Reinstating The Sacked Lecturers

THE Supreme Court recently ordered the immediate reinstatement of five sacked lecturers from the University of Ilorin back to their posts. The lecturers who were dismissed from their posts by the Federal Government for participating in the strike called by the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) in 2001 were among the 49 sacked lecturers of the university.
In a landmark ruling by the apex court, Justice Olufumilayo Adekeye ordered the government to pay all outstanding salaries and allowances from the date of their sack to the date they are restored to their offices. In addition they were awarded N30, 000. each as costs by the court. In delivering the judgment, Adekeye concluded that the sacked lecturers were not given fair hearing by the authorities in accordance with the Universities Act, though it gives universities powers of discipline over their staff.
The affected lecturers,  Dr. Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju, Dr. A.S Ajayi, Dr. Adeyinka Banwo, Dr. Sola Ademiluka and O.O.Olugbara had earlier sued the university including  its governing council, challenging their dismissal in 2001. We are definitely enamoured by the decision of the court over this matter which has lingered for eight years without any amicable resolution. It would be recalled that the sacked lecturers were part of a group that went on peaceful demonstration at the behest of ASUU drawing the attention of government  to the  deteriorating infrastructures in our institutions of higher learning, the lack of concern towards ameliorating the declining academic standards and paltry remunerations of  university dons.
Rather than heed the call to action, the erstwhile Obasanjo administration employed the characteristic high-handed style by ordering the immediate sack of the striking lecturers. That development prompted ASUU to seek legal redress in the law courts. In all court rulings, the union won as the government and the university were ordered to reinstate the affected lecturers.
Since then, Nigerians have watched with trepidation the reckless flouting of court orders by the federal authorities over the matter and even the utter disobedience of earlier Supreme Court rulings in favour of the 49 dismissed lecturers. True to type, especially when it comes to carrying out court orders, government took to hiding under mundane and even ridiculous caveats rather than carry out the orders. Even when we admit that the act establishing the university gives it the right to employ and discipline any of its staff found to have erred, it is pertinent to emphasize that the situation in which the lecturers were sacked did not give them room to flout ASUU directives concerning the protest.
In the first place, ASUU as the umbrella body representing the interests of university lecturers is recognized both by government and the universities. As a trade union  it reserves the right to call out its members in protest of acts inimical to its welfare and progress of education in the country. That it did after due process had been followed and all available arbitration procedures were  exhausted to no avail.
Before embarking on protest, ASUU was known to have gone through such grueling procedures in conformity to industrial arbitration rules. Government's action therefore was even more embarrassing in the light of the fact that the lecturers were calling its attention to the rot afflicting the education sector which did not make for good and conducive learning process.  More so, the scale of decay was compounded by the unmitigated exodus of lecturers to other lands in search of greener pastures.
Consequently, the propitious decline in our citadels of higher learning had not gone unnoticed by the international community given that no Nigerian university is listed among the best 500 in the world.
All these should be a source of worry and concern to the government rather than an affront to its authority. Sadly, the products of these institutions attest to the sorry state of affairs in our universities. More worrisome is the fact that government refuses to declare a state of emergency in the education sector with a view to finding a lasting solution to the morass. The abysmal state of infrastructure in our universities prompted the protest and the country can only ignore it at its peril.
Therefore, government should commend the lecturers rather than condemn them for their patriotism. Furthermore,  the authorities should immediately reinstate the sacked lecturers and pay adequate compensation as ordered by the Supreme Court.
It is only in doing so will Nigerians be assured that the present administration is not a holdover from the past regime of impunity that had little regard for the rule of law.