 There's still no end in sight to the industrial action by the academic staff union of universities, ASU, especially with the case now before the National Industrial Court, Abuja division. The students as well as parents suffer the most in this ompath due to the undue elongation of academic sessions with its attended toll on the economic fortunes of parents and guardians. Right from the previous administrations the academic unions have embarked on several strikes to express, I beg your pardon, the grievances over the federal government's non-responsiveness towards the welfare of their members, as well as infrastructural deficit that has marked the texture institutions in the country. Now joining us to discuss this is Ambrose Ibuke, he's a public affairs analyst. Ambrose is so good to have you join us. Thank you for having me. It's interesting to see that there's not just brain drain in the health sector where we see a lot of doctors, nurses, medical personnel leaving the shores of the country. It's now creeping into our academia and as of today we all know about the case the federal government has instituted against ASU, but let's talk about the brain drain aspect. I've seen so many students post on social media that they've had to take on skills acquisition and some of them have had to go into some form of business to keep busy. But what about those who are also not necessarily able to keep themselves busy and for the people who are also in the midst of this drag and push with the federal government. I mean I'm sure that you know you understand this because you're a teacher. How easy is this for the lecturers themselves? Well first of all AS that is Nigeria is a country that does not respect intellectuals. In fact it is a country that coughs intellectuals across. We derived our most you know ex intelligent brains. We laugh at them. We tell them that they just speak grammar that they're not millionaires. It's a country that has no value system for intellectualism and that is why we have found ourselves where we are today. Those days were in the days in the 60s and 70s that countries all over the world come to Nigeria for exchange programs to do fellowship programs to do degree doctorates and all kinds of you know intellectual intercourse that take place internationally in our soil here. And things started most diving in the mid 80s where our education system started taking the backstage rather we started celebrating things that are not important. When you go to a country like Japan and some other serious countries the highest paid citizens are the teachers. Be the primary school teachers, the primary school teachers are higher, the highest followed by maybe the secondary and then the tertiary. They are higher than doctors. But when it comes to Nigeria the primary school teachers are one of some of the rich ends of the earth. The university lecturers the federal government is making them look as if they have to beg to survive. And this goes across even you mentioned the health sector and that is true. I remember when the doctors were having their own bout of their strike last year and the minister for health told them to go to farm that they should go to farm their condom and medicine anymore. I mean that is the lowest of a country can go where you derive your intellectuals. Last week we're inundated with a new story that says that 6,086 doctors had Nigerian doctors have been licensed to practice in the UK alone in the last seven years. Then I keep wondering how many doctors are remaining. We have not talked about United States, we have not talked about Canada, Australia, South Africa, South Arabia and some other countries that Nigerian doctors strong to daily just the UK. So the way you add the mass you will shiva as the colossal brain drain that is happening in this country. Now remember those days where even Ghana teachers used to come to Nigeria to teach. We had a lot of Ghana teachers in our secondary schools and our universities and from other countries but it's no more happening. Rather Nigeria lecturers are living in droves. Go to universities in the United States, go to the UK, go to Canada, go to South Africa, go to even Australia, go to a lot of countries in the world. Nigeria scholars are the people leading and that calls for concern but it seems our leadership of the country is not even bothered about this concern because even the ones that have you know agreed to stay back home look at the way they have been treated. They have been treated poorly. They will go into agreements with the federal government. The federal government will not honor it. It will drag for some years, more than a decade. They will even agree to renegotiate and after the renegotiation nothing still happens and they keep turning them. Now we have a type of minister that feels that he is an emperor and that the lecturers are his subjects. That is the interaction I see in the way somebody like Dr Chris Ngigei and the minister for Labour and the minister for education respectively, the way they behave towards this lecturer. They don't see the reason why the lecturers should even make demands. The lecturers are subservients. They are slaves in their own country. Why should they even make demand of the federal government? Why should even the federal government go ahead to set up committees upon committees knowing that they will not honor this agreement? Some people have said that the amount is so colossal that the federal government cannot honor it because the education sector or the university sector is not the only sector that it is running. That is an environmental argument because if there must be commercial rates and a way to prune down our expenditure, it must also start from the political group. It must also start from the national assembly people are earning, the allowances and ester codes and the revenue of AIDS that is accruable to ministers and to other political office holders. You cannot be telling lecturers and other citizens to tighten their bed while you, who is holding public office, is not tightening your bed. So it doesn't have to add up. When you set an example of tightening your bed, others can take it to you. Looking at how long this has gone, I mean this is not the longest standoff that Asu has had with the federal government in time past. We've had a nine month long standoff. But then I don't know if we're looking to break any records here whatsoever, but why do you think that the government is standing its ground so much so that they have lodged a case at the industrial court against Asu because again there are those who are supporting the government and saying that Asu is being a bit strong headed in this regard, especially with the IPPIS situation and of course the no work, no pay statement that the federal government had also put out against Asu saying why would you want to get paid if you did not work? First of all we are operating as if the government is the emperor and we are the slaves. That is not how democracy works. The Latin word for the root word of a minister in Latin simply translates to a servant. Minister is a servant. Minister is to serve you. So what in Nigeria is the opposite is the case. The government should not be throwing down things, leave it or take it kind of attitude to people. Now you brought up the IPPIS. Now the lecturers said that because there was not, if there was enough consultation with the broad spectrum of the Nigerian citizens who are earning their daily pay, who are willing to multiply pay from the federal government, perhaps would have avoided this in the first place. What is the kind of major approaches that we use in the issues in Nigeria that has caused this lockdown in the case of IPPIS and the lecturers? Because if the lecturers were consulted when the IPPIS was being configured, the issues, the rates like end allowances, sabbatical and all those other issues that is peculiar to the university environment would have been taken care of. But it was not calculated in the IPPIS. They don't treat it as a typical civil servant, a Roman platform for payment that is a typical civil servant that comes to work by 8 to 5 and then adding of the module end your salary. The spectrum of Nigeria civil service does not operate that way. So that was what the lecturers came up with. And when they came up with it, they made some calculations and they made some scientific objections which were valid. But the government instead of looking into it called their bluff. And because what they called their bluff, they went and said, okay, let's even develop an alternative to show the government what we mean by saying this thing does not capture all our earnings. And they did that by creating the UTAs that would us. And when they created that they showed, it went through a validity test and they met that, the National Institute for Technology Development Agency scored it up more than 70 percent, which is an A in any gradient. And they passed the test. The independent government made the UTA. So the government would have met ASU halfway and said, okay, since you are not doing this, let's incorporate one IPPS. Now, let's see how we can, in a special way, absorb some of these features that you have in UTAs to into IPPS so that they can take care of you. And the lecture has not been indicated at last. In the last accusation to the past accountant general, was IPPS not part of the issues it was accused of? That there was an issue with IPPS. It was been accused that some monies were being moved from IPPS. Was it not part of the reason why it was removed? So some of those things, when people make objections, it beholds on the government to explain or to look into those things and see what it entails. Now, when it comes to the other issue you raised, what was it? You raised another issue about... The court, no work, no pay. Yes, when no work will be paid. There's a difference between moral solution and might. When you want to use your might is right. It is not in every way. That is where even we are a person who has the might to crush the opponent. Sometimes it goes into negotiation and see how to avoid war or avoid a situation that is volatile so that you can always discuss. So it also said that it is better to judge on than to war war. Now, if, for example, the government knew that it was not going to honour these agreements, why did you go wasting taxpayers' money, setting up committees, paying allowances, writing submissions, and then stop using it. So is there that fear or is there that thinking? Has that conversation been had? Is it that ASU feels that the federal government had no intentions to deal with this issue in the first place and that's why there's the food dragging? Because it sounds like that's what you're saying. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the federal government side, if they knew that all the negotiations, all the committees that were set up, all the recommendations, and the committees that were set up to solve this crisis was not going to be honoured. Why set them up in the first place? The federal government would have gone to court, this industrial court, in the first instance to define some things and parameters and complain to industrial courts and make their submissions and say, look, we are not comfortable with West Wiser what ASU is asking for. And they let the court make some pronouncements and give its judgment. From there, government cannot set up committees to negotiate what the court has given judgment on. But setting up committees are making a ring barrel for six months and after six months you are going to court. It means that they don't even care about the situation of the education sector in Nigeria. They don't care that almost we are having four sets of academic sessions standing by because the COVID-19 affected, the COVID-19 pandemic, the event of that era, affected schools. Schools are still trying to recover from that. There was another set of admission waiting. There were still trying to pursue a deal for that. Another set came in. Many schools early this year were just trying to see what they could do and then there's another jam this year. So we are having like four sets of people who are supposed to pass out, people who are supposed to come in, hang in. And yet our government don't care. So what do the citizens do? Quickly, because we have just a minute left. So people were saying that ASU is being strong-headed and somebody is fighting for his rights and they say it's stronger. Most every union be slavish, like most Nigerians. Nigerians are slavish. They behave like slavish in their own country. So most every union be slavish. Finally, quickly, let me see. Okay, just quickly, quickly. What is the fate of Nigeria's education right now? Don't forget the elections are around the corner. In a few weeks they're going to start asking for our vote. What should we be prioritising? I also know off the top of my head that when it comes to the SDGs for education we're yet to scratch the surface. But here we are in 2022 with this push and shove between ASU and the federal government. Where do you go from here? I think the federal government should make up its mind or what it wants to do with the education system in the country or what it wants to do with the tertiary institution in the country. There should evolve policies that will make universities to end money, to create wealth. For example, the patents in the university, the innovations that have been created by our sound professors and reds. How do we turn it to money? How does the federal government go to our universities and use the patents and inventions for mass production and be the first customers and first liars of universities, rather than this importing and importing? Last time a professor in Nigeria designed this tricycle called Keke for transport. But Nigeria government and the other government, state government went to overseas, went to India and went to other countries to import. Why do we not encourage our own? So it is time to evolve a policy that makes the town to meet the ground. So that Nigeria universities can be very, very vibrant in terms of economy and can be able to put some of this base and save the federal government some scarce resources. Well, I want to say thank you. Ambrosebilke, always a pleasure to have you discuss issues such as this on the programme. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right. Well, that's it on the show tonight. But before I go, I would love to give you my take. Here's my take. Identifying a problem is the first step to solving it. Why though does it seem like, you know, even with the knowledge of insecurity in the country, where it's originating from and who the perpetrators are, our leadership and various networks of security and intelligence agencies are powerless to stop it. Why does it seem that way? I mean, because every year our national budget is bloated with an inflated security cost. Don't forget we have security votes, all shouted in secrecy. Yet the problem of banditry as we choose to label it isn't going away, kidnappings are up, the murder rate is higher than ever, and our economy is suffering a slow down of foreign investment. Now, even the president's convoys are under increased security alerts, and now senators know they're being targeted just as much as the ordinary citizen. Maybe even more so, as fed up as we are of our leaders and all the things that are going on, the offices they occupy are a symbolism that represent us as a nation. The notion of a united Nigeria is an ideology, if you ask me. You can kill an individual and nothing changes, but when you kill the symbol that represents an ideology, you are well on your way to killing a nation. Let's save Nigeria. I am Mary-Anna Cohn. Thank you for being part of the conversation. Have a good evening.