbo have borne many times over for nearly four decades whatever Onafuye and his group may be claiming as driving them to secede from the national NUT. So at the end of the day, the NUT West does not have much case that should warrant secession or even a threat of it.

Because of the unconvincing nature of the reasons so far given, we believe that there is more to the Western NUT's threat to secede from its parent body. It seems to us to be a part of a grand strategy of the Obasanjo administration to destroy organized labor in the nation. Coming at this time when labor is in serious labor in Nigeria, the Western NUT's threat can only suggest that its leadership is in cahoots with those who are intent on breaking the backbone of labor opposition in Nigeria. The complaint against marginalization did not just happen yesterday. It has been there for quite a long time, I suppose. Then the question becomes: why is it that it is now that it is leading the western teachers' union to succeed? Where and when have they made their case against injustice in the national NUT before opting for secession? There is absolutely no doubt that the decision of the western NUT to secede from the national body has some political implications. It seems above all a part of a grand conspiracy masterminded by the Obasanjo administration to sabotage and weaken organized labor in Nigeria.

As if the NUT West's secession declaration was not bad enough, the Smart Adeyemi-led Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), which had unabashedly served as an extension of the Obasanjo administration's ministry of [mis-] information during the last elections in Nigeria, made a dramatic return to the front-pages of Nigerian newspapers this past week. Speaking at the "first All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC)" at Ada, Osun State, Smart Adeyemi stated that the leadership of the NUJ had decided to pull out of the NLC in order to "reposition (itself)… to become a formidable professional body that would be the pride of all, rather than being a labor union" (ThisDay, August 26). According to him, "since NUJ remains the central union of practicing journalists, you cannot pretend to be unconcerned about the struggles by some of us to re-direct the affairs of the NUJ for growth and development." Adeyemi claimed to have identified "about eight clauses of the NUJ constitution that will enable us to fully become a professional body…. We hope to convene a constitutional conference before the end of the year where all stakeholders will join hands with the NUJ to reform our profession"(ThisDay, August, 26).

But the NUJ boss could not state the reason why it would have to take the pulverization and weakening of the NLC to achieve this new status for his organization. He could not state why Nigeria Union of Journalists as a professional body would be incompatible with the other labor unions of the NLC. Rather he seemed to have embarked on a fishing expedition into the NUJ constitution in search of "clauses" that would give him the ground and confidence to transform the NUJ into a destructive instrument against the embattled Nigeria Labor Congress. It is a tragedy that the other chapels of the NUJ in Nigeria have completely surrendered their venerable organization to the Obasanjo administration-cuddling leadership of Smart Adeyemi. In line with the spirit introduced this past week by the NUT western branch, it might be time for the NUJ branches in the other parts of the country to consider seceding from the national body if only to state their case against the disgraceful manner Smart Adeyemi-led NUJ leadership has been handling the union's relationship with the current administration in Nigeria.

What all this seems to suggest in our view is that there is more to the decision of the NUJ boss to pull his body from the NLC than the flimsy reason he presented to the gathering of Nigerian editors. For the Adeyemi-leadership of the NUJ to try to tear off his union from NLC at this time organized labor is facing imminent defanging and suppression in Nigeria cannot spring from a pure motive. We dare to suggest that Adeyemi and his group may be carrying out a hidden agenda of their allies in the administration whose ultimate ambition is to employ all means available to destroy the NLC both from outside and inside. NUJ leadership may have chosen to serve as a destructive instrument of the administration from within the NLC. In an ideal world where journalists pay close attention to whatever is happening around them, the activities of the NUJ leadership during the 2003 elections and its present efforts at destabilizing the NLC could have been enough to pass a vote of no confidence on it. Only a blind person could pretend not to be able to see that Adeyemi and his group are partisan politicians with ethnic loyalties who are masquerading as credible leaders of the NUJ!

However, there seems to be a higher implication to this new craze for secession being championed by western-led bodies. These western leaders seem to be blazing a new trend in Nigeria. It should come as no surprise to anyone if the trend that was begun this past week culminates in the Southwest attempting to secede from Nigeria. My hunch informs me that what is happening now may be a piecemeal secession that would clear the way for a major secession to be launched by Southwest very soon. I may be wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if that proved to be the case. What else can one expect in a country where the credibility of secession-loving organizations like the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has skyrocketed in the last few years alone? Who would doubt that a similar trend might be brewing in the Southwest? That the once-despised MASSOB has become so influential in many parts of Nigeria that it could now order the whole region of Southeast and beyond to close shop and stay home to press its secession agenda and they obey it seems in fact a sign that secession of some sort may be brewing in Nigeria? Moreover, it is hard not to see that the gambit of President Obasanjo and his allies in trying to sabotage and pulverize the NLC could result in massive secessions across Nigeria.

But a more important issue on the imminent liquidation of the NLC is our belief that in trying to destroy organized labor in Nigeria, the Nigerian president may in fact be engaged in a wrong war. We believe that trying to balkanize and weaken organized labor, no matter how beneficial, seem clearly a wrongheaded policy that is fraught with dangers both for the Nigerian president and for the corporate survival of the nation. In fact, when all is said and done, the president will have achieved nothing other than a slew of accusations that he is unrepentant in his desire to dominate Nigeria as a despot. If he wants to act wisely in this regard, the president should first take a look around the world and see if there has been any world leader that has benefited in the long run from fighting a national labor organization. Perhaps President Obasanjo should draw some lessons from what has happened to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in the recent times. The truth is labor always finds a way to persevere as a permanent irritant in every democracy. A genuine democratic leader does not try to eviscerate genuine national labor organizations, but to find an accommodation for them in the democratic process. This is because war against labor is often seen as war against the masses.

However, we believe that there is a far more important labor battle the Nigerian president should engage in rather than this risky and fruitless effort to destroy the NLC. The war we recommend to the Nigerian president is that against the errant and pretender labor organization called Academic Staff Union of Universities [ASUU]. If the Nigerian president could listen to an advice from a critic, he should concentrate all his energy trying to defeat the real threat posed to tertiary education in Nigeria by the overbearing ASUU. This rather elite labor union has over the years become more of a monster in the Nigerian education and therefore must be defeated and tamed so that our universities could regain their freedom and perhaps soar to greater heights in the world. In fact, Nigerian universities are crying for liberation from the pseudo-labor union called ASUU. And this seems a legitimate war for a president who is interested in making sure that only genuine labor organizations that represent the poor masses are operating in a democracy.

But why would I advocate for the disbandment of ASUU since its members are technically of my own kind? My decision in this regard springs from my belief that the issue of university education in Nigeria must be far removed from sentiments. If we are sincere to ourselves we should be able to cast a critical look on the last twenty years or so that ASUU has been dominant in the affairs of Nigerian universities and see how much Nigerian education has gained from it. If we succeed in dispassionately reviewing the accomplishments of Nigerian universities under the spooky sway of the powerful ASUU, we would agree that this so-called trade union that serves only the elite of our universities has been a sore spot on university education in Nigeria. Since ASUU came into existence, the fortune of our universities has been spiraling downwards precipitously. ASUU has a terrible record with regard to the fate and fortunes of university education in Nigeria. Granted that it has accomplished quite a lot in improving the livelihood of university teachers, but the price university education in general has had to pay for the few-and-far-in-between accomplishments of ASUU pales in comparison. The activities of ASUU have destroyed the great Nigerian education that used to be the pride of the world. And for this reason, we demand that ASUU be disbanded forthwith!

However, the reason why it has become almost imperative to demand the disbandment of ASUU is because the leadership of this elite organization seems to have lost sight and touch of the meaning and purpose of university education in the contemporary world. Over the past several weeks the grouse of the union has been with a purported new bill the Obasanjo administration is said to have submitted to the National Assembly on the operations of Nigerian universities. ASUU considers this bill as reneging on the agreement it had reached with the Obasanjo administration last year. It is therefore demanding that the administration implements the university bill, which the president had earlier signed into law before going ahead to enact a new one that might overtake the previous one ASUU, claims to support. Although ASUU may have a case as regards the implementation of an already enacted law concerning the status of universities in Nigeria, it is beside the point we are interested in for now.

Judging from the communiqué of ASUU released after their meeting at Uthman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, in mid-July, it appears that the gripe of the union with the new bill is the decision of the Obasanjo administration to grant autonomy to Nigerian universities. ASUU seems to be making it abundantly clear that it is not interested in and will not support the type of university autonomy being envisioned by the Obasanjo administration.

However, it is our belief that the administration's desire to make every university in Nigeria somehow autonomous is a correct one. And for ASUU to fight against it shows in our view that this elite labor organization is lagging far behind the visions and aspirations of modern universities across the world. The whole concept of university autonomy is a battle that has been fought and won since the late medieval period. Institutional autonomy follows from the very nature of a university itself. A university is largely a self-sustaining and self-containing institution, which should largely determine its own affairs with minimum interference from outside institutions such as the government or any religion for that matter.

Besides their general opposition to autonomous universities in Nigeria, the members of ASUU leadership have been saying so many other outrageous things in the last few weeks. Some of these comments give the impression that those leading this elite organization are either misinformed about what is happening in the world of university institutions or they have become completely taken in by their labor advocacy that they have lost touch and sight of what a university institution stands for in the contemporary world. In late July, for instance, the president of ASUU, Abdullahi Sule-Kano, was quoted as claiming that private universities in Nigeria were conceived as business enterprises rather than centers of learning. Speaking to the Punch in an exclusive interview, Sule-Kano disparaged private universities as "centers of class distinction." According to him, the essence of private universities in Nigeria was that the ruling class wanted to create a division between their children and the children of majority of Nigerians who attend public schools. I was personally horrified by such a pedestrian talk from the leader of this elite union. Does the president of ASUU desire classless, one-size-fit-all universities for Nigeria? Does he actually know what he is talking about?

However, the ASUU boss also faulted what he described as "the philosophy behind the establishment of most private universities." According to him, "the philosophy of the private university in Nigeria is also upside down. Part of the problem is the conception of a business pattern, that is, you will run the university like a business to make profit. That is not how private universities are run elsewhere in the world." He declared, "Those who run them elsewhere in the world never lose the essence of a university to humanity. So they know that it is not an investment like just putting a factory on the ground and say that it must bring money. And if it is not bringing money you have to close it" (Punch, July 27). One has to wonder whether Sule-Kano has visited any universities in Europe and America in that last few years. If he had done so, did he take the pain to find out how such universities operate? His statements here reveal acute ignorance of how universities operate in the civilized world. He apparently does not know much about the philosophies, the business patterns and strategies underlying many universities in the civilized world. Hence he makes terrible generations on an issue he knows little or nothing about.

Also a statement released this past week by the Ilorin coordinator of ASUU, Eddy Olanipekun, criticized what it described as "indiscriminate manner of establishing private universities by the National Universities Commission (NUC) without regards for basic infrastructure and technical personnel to run the institutions." According to ASUU Ilorin coordinator, "based on NUC data in 2001 there were on ground only about 1/3 of the academic staff required to teach and run the public university system…. Three years later, many academic staff have left, either through retirement or frustration. New academic staff are hard to find, yet it is from this same pool of overworked, underpaid and abused academics that the private universities are recruiting their pioneer staff. The consequences are better imagined" (Vanguard, August 25). One can understand the frustrations of people like Olanipekun, but the fact is he does understand the role of private universities. He does not understand that a private university has the right to recruit its staff from wherever it chooses without prejudice to the situation in public universities. In America teachers from public universities teach regularly in private universities. They take as much load, as they are able without anybody bothering them.

In fact, going by the critical comments of these ASUU leaders, it seems clear that ASUU as an organization is totally against the recent spike in private university ownerships in Nigeria. But how can university teachers in good conscience be against private university establishments in a nation that suffers acute shortage of university institutions? This seems an oxymoron. Every year, more than half a million prospective students are denied admissions into universities for the simple reason that there are not enough openings in the 50-plus universities in Nigeria. Does such a veritable tragedy matter to ASUU and her leadership? ASUU leaders are ignorantly decrying the possibility of the emergence of private universities for the elite and their children in Nigeria. Do they know anything about the Ivy League institutions of America? Do they know about the Oxfords, the Cambridge of UK, the Harvard's and Yale's of the US, etc? Is it not inherent in the nature of university education to create some class distinctions? Would our nation not be better off having such a class-conscious elite institutions as Harvard and Oxford than the current situation in which we have next to nothing?

Moreover, why should ASUU leaders burden private universities with the problems of public universities? No wonder they are fighting a losing battle against the creation of autonomous universities in Nigeria. The fact is ASUU leaders seem to have a secondary-school vision of university institutions in Nigeria. Their vision of universities is that of a cluster of secondary schools run from the ministry of education. If they knew what a university was all about they would realize that it is the duty of every university to fend for itself staff wise. It sounds both ignorant and secondary-schoolish to think that the NUC must first ensure adequate staffing and well funding of public universities before licensing private ones. Where on earth is this the norm of operating university institutions? This is why we maintain that the leaders of ASUU are out of touch with what is happening in the university world. They may also be ignorant of how a modern university operates in the civilized world. So what they deserve is disbandment.

Also this past week, it was reported that ASUU has condemned the on-going review of university curriculum across Nigeria. According to a report in the Punch newspaper of August 25, the national president of ASUU, Abdullahi Sule-Kano, described the review f academic curriculum soon-to-be embarked upon by the NUC as "illegal and inimical to the vision on which universities were founded." Sule-Kano declared, "NUC by delving into curriculum review is overstepping its boundary and the body is trying to become a super university by taking over the job of the senate of universities which is statutorily empowered to develop curriculum. It is not the business of NUC to do what they are trying to do." Pressing his views further, Sule-Kano said that NUC's claim that it wanted to design a curriculum that would be used to produce students that (would) be equipped with job competence skills for the labor market was a clear indication that "they have lost sight of the vision for which universities are established." According to him, the vision of a university "is universal and its essence is to open up the mind of beneficiaries of university education to higher values and liberate it from the shackles of ignorance and not necessarily to produce labor for the market." The ASUU boss advised that rather than engage itself on matters beyond its jurisdiction, the NUC should work hard at sourcing funds and injecting same into the university education sector. According to him, "NUC should concern itself with how to provide adequate funding for universities all of which are groaning under financial pressure so that they can perform their traditional roles of teaching, researching and imparting skills and knowledge into the students" (Punch, August 25).

I do not think there is any other thing that makes my case for the disbandment of ASUU better and clearer than these last statements attributed to its national president, Abdullahi Sule-Kano. For him to criticize the noble vision of NUC to make university curriculum respond to the particular needs of the Nigerian situation proves quite conclusively, I believe, that he may be ignorant of curriculum developments across the world. And this seems what is wrong about ASUU. It seems to be led by inadequately informed people who are only good at announcing strikes and closing down universities to attract more funds from the federal government. That the current president of ASUU does not seem to know how curriculum evolves and grows in universities across the world makes my case that his organization is ripe for disbandment.

All over the civilized world, the role of education planners is to constantly fine-tune curricula so that they adequately reflect and address the particular needs of their environments. The "universalist vision" of a university espoused by ASUU president has enough room in it to accommodate elements in a curriculum that serve the particular needs of a given society. Sule-Kano is ill-informed to claim that the essence of a university is "to open up the mind of a beneficiary of university education to higher values and liberate it from the shackles of ignorance and not necessarily to produce labor for the market" (Punch, August 25). In fact the contrary is truer. The essence of a university is primarily to produce labor for the market of any given country. This is the new meaning of a university in a post-industrial revolution age. Sule-Kano is talking about universities of the medieval period. In the contemporary period, the university system is the labor factory for every nation. The progress of a nation is commensurate with the quality of universities it maintains. For Sule-kano not to know this tells a lot about the quality of leadership that is available in ASUU.

Irrespective of what ASUU might think, both the opening-up of the mind to higher values and the production of labor for the local markets are in no way opposed. In fact, one follows from the other and vice versa. Contrary to the belief of Sule-Kano, the NUC does not overstep its bounds by demanding that Nigerian universities under its supervision provide courses that would prepare their students for practical life of self-employment if the economy of our nation demanded that. This is what the Nigerian universities could have been doing for years. ASUU leadership shows its ignorance by not recognizing this important fact about universities across the world. This is pragmatic education, which many universities in the civilized world have long embraced. In fact I would urge that the Nigerian universities should not stop at teaching practical courses and imparting utilitarian knowledge to their students, they should take it a notch higher by establishing, say, "pure water factories," "bakeries," "shoemaking," "tailoring," etc., that could provide services to the Nigerian populace. When we are talking about university autonomy, this is exactly what we mean: to force Nigerian universities to become creatively productive or die a natural death.

Finally, it is our wish and prayer that ASUU be disbanded. It is an oxymoron to maintain such an elitist gigantic labor organization for university teachers across the nation. Such a national labor organization is inappropriate for the university system of education. It is rather meant for workers of other callings. Moreover, this type of a national labor union tends to defeat the whole purpose of a university system of education. By its very nature a university is supposed to be a whole, a self-contained entity that cherishes and defends its autonomy to the last. The activities of ASUU result in undue interference into the internal affairs of the different universities in the nation. This is not healthy. It makes Nigerian universities look like secondary schools rather than revered tertiary institutions of higher learning.

In fact, ASUU of today is no different from the NUT. Both are operating on the same plane and perhaps using the same method of random strikes and closures of educational institutions. Both are constantly looking up to the federal government as Father Christmas that must provide them everything they need. This can be tolerated for the NUT that is dealing with infants and teenagers that have not acquired enough skills to be useful to their institutions. But for ASUU to demand to be treated like the NUT is a tragedy of no mean proportion. The university institution is supposed to be an employing organization as well as a gathering of university employees. ASUU makes Nigerian universities appear like a gathering of employees whose employer is the federal government. This is unsustainable!

Granted that there should be labor unions in particular universities whose duty would be to negotiate the conditions of service for the employees of their institutions. This seems the way it should be. But to have a super-labor organization overseeing all university teachers in Nigeria is unconscionable and abnormal. First, it results in unnecessary dominal effects, which are absolutely detrimental to the health of university education in general. For instance, in a situation where a local ASUU has some contractual disagreements with the management of its institution, in order to bring about enough pressure on the local institution the national body usurps the matter and perhaps mandates disruption of university life across the entire nation. This is sheer waste of time and resources. And it is patently absurd. This is not the way tertiary institutions operate in the civilized world. An individual university institution handles its own contractual problems with little reference to the parental body. Nowhere in the civilized world, to the best of my knowledge, do we have a university labor organization that is as encompassing, all embracing and as powerful as ASUU. It seems from all considerations that ASUU is a terrible aberration in the world of university labor unions.

Moreover, there is something quite nauseating and disgusting observing university teachers behave like factory workers. Every now and then, Nigerian university teachers who occupy the top echelon of our society down tools and demand a pay-raise. This is absolutely ridiculous. A situation should be worked out whereby individual universities have the power to negotiate contractual agreements with their employees. This is the way it is done all over the civilized world. For the federal government to pretend to be able to negotiate contract agreements across the board for university teachers in the nation and for the ASUU leadership to expect that such could be case is absolute absurdity.

For there to be any progress along the line of empowering individual universities to handle employment matters, the almighty Academic Staff Union of Universities as a national organization will have to be torn down and disbanded thereby paving the way for all universities in Nigeria to be granted full autonomy enjoyed by their counterparts across the world. Whether the current ASUU leadership accepts it or not, it must realize that its organization has done a great disservice to university education in Nigeria in the last quarter of a century. And for this reason, WE DEMAND THAT ASUU DISBAND NOW!