Governor Yahaya Bello’s ASUU Headache

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Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, last week said he proscribed the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the state owned university. He banned the union because its members went on strike and won’t blink even after His Benevolent Majesty stared down on them. The word “proscription” evokes some eerie memories. It is a memorabilia of Nigeria’s years of strikes and mass sacks. It is very intriguing that this governor exhumed that long dead word, plunging red-hot spokes into Nigeria’s long-healed wounds of lawlessness. Who taught Bello how to copy and paste the past, make a broadcast and use the word “proscribed” as an instrument of democratic governance? Bello was just nine years old in 1984 when General Muhammadu Buhari rolled out his draconian decrees proscribing rights and freedoms with Nigerians jointly standing up against him. Kogi’s action governor was an under-12 when Nigerians roundly rejected General Ibrahim Babangida’s own deft moves outlawing strikes and protests and unions. Bello was 23-years-old when proscription of labour unions and slaughtering of democratic rights died with Abacha in June 1998. This action of Bello is a reminder that the past is always in the future, lurking. One brilliant lady lamented last Thursday that her father warned in 1998 that we shouldn’t rejoice at Abacha’s death. The lady’s old man’s idea was that humans don’t misbehave and that when leaders misrule and they die, the strange spirits in them always fly out to possess the souls of their successors. Abacha misgoverned us and died suddenly and the streets could not contain celebrants of the ruler’s demise. After him what has happened to those who celebrated his exit?

 

Bello banned ASUU, a union of unusual persons who have read all kinds of hard books. ASUU members reacted with laughter at the ignorance of a governor banning a union he didn’t register. The governor followed it with the deviant cliche of “no regrets.” Trade disputes are normal occurrences in modern-day employer-employee relations. Banning unions has never achieved any positive result. ASUU members are particularly veterans at dealing with bullies. ASUU itself is a bully, getting governments to sign agreements to their sorrow. As a union, ASUU does not suffer common hunger like other common unions. Its members can stay off work and off pay and off food for as long as they are angry. Governor Bello must have been thoroughly frustrated by the blind, deaf and dumb disposition of that union to his carrots. Offers that would make others pee their pants don’t move the strange spirits possessing ASUU. The spirits have always been there. They don’t rest and don’t let governments rest.

 

When the military assisted us to defeat the military, we thought the end had come for rights abuses. Because the old witch died, we burst out in rapturous celebrations; we had forgotten that the child she was leaving behind would consume more than the gluttony of the departed! Or you can’t remember that General Abacha was the last person to use the word “proscribed” in his many battles with the people? And even at that, you will remember that none of his 36 state military administrators tried their iron fists on a registered trade union. What those well-heeled practitioners of violence did not do is what Kogi’s celebrated democrat has done now. Misbehaviour has become a feature of our democracy. Whatever we don’t like in Kogi is not copyrighted there. There are many Bellos in the Ilorin of our democratic experience. Other governors daily present with symptoms of power overdose. Strange spirits are on the prowl in Government Houses. Our governors are tough guys who wear raw power in their visage. They live strong to remind us of the sad loss encased in our victory over the military. Or have you forgotten that Governor Bello did not just come with his dark spectacles without communing with the past? His unsmiling glasses are a physical reminder that there was a General Abacha, a maximum ruler who used dark goggles even at night.

 

 

Kogi State is very lucky. It has a Governor Bello who has no scars of war and, as such, is untainted by any consideration for the niceties of democracy. He was so lucky he wasn’t part of the long walk the people took to the freedom that made him governor without fire. A very lucky man with a string of firsts: He is the first human being in Nigeria to be elected governor without a running mate. The first governor to have his polling unit outside his state. The first to join a governorship election at the very end of the process. The first state governor to proscribe a national union. And he appears to be trying his hand on another first — the first governor to get a senator sacked — if he succeeds in recalling his soul mate, Dino. But this governor also has a unique selling point. At 43, he is the youngest of them all in the National Council of State. He was born in 1975, the year Murtala Mohammed became our head of state at age 38, ruled well and died six months later to live forever.

 

Kogi State is possessed. While Governor Bello was proscribing ASUU in his corner of Lokoja, some young boys in Osun state were mourning the murder of their mum, a permanent secretary, along Kogi’s Okene-Abuja Road. That route is the Bermuda Triangle of Nigeria. It is the route of disappearance for travellers too poor to fly to Abuja. The disappearances and deaths in that axis did not start when Bello became governor. It predated Bello, the action governor. Several persons and families have stories of pains, losses and deaths to tell courtesy of that road in Kogi State. But instead of proscribing a union of hungry, unpaid workers, shouldn’t Governor Bello be heard venting his anger on killers and kidnappers and other criminals by banning them from his roads? It is not likely that hoodlums would catch a glimpse of Bello’s dark goggles and not proscribe themselves from his state. But Bello enjoys pursuing irreverent lecturers who won’t allow him enjoy the weekend breeze of Abuja in peace. Some Northern governors know that their state capitals can suffocate with cries of hunger and insecurity. So, for them, Abuja and Western capitals provide weekend sanctuaries from the buffetings of office. But Kogi State University teachers just decided to be implacable, robbing the chief executive of the peace of his weekends. Their insolence is an unacceptable addition to the daily headache of dealing with enemies like Dino, like civil and political servants demanding salaries and wages, like pensioners asking for their cut of the show!

 

Kogi State is particularly lucky. It has two tough boys who are children of the president. But because President Buhari is not around, his boys in Kogi State are at war. Governor Bello and Senator Dino Melaye are “sharing blood” on the streets of their state. All weapons of all shapes, including ghosts, are in use in this war of friends. One wants the other ‘proscribed’ and the nation is applauding them. But instead of watching Dino and his friend, Governor Bello, do mutually assured destruction, why not deploy them to proscribe IPOB and the other threats from the north? Pair them and see if Kanu and that Hausa man, Shettima, won’t run for cover. Kingdoms in history did that routinely with heady warriors. Tell Buhari, whenever he comes back, to ask his strongmen of Kogi to help take on Nnamdi Kanu and the other troublers of the land in the north. We cannot have these valuable shovels and be using our bare palms to pack faeces.

 

A top notcher of the NLC was on the television sometime last week. He reacted to the ‘proscription’ of ASUU by Bello with a call on the governor to ‘proscribe’ himself from the Government House. But sacking Bello will make us poorer. It will rob Aso Rock Jumat Service of a most regular prayer warrior. We will also miss his Abacha goggles. Kogi workers will miss a governor holding on to their salaries. And Dino Melaye will have no one else to blame for his woes.

Credits: Lasisi Olagunju | Tribune


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