By Debo Oladimeji

A Professor of Sociology of Development and Industrial Relations in the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Prof. Ndukaeze Nwabueze, has urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to make the welfare of its members its priority, saying that is the primary responsibility of the union.

He said that if members are well paid and lecturers are happy, bright students will want to be retained in the university system as lecturers.

Speaking during a Valedictory Lecture at the university, he said that people who graduate with First Class now prefer to either go abroad or seek gainful employment in the private sector.

He regretted that candidates that were not the best in school now get teaching appointments in Nigerian universities.

“When I was doing my doctoral thesis, ASUU was one of the two organisations that I studied. The other one was the Nigeria Medical Association. I have been a member of ASUU since 1983. I have paid all my dues. “

But when I look at the welfare of lecturers when I came into the university in 1975 as a student and when I became a lecturer here in 1983, rather than their welfare improving it has been going down. The condition of work of lecturers has been cascading downward,” he said.

He stated that no society can rise above the level of its lecturers because they are the ones that teach the younger generation.

“They are the ones that prepare the young ones for tomorrow. What you get up is what you put in,” he said.

He added that ASUU was registered in 1978 to protect and advance the interest of its members but it is not doing that.

His words: “You have been fighting for university autonomy and all that. Students must pay school fees. I have advised the government not to pay ASUU members when they are on strike. It is the duty of their union to pay them when they are on strike. People will then take union strikes very seriously. And I said private universities are surviving. Why would government universities not survive? Government is unable to fund the university adequately. Part of the reason is that establishing a university has become a thing you do for a friend in government. Somebody will come and say he needs a university in his community and they will give him.

“Meanwhile government does not have the funds to fund each of these universities adequately. Rather than closing universities so that they can get quality education, emphasis is on the numbers. What do they bring out at the end of the day? Half baked candidates! ASUU should reposition itself, go ahead and protect the welfare of its members so that it will be good for the system.”