By JEFF GODWIN DOKI Ph.D

Honor is a very expensive gift and that is the reason why you cannot find it among cheap people, especially the Nigerian ruling class. The scarcity of honor as a virtue stems largely from the fact that some of the salient attributes of honor cannot be found on the streets and they include virtues like integrity, honesty, transparency, responsibility, obligation and the keeping of a promise, an agreement or an oath. No where is this idea of honor illustrated with more completeness than in the poem, ‘The Franklin’s Tale’ written by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400), the first English poet. The story goes like this: Dorigen’s husband, Averagus, had traveled out of town when a young man approached her at a picnic party earnestly asking for her love.

Jokingly, Dorigen gave the young man an almost impossible condition which is that: he can only get her love if he is able to clear away all the rocks from the sea. Now, the young man took his assignment very seriously because he was enervated by Dorigen’s beauty. For this reason, the young man hired a Magician and through the use of magic and jugglery, was able to clear all the rocks away from the sea. Thereafter, the young man returned to Dorigen’s door asking her to make true her promise. But at this time, Dorigen’s husband had returned from his trip and when she informed him of her rash promise, he views what she had told the young man, not as a joke but, as a promise-for-a promise contract from which there is no honorable withdrawal. Accordingly, Dorigen’s husband gave his wife permission to go and keep her promise with the young man.

Undeniably, this story is a demonstration of the real meaning of honor. Another way of putting this is to say that a promise is a matter of honor and integrity. Once it is given it must be fulfilled. Honor therefore is a binding contract. Can the political class in Nigerian borrow a leaf from Averagus, Dorigen’s husband?

Let me take me take you through the murky passage of dishonor in Nigeria. On December 23, 2025, the Nigerian Government signed an agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Dear reader may recall that the negotiation of this agreement lasted for eight good years punctuated essentially by many hiccups and false starts. Then on January 14, 2026, the FGN decided to publicly unveil the agreement in Abuja with much mumbo-jumbo and fanfare that smacked of hypocrisy and deceit. As a matter of fact, a friend called that event a cynical and mischievous one. I wonder whether he still feels the same way today or his cynicism has given way to utter despair. The question that such fanfare surrounding the unveiling of an agreement raises in such a timely fashion is straightforward: is this public show of patriotism not one of the whims and chicanery of the Education Minister? Why draw the attention of the entire world to the unveiling of an agreement between the Government and the University teachers? Has the signing of an agreement become some national victory? More worrisome is the fact that after the whole shebang of that public show the FGN did not find it necessary to match its words with action by inaugurating an Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) with the responsibility of ensuring that all the terms spelt out in the 2025 Agreement were implemented. More disturbing is that the same FGN did not find it necessary to provide the solvent or cash-backing to University administrators to implement the Agreement and in a letter in the month of February, 2026, the Education Minister had requested University authorities to go ahead and pay the three major components of the Agreement namely: Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA), Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) and Professorial Allowance (PA) using their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). It could be perceived that mischief and deceit were clearly at work here. The reasons trumped off for Government’s inability to implement the Agreement was that the 2026 Budget was awaiting approval by the National Assembly. And what happened when the budget was eventually approved? Silence! No action!

So, from the very beginning, the Education Minister’s actions and proclamations were nothing but a curious admixture of insincerity, hypocrisy, deceit and confusion. Given this ugly situation, it is no surprise that the FGN-ASUU 2025 Agreement was implemented in a partial, or one may say, haphazard and uncoordinated manner across various campuses in Nigerian Universities.

Some Vice chancellors with the financial muscle from their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) paid what component they could pay, some could not pay at all and others (especially in State Universities) outrightly refused to comply with the Minister’s directive. But more crucial and more fundamental is that the Education Minister has a strong habit of telling half-truths, lies and counter-lies. By his actions\, the Education Minister has demonstrated again that morale is in severe short supply in our country.

But apart from the implementation of the 2025 Agreement, the Nigerian media has recently become awash with numerous Press Statements from various branches of ASUU across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Of course, the message is that the union is at dagger’s drawn with the FGN. Among the litany of reasons for its recent grouse with the FGN is the Education Minister’s decision to establish the National Research Innovation Development Fund (NRIDF) to be funded in foreign currency contrary to the December, 2025 Agreement. Again, there are other outstanding welfare issues especially the 25-35% wage arrears, the withheld three and half -months salaries and promotion arrears for its members among others. Besides, ASUU is completely dissatisfied with certain retrogressive policy pronouncements by the Education Minister. For example, the Minister’s recent reversal of the mother-tongue policy in favor of the English language as the sole medium of instruction in Nigerian schools and the establishment of Coventry University in Nigeria under the Transnational Education Framework (TNE).

It is a fact already widely acknowledged that all these policies are unpatriotic and they have the potential to oppress and suppress indigenous sensibilities. What with the irregular appointments of certain citizens to the rank of Professor by some Vice chancellors and attempts by the Niger State Government to forcefully take over the Bosso campus of the Federal University of Technology Minna. Truth is that ASUU is raising a litany of issues which if not attended to in the shortest possible time may cause disaffection between it and the FGN.

The FGN has over the years treated ASUU so monstrously. From the regime of Babangida to Obasanjo, to that of Yaradua, to Jonathan and Buhari to Tinubu it has been the same farcical drama of sham, indifference and disdain. Promises were made but not fulfilled, negotiations began and were stopped only to begin again and stop. For the past three decades, no Nigerian leader has dealt with the ASUU- FGN agreement seriously, sincerely, honestly and honorably. From 1992 to date, the rot in the University system has continued unabated. Nigerian Universities hold up their decaying buildings and potholed roads as physical emblems of a deeper malaise. Nigerian University teachers have embarked on several warning strikes and sometimes indefinite strikes all in an attempt to press the Nigerian government to tread the path of honor by respecting its promises. How can posterity believe that their parents were responsible for the present rot in the education sector? It is common knowledge that students do not pass through the University anymore, they merely survive through them. In Nigerian universities, graduation is not a dream come true, it is the other end of a long chaotic nightmare because the facilities that could make learning a pleasure are non-existent.

Finally, I do have a word of advice for our rulers: they should learn the meaning of honor. It is important that the political class should become familiar with the concept of honor. They should realize that honor is something that they owe us the people. Yes, we the people. The President had promised during his electioneering campaign in 2022, that darkness and black outs shall be a thing of the past if voted into power. The President had promised also that our children in Nigerian Universities shall graduate on record time if voted into power. Now to the question: has the man and his acolytes behaved like honorable men? The President and his Education Minister should be reminded that honor is an obligation when you have been trusted with a position of leadership. Honor simply means carrying out your responsibility to the fullest. Once you fail to comport yourself honorably, you throw honor to the dogs. Honor is your reputation and your middle name as a leader. Honor is about fulfilling duty to your subjects, to your office and to the nation.

•Doki, a Professor of Comparative Literature, is a commentator on national issues.

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