By OM’ERANMUKAANDU

I intend to be very brief and I pray the Muse will allow. After weeks of judicial rigmarole and gymnastics, over the industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to press home its demands for justice and fair play, the Court of Appeal today has proved that in this temple, the common man may not find justice. I am not a lawyer presently but I could be one day, soon. But these thoughts expressed herein are from a good conscience.

Eni t’o ba ju’ni lo, o le so’ni nu! (He that is higher and mightier than one, can spew one away). That is exactly what I see playing out in the scenarios before me. ASUU has been in the foreground of fighting for the common cause since its inception. For the 44 years of its concentrated and dogged struggle for a globally competitive tertiary education system, the Union has scored many positive goals. The harvest is there for all to see. But this time around, the centre referee in collusion with the side and line referees plus the VAR, have enlisted the assistance of the judiciary to send these achievements spiralling to the gulag.

This is one thing ASUU should not encourage or allow. The ovation is at the highest decibel for the Union at the moment. The die seems to have been cast. All those using their positions to rival ASUU and paint it as a union of diehard, rigid and unrepentant intellectuals should go to drinking joints with their pyrrhic, ephemeral victory but the will of the people shall triumph at the end of the day.

Nigerian tertiary students and their parents should also be circumspect in rejoicing. The Court of Appeal ruling was not unexpected. But it stands justice on its head. Common sense tells me that when an aggressor in a dispute arising from the breach of fundamental human rights and protection, the aggrieved ought to be accorded fair hearing. Neither the National Industrial Court nor the appellate Court has been seen seen to have done this. Whither justice?

As a Union existing to protect the interest and welfare of its members, ASUU had not erred. It has not erred in obeying the summons of the NICN when the Federal Government of Nigeria, the aggressor in this case, took the aggrieved to court in such an abysmal manner. I see that as the last chance of a defeated man afraid of sinking and holding on to the tiny piece of straw for survival. It was disingenuous for the President to declare that his administration is resolute not to sign any agreement that it cannot run with, during his budget presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly on Friday. He said University staff are unappreciative of all he has done for them. And I wept.

This government has been known to flout and disobey court orders and judgement in the past. Why should it expect a party in dispute with it to obey an order that was made under duress? Their Lordships of both the NICN and CA have not only demonstrated their partiality but also proved that the Law is a donkey. Made for man by man, the donkey can be ridden by anyone and directed in any direction. But the miscarriage of justice is not what is needed now towards the resolution of this impasse.

Why was an out-of-court settlement impossible when it was imposed by way of advice? The learned judge who gave the counsel knew beforehand that it was impracticable, in the present circumstances. From what is playing out, the Minister of Labour and Employment who has presided over the unemployment of our youth in seven years plus is on a personal vendetta against the leadership of ASUU and members. What with the thumping of ASUU President on the back, in the hallowed chamber of the Speaker, House of Representatives last week, as he was storming out of the meeting called to find amicable actions.

From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that the order to resume immediately by the Court of Appeal was dead on arrival, DoA! It has no precedent in law a d cannot be allowed to become set a bad precedence. “So, the Court of Appeal insisting that the judgment of the lower court, the NICN must first be obeyed is not the law, we call such as being made per incuriam, there’s no precedent for that and it can’t be cited as precedent for future cases. It’s DOA, when taken upstairs to the Supreme Court”. This was a lawyer’s submission and I tend to go with it.

Suffice to say that some of us know the script being played out by this government or administration. It is in the twilight of its tenure and nothing seems to matter to it, as it has been the status quo since 2015. If tertiary education is declared dead by the actions and inactions of the Buhari administration, it is of less importance to him as a person or to his cronies and especially, his forte, the cult he presides over. Boko Haram has made it clear, abundantly clear that he was and still is their patron. So how can he be seen to be revitalising the education system under his watch! He has come to construct the shroud for the University system.

“For the university teachers, it has been a long struggle. ASUU signed an agreement with the government in 2009. Unfortunately, it was in the same year that a sect known as Boko Haram [“Western education is forbidden”] emerged from the shadows to wage a war on education. And the government seems to have been listening to Boko Haram rather than to ASUU, hence it has refused to fulfil its own part of the agreement. Boko Haram has won; ASUU has lost the fight”, Aniebo Nwamu wrote (September 1, 2022). Should we search any farther? In the same breath, government is sponsoring by deceit some new so-called unions of academics just to rival and weaken ASUU. Is that a government that seeks justice and amicable resolution?

The government’s game plan all along is how to proscribe ASUU. The resort to the courts by an administration that is in deficit of obeying Agreements inherited, in the first place, stand justice on its head. Why can’t the judges speak Truth to power, and damn the consequences? But greed may not allow. The judges know that the Federal Government is guilty as charged. This must have been the reason why ASUU did not run to the Courts first: the fear of exactly what is now playing out. We are all learned in their antics. It is not new. This government is obviously bereft of ideas. The leadership of the House of Representatives waded in last minute. Perhaps it was too late? Perhaps it came at a very auspicious moment. We are waiting with bated breath.

Like my people used to say “All manners of knives come to the fore at the instance of an Elephant’s death”: ‘Orisirisi Obe l’a n ri lojo iku Erin!’ In the aftermath of the convulating courts orders and rulings, many pundits- learned, legal, unlearned and pedestrian- have come out with different solutions and suggestions on the way forward out of the logjam. While some are with ASUU, others are with the government, for reasons best known and exclusive to them. The social media is agog with a deluge of journalistic rhetoric. Many have suddenly become social analysts and commentators. The reticent Buhari has been saddled with the responsibility of speaking directly to Nigerians by the Speaker. We also wait.

The child that is wise in dying during the raining season, makes its parents also to borrow the wisdom of burying it by the river bank. If this issue is not resolved now, once and for all times, it will have taken on the shroud of an abiku, a child that comes and dies at will. With their Lordships’ pronouncement, it is obvious we have all been militarized. The shroud is waiting for University education in Nigeria. But as we learned in my professional discipline, there is usually a moment of Lights On, and there is always a moment that defines all moments: the Lights Out. Look forward to that soonest.

(OM’ERANMUKAANDU is the pseudonym of Comrade Prof. ‘Diran Ademiju-Bepo, former Vice Chairman, and Immediate Past Acting Chairman of ASUU, University of Jos branch).

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ASUU: Judiciary and their Lordships of Shroud Justice