COVID-19: TOGETHER WE SHALL WIN

(Being the Text of an Address by the ASUU President, Biodun Ogunyemi, at the
Presentation of COVID-19 Intervention Materials on Wednesday, 1st April 2020 at the
University of Jos, Jos)

Protocols

Like Education, Like Health

About this time yesterday, we flagged off the COVID-19 Intervention Programme
(CIP) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the University of Ibadan.
The ASUU-UI event, which was given a wide coverage by the print and electronic media,
was a success going by the amount of positive feedback we have been receiving in the
last 24 hours or so. Today’s launch at University of Jos is the second outing of ASUU on
measures designed to support Government’s efforts at preventing and controlling the
spread of the dreaded coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19.
Let me place on record that the ongoing intervention activities of ASUU across the
country are in response to the directive of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC)
at its last emergency meeting held at the University of Abuja on 21st March 2020. At the
post-NEC Press Conference on 23rd March 2020, our union had promised to demonstrate
its concerns for the welfare and well-being of the Nigerian people by encouraging ASUU
members to work with medical and paramedical teams as volunteers. Towards this end,
we declared: “All branches shall explore areas of strategic collaboration with federal, state and
local governments to provide support in terms of information and expert skills drawn from our
membership across the nation”.
At a time like this, we cannot be bogged down by issues of how successive
governments have treated Nigerian universities. As academics, our primary concern is
how to reconnect education and health which are the two clear indices of human
development. When people say: “health is wealth”, we also insist that “good health is a
product of good education”. It is investment in high quality education, particularly at the

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tertiary level, that produces competent and efficient medical and paramedical workers
who in turn drive the health system to its highest level possible. Indeed, the tertiary
education level is the best mirror of this symbiotic relationship. The inability of Nigerian
teaching hospitals to respond meaningfully to the early wave of COVID-19 is no longer
news. We can contrast the nakedness and emptiness of our health facilities with the
experience of China which was able to respond decisively to the COVID-19 challenge. It
requires no lengthy probing to discover that the Chinese vast pool of researchers,
scientists, doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists and other medical and paramedical
personnel were mostly drawn from universities and allied institutes. Unfortunately,
Nigerian universities are accorded little or no role in the ongoing efforts to respond to the
global pandemic because of the past neglect for which ASUU has always engaged the
government. At the risk of re-stating the obvious, we cannot make meaningful progress
as a nation until we learn to accord health and education the prime places they deserve
in our national priorities.

Is ASUU Insensitive?
Some highly placed individuals and social commentators have accused ASUU of
insensitivity and selfishness for going on strike at a time the entire world is grappling
with the COVID-19 pandemic. They are quick to ask: Doesn’t this portray your union as
insensitive? Of course, our answer has always been NO! We say no because there will
never be a time when those whose interests are at stake would approve that ASUU could
go on strike. If the issue is timing, the Federal Government should not have withheld two
months salaries of university lecturers at a time the country is struggling to cushion the
effect of an imminent COVID-19 lockdown on many categories of Nigerian citizens. And
if it is being sensitive to the coronavirus crisis, Government should have accepted
ASUU’s proposal for developing the University Transparency and Accountability
Solution (UTAS) that is more flexible and amenable to university operations instead of
imposing the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) which has
remained an experimental project for more than ten years.

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 The truth is that, if we take our objections to IPPIS and demands for the
implementation of the outstanding issues in the 7th February 2019 Memorandum of
Action off the table, the same Nigerians who are blaming ASUU for wrongly timing the
strike would turn round to shout “sabotage” when the union calls out its members after
the COVID-19 emergency situation and students are set to return to their studies. To clear
the sceptics of any doubt, however, ASUU is prepared to support Nigerian government’s
efforts in addressing the emergency; even when the same government is using hunger as
a “weapon of war” against its own scholars and thinkers. And, for those still condemning
ASUU for rejecting IPPIS, they should come forward to show us a country that has made
meaningful progress where universities were domesticated as appendages of the core
civil service; same way the platform is proposing to treat the institutions in Nigeria. We
insist that the World Bank-sponsored IPPIS would take Nigerian universities many
decades backward and call on all well-meaning Nigerians to join ASUU in its continued
rejection of the platform. Salary or no salary, our members are resolved to stand by their
belief in what is good for the country. Therefore, we shall not be deterred in serving the
Nigerian people, whenever the need arises, including responding to the challenge of the
COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wining Path Against COVID

It can be argued that no issue has ever brought humanity so close for many
decades as recently done by the coronavirus or COVID-19. Since it was first reported in
China late last year, reports of exponential transmission within and across national
borders have been frightening. As at midnight of 31st March 2020, official statistics
indicated that there were 860,184 coronavirus cases worldwide. Out of these cases, a total
of 42,345 (4.9%) died while 178,461 (20.7%) recovered. This leaves 639,378 (74.3%) as
currently infected patients, either in mild or critical conditions. Surprisingly, countries in
Europe and America that less endowed nations of Africa and other underdeveloped
continents had hitherto looked up to for “bailouts”, are currently worst hit. A recent

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report by the Aljazeera News stated that “US fatalities exceed China’s tally, with more
than 3,400 deaths, as Spain, UK and France reports record rise in toll”.
Nigeria is not spared of this frightening trend of exponential spread of COVID-19.
From what looked like a harmless stray into Lagos through the Italian index case on 27 th
February 2020, cases of coronavirus infection have been rising at a geometric rate such
that the country has recorded a total of 139 official cases in less than five weeks by 31st
March 2020. As projected by the University of Ibadan’s COVID-19 Committee on Data
Analysis, “if the current trend continues, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is
expected to be at least 312 by 3rd April 2020”. This is just two days away from now! So,
where do we run to in Nigeria?
The lesson in all of this is, more than ever before, the world has come to realize
that issues of health and safety know no territorial boundaries and political leaders
everywhere had better worked with everyone to make our world safe for all. ASUU
subscribes to this winning formula and path to collective health. In this our shared globe,
no one is safe epidemiologically, socially or physically until everyone is safe. It is a myth
that Africans are immune to COVID-19 or any other virulent virus. It is also a myth that
coronavirus is “A disease for the big people”. High or low, big or small, the
epidemiological radar of COVID-19 is non-respecter of age, education, location, socio-
economic class or any other parameter of human classification.
ASUU recognises the pivotal role of education, information and communication
(IEC) in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we normally say,
knowledge dispels fear. We can conquer the fear emerging from the manifestation of this
global pandemic in our little corners. We can contribute to the global movement for
prevention and control of its spread by applying the health guides and information from
the World Health Organisation and other professional institutions and agencies in our
personal and family lives as well as by sharing them to help others around us stay safe
and healthy. This IEC strategy, within a health system that assures access to quality
facilities and medicaments, has worked in China and other climes. It is in demonstration
of our belief in this strategy that ASUU has elected to set aside all other distractions to

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champion an IEC programme within the limits of our resources. It is our sincere hope
that the union’s COVID-19 intervention programmes across the length and breath of the
country would make the desired difference in safeguarding the health of our people.
Before ending this address, we wish to advise the Federal Government that the
emerging lockdown of the country may not achieve its desired result of promoting “self-
isolation” and “social distancing” if the existential needs of the masses are not met. Access
to electricity and running water and an unbroken chain of food supply and availability
of other essential items should be key components of the policy called “lockdown”.
Unless the people’s survival needs are factored into the equation, governments at the
national and sub-national levels may be courting an uncontrollable regime of rebellion
which may be counterproductive to the cause of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in
Nigeria.

Appreciation
On behalf of the entire membership of ASUU nationwide, I wish to thank the Vice-
Chancellor and other management staff of UNIJOS for their cooperation and support in
making this event a success. We also thank all our colleagues in pharmaceutical sciences,
medicine, communication arts, languages and other fields who have brought their
ingenuity, creativity and professional skills and talents to bear on this project. Last but
certainly not the least, ASUU’s appreciation goes to our comrades and compatriots from
the media and civil society organisations who have been worthy collaborators on Project
Nigeria. We’ve been through together in the trenches. Even on this COVID-19 challenge,
we shall win together.
Thank you all for listening. The struggle continues!

Signed
Biodun Ogunyemi
1st April 2020