Why FG Must Timely Resolve ASUU Strike

CICERO/Report

With the Academic Staff Union of Universities going back to the trenches, the federal government should immediately swiftly implement all the agreements as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari earlier this February, Vanessa Obioha writes

After months of threats, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) last week finally proceeded on what it called a four-week “comprehensive and total” strike.

The National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke had announced this in Lagos shortly after a marathon National Executive Council (NEC) meeting. The union’s demands include: Funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS).

Others are the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, and the inconsistencies in Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

“The NEC of our union has resolved to embark on a four-week total and comprehensive strike beginning from February 14. That’s the resolution of the latest NEC meeting held on February 12 and 13. The patience of our members has been dragged beyond a tolerable limit. The greatest asset of any nation is human capital. We, therefore, seek the understanding and support of all stakeholders to make the Nigerian government more responsible to issues of human capital development,” ASUU president reportedly explained.

The current strike is not the first ASUU would be embarking on. This perhaps might be the reason why the union decided to make the current strike a four-week industrial action to give the federal government the opportunity to redeem itself by implementing the agreements before it embarks on a total full blown strike.

ASUU strike dates back to 1988 when the union waged war against the military government for equitable salary and the autonomy of the Nigerian university. The strike was called off in 1990. Now in 2022, the ASUU-FG struggle still continues.

In fact, since the return of democracy in 1999, the university lecturers have gone on strike for more than 49 months. The last time the union went on strike was from March to December 2020.

The ripple effect of the ASUU strike is its counter-productivity. Part of the consequences of these regular strike actions is the frequent disruptions in the academic calendars of universities. Sometimes, programmes that are designed to run for four years translate to five or six years for a student without a record of failure. It is worse for those whose courses run longer than four years. They end up staying on campus longer than intended. It is thus sheer agony when they finally graduate to join the labour force for the entry-level age requirement for many graduate jobs is 26.

Stakeholders have raised concerns about the incessant strike action, considering its heavy toll on the academic pursuit of students in public tertiary institutions.

Before it embarked on the strike, ASUU had directed its various chapters to set aside a day to sensitise and mobilise Nigerians for its fight to save the university system from collapsing. This, perhaps, was meant to create an atmosphere of understanding but this window of opportunity was ignored.

The university union has always maintained that the strike action is its last resort. This time, it equivocally called on Nigerians to engage the federal government on issues it said are currently threatening the industrial peace in public universities.

The union noted also that the Nigerian government has refused to implement the Memorandum of Action (MoA) that led to the suspension of its nine-month prolonged strike in 2020.

In his speech during a press conference at the University of Lagos, Akoka, penultimate Tuesday, the Coordinator of Lagos zone of ASUU, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya, said the government’s refusal to listen to the union and address issues it had previously agreed to in the 2020 Memorandum of Action, was drawing the line of strike.

He added that the government under President Muhammadu Buhari should be held responsible should ASUU decide to embark on another round of strikes.

Odukoya’s statement read in part: “It becomes very important and germane to address this press conference to sensitise the public and express the concerns of our union about the refusal of the federal government to sign and implement the renegotiated 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), funding of state universities, non-payment of withheld salaries, check-off dues and promotion arrears.”

The 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, he noted, ought to have been reviewed every three years. However, nine months after the renegotiation ended in May 2021, ASUU said the government has refused to sign and implement the renegotiated agreement.

For Odukoya, the MoA renegotiation was deliberately frustrated and delayed by the leadership of the erstwhile leadership of the renegotiated committee.

“However, with the removal of Dr. Wale Babalakin and his replacement with Prof. Munzali Jubril, the renegotiation was concluded in May 2021. The union is, however, taken aback that since the conclusion of the renegotiation nine months ago, the federal government is yet to sign and implement the renegotiated agreement,” he said.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, had in December said the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) gave positive feedback on UTAS, adding that only little things needed to be addressed. Two months after the submission, the union lamented that the government was yet to approve the use of UTAS for universities, saying it is still trying “to force IPPIS down its throat.”

“It is against this backdrop that our union calls on the federal government to immediately approve the deployment of UTAS as a payment platform in our universities if we expect improvement in the operation and conditions of our ivory towers.

“The deliberate refusal of the government to adopt UTAS as a payment platform in the university system further exposed the lip service that our government pays to the war against corruption. Government should therefore embrace ASUU’s innovation and deployment of a more robust system of human resource management and compensation which has been designed to address the peculiarities of our university system and end inappropriate recruitments in the system.”

Also, ASUU demanded the regulation of the proliferation of state-owned universities by governors. It also alleged that these governors owed staff salaries and payment of university subventions, leaving the universities with failing infrastructures.

“This proliferation has led to the decayed infrastructural facilities, withholding of salaries of academic staff, no research grants. The common practice of state governments withholding the salary of our members for a period ranging from three to eight months is condemnable. In most cases, net salaries are paid and sometimes not paid at all,” he said.

“The continued denial and non-release of subventions to cater for the needs of these universities by reason of exigencies is unacceptable. Our union wants to call on the government to, without delay, review the laws of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and make it more stringent for the establishment of universities in the country,” he added.

The union’s agitations in a way are understandable. On February 1, President Buhari joined other religious leaders to appeal to the lecturers to sheath their swords, promising, on top of failed promises, that the federal government would honour its own agreements.

But so far, the federal government has been unable to fulfill its promise.

During the 2020 strike embarked upon by ASUU, many top politicians and members of the National Assembly had waded into the face-off to resolve the nine-month industrial action. When the federal government failed to honour the promises it made at those interventions, ASUU threatened another showdown in late 2021 but was doused by yet more interventions by Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige. ASUU may have grown weary of such interventions.

This may have explained why the Zonal Coordinator of Abuja Zone, Dr. Salahu Lawal, blamed the government for the blatant refusal to implement the famous February 7, 2019, MoA. He also blamed the government for failing to implement the December 2020 MoA which concluded the longest strike in the country’s history.

Lawal said only the complete implementation of the December 2020 Memorandum of Action and the signing into law of the re-negotiated 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement as submitted by the Munzali Jibril Committee in May 2021 would prevent the union from going on strike.

He said: “Only an insensitive government would refuse to implement the noble proposals contained in that historic document. Here we are in 2022, more than one year since the suspension of the nine-month strike, still waiting on the FGN to do the needful,” he added.

He continued: “It is needless to say that our members are sick and tired of this manner and level of irresponsibility, insensitiveness and paying lip service to the education sector. Consequent upon the foregoing, our great union has in the past one month undertaken a comprehensive review of the FGN’s handling of our welfare (where a Professor takes a gross salary of N416,000 only); level of implementation of our agreements and timelines, and lackadaisical attitude to tertiary education in Nigeria.”

There are clear indications that many Nigerian universities are underfunded. Some departments lack the adequate equipment to facilitate practical learning and in a few cases, students learn under poorly maintained infrastructure at the various campuses.

It is critical for the federal government to work harmoniously with ASUU in identifying and solving concerns to eliminate the option of strike action in future engagements.