MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SOLUTION TO FG-ASUU FIGHT

The federal government and university teachers should shift grounds, writes Bolaji Adebiyi  

The strike by university teachers remains on the front burner of public discourse more than six months after it started and given the hardening of positions, there is no chance in hell that it would be over soon.  

About a month ago President Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have asked Chris Ngige, the loquacious minister of Labour and Productivity, to stand down from the headship of the negotiations between the federal government and the teachers. Adamu Adamu, the taciturn minister of Education, the place where the dispute arose, was reportedly asked to take over proceedings and report progress in two weeks.  

Unfortunately, just as tertiary students and their parents who had been at the receiving end of the fight were reaching for joy, Ngige denied the directive, saying no one had asked him to step aside. Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesman, would confirm the minister’s denial, lengthening the sad days. Disappointed, the public increased their call-out of the government that it felt had run out of ideas on how to resolve the logjam.  

That the federal government had come to its wits’ end was clearly demonstrated last Tuesday when its negotiation team’s meeting with the lecturers ended without a resolution. There had been hopes that the meeting would resolve the more than six-month stand-off. Both parties, however, came out without a word. As usual, the media went behind the scene to unravel what had happened behind closed doors. It emerged that Prof. Nimi Briggs led the government negotiators to the table without any fresh offer. Rather, he came with a bow to beg for an understanding of the inability of the federal government to abide by a Memorandum of Agreement it committed to five years ago.  

So, the teachers’ leadership was supposed to go back to their members and report that it was back home empty-handed. How was that supposed to happen? Particularly when it was evident that the government was unrepentant in its infidelity to the MoA it signed in 2017. How was the Academic Staff Union of Universities supposed to appreciate a government that had failed to shift grounds on all outstanding issues in dispute?  

At the resumption of hostilities in March 2022, there were at least three substantive issues over which resolutions were sought: earned allowances, revitalisation and mode of payment of salaries. The first two had been partially addressed last year with the government providing N22.1 billion and N30 billion respectively. Although these were a pittance compared to the overall N1.2 trillion required and offered by the government in its renegotiation that led to the 2017 MoA, the teachers were forced by public pressure to return to work while the outstanding, including the issue of mode of payment, were to be dealt with within specified timelines.  

It was the failure to keep to the timelines that lead to the prevailing strike, and six months on, no progress had been made as the government complained that it had no money to implement the monetary aspects of the MoA. “We cannot borrow money to meet ASUU’s demands,” Festus Keyamo, minister of state for Labour and Productivity, told the nation days before the Tuesday meeting. From this off-handed response, it was obvious that the government was unwilling to bulge, making the extension of the strike inevitable even to the consternation of the traumatised students and parents.  

The point the government made was that given the comatose state of the economy it was unable to raise the funds to implement the monetary aspects of the MoA. While it might be true that the economy was on its knees, the challenge was its lack of integrity, arising from its knack for misplacement of priorities and endemic corruption, which had made it difficult for it to attract sympathy from the citizenry.  

After all, all the MoAs had arisen from an appreciation of the government’s fiscal difficulties, which was why ASUU had always agreed to phase implementation within specified timelines. This excuse has, therefore, become worn out and untenable hence the persistence of the strike.  

But the students cannot continue to stay at home. Many of them are becoming frustrated and predisposed to crime. Some of them have fallen victim to violent crimes that have claimed lives. So, there has to be a way out of the current cul-de-sac.  

A step forward is the loosening of the hardlines towards a middle-of-the-road concession with adequate guarantees. Given the government’s notoriety for disrespect of agreements, it should agree to a 50 per cent down payment of the agreed sums on earned allowances and revitalisation while the Central Bank of Nigeria should guarantee the payment of the balance within specified timelines over 24 months. Thereafter, there should be an agreed framework for self-financing by public universities.  

On the mode of payment of salaries, the government should work with the teachers on seamless integration of their preferred University Transparency and Accountability Solution into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System. There is no reason for the two systems to be incompatible if they are both targeted at transparency. After all, if the government’s preferred IPPIS was that foolproof, it would not have been reportedly gamed by the suspended Accountant-General of the Federation who was accused of short-circuiting the payment system to personalise some huge sums of money.  

Approaching these middle-of-the-road solutions should not be difficult since both sides of the divide retain the minimum capacity for damage with unsavoury consequences. Persistence of the hostility months to a general election is not ground-softening for the party in government while ASUU whose members’ pay has been held for six months cannot hope to sustain indefinitely the discomfort this brings.  

Resolving the conflict, therefore, holds immense opportunities for the disputants who need a peaceful environment to face other important endeavours in their different terrains.         

Adebiyi, the managing editor of THISDAY Newspapers, writes from bolaji.adebiyi@thisdaylive.com