Why Lecturers Prefer Union Politics to Research-Prof Osuji
Former Minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji has blamed the incessant strike action in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions to the unwholesome embrace of trade union politics by the academic staff of various institutions in the country. Osuji, who is also a former deputy Vice Chancellor of old Imo State university money has become to core attraction to the university lecturers rather than concentrating on serious academic work and research.
Osuji, who spoke exclusively to True Vision as part of activities to mark his 80th birthday, regretted that “many of the young people are attracted to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) rather than serious academic and research work in the universities”.
His words: “I think it is the money that comes with it. Money from the government and money from their check-off dues. And many of the young people are attracted to that rather than serious academic and research work.”
The former Pro Chancellor of University of Nigeria (UNN), further stated that lecturers prefer unionism to serious academic work and research because “ASUU leaders have a lot of influence”, adding that the lecturers “are more attracted by the pecuniary consideration and interests rather than serious academic work”.
According to him, “many young lecturers do not have any ambition of going higher or doing better for themselves. Their ambition is to rise in ASUU and become the President or Chairman”.
“ASUU leaders have a lot of respect. Most of them are not interested in research or being promoted. As we speak, many of them have the sole ambition of becoming ASUU leader rather than being a professor.
Osuji noted that “those who are engaged in international research are not ASUU people”, stressing that “there is a whole lot of remedial work to be done with our universities as far as I am concerned”.
“The truth today is that I do not know how many people that are still interested in research and research grants. There are also grants from outside. If your research is good enough, you can attract international grants from outside and I did attract grants from outside when I was at Ibadan”, former university administrator further stated.
“My PhD work was funded by the Tropical Products Institute, London. The institute provided all the money and sent me the equipment that I needed for the research work. That research work was later broadcast by the BBC.
“After my PhD work, I was at Imperial College London for my postdoctoral research from the Commonwealth. These are all external grants not controlled by the university or federal government.
“You must attract it by yourself, by the recognition of your work. And that is not happening now. Many lecturers are not known outside the institutions where they teach. When I was at Ibadan, I had so many international research grants.
“I had one from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based in Vienna, Austria. The grant took me to five countries. From Nigeria, I went to Ghana, Holland, Austria, Germany and India. Maybe just a few Nigerian scholars are doing international research”.
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