FG Punishing Lecturers Instead of Addressing Issues, Says ASUU

•Ministers feeding Nigerians with lies, union declares 

•House leadership to meet Buhari over strike

Juliet Akoje in Abuja and Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday accused the federal government of opting for punishment its members, rather than addressing the issues that precipitated the ongoing strike.

The National President of the union, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said this at a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, in Abuja. He also accused the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu of never attempting to hold any formal meeting with the union since the strike began in February, but was quick to direct the stoppage of lecturers’ salaries.

Osodeke said if the effort at coercing the striking lecturers, through a court process back into classes succeeds in any way, “what kind of teaching will they do? It is like forcing a medical doctor to go and treat a patient.”

He added that it was erroneous, “to see the strike as the problem, because if the strike is called off without addressing the issues, the universities will become like public primary schools and that instead of solving the problem, we’re being punished.”

Gbajabiamila who was at the meeting with his deputy, Idris Wase and several members of the House, said, “we’re not here to rehearse the problems. We’re not to be asking what happened, or why are we where we are? We all know the issues, and we have to resolve the issues once and for all, for our children to go back to classes.”

Gbajabiamila stressed that the way to resolve the issues was for both parties to shift grounds in the interest of the students, urging ASUU to make known its minimum acceptable conditions.

“My interest of conversation is with the ASUU. Most people are with you. We’re with you,” the speaker stated, and appealed that emotions be put aside so that the needed solution could be arrived at.

The Minister of State for Education, Goodluck Opiah, who explained that Adamu was outside the country, attending the UN Education Summit in New York, said a good number of measures had been adopted towards addressing the issues without success.

“President Muhammadu Buhari, in about a week ago granted audience to committee of Vice Chancellors, during which it was resolved to make further consultations with a view to coming out with a wider option to be adopted in resolving the crisis,” he added.

The speaker, Minister of state for education, ASUU President and some lawmakers thereafter went into a closed door session.

Meanwhile, Gbajabiamila and the leadership of the House are to meet President Muhammadu Buhari over the resolution of the prolonged strike.

Gbajabiamila, while addressing journalists after a 4-hour meeting with the leadership of ASUU and Opiah, said on his return from the 77th session of the United National General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, the House leadership would present the agreement reached with the striking workers.

Gbajabiamila noted that the closed-door meeting made, “good progress and covered good ground” with some resolutions reached.

The Speaker also revealed that the leadership of the House was inviting to a clarification meeting the Accountant General of the Federation, Auditor General of the Federation, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Chairman of the National Salaries Income and Wages Commission on tomorrow.

According to him, the issue of the deployment of the payment platform Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as against the current Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) calls for clarity before it could be tabled before the president.

Meanwhile, ASUU yesterday said it wrote the Senate and House of Representatives in September and October 2021, but got no fruitful intervention before proceeding on strike.

This was just as it said those speaking for the government had only been feeding Nigerians with lies.

The Chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter of the union, Prof. Ayoola Akinwole, while speaking in Ibadan, yesterday, said the two Chambers of the National Assembly, also reneged on their promise to the union before it suspended its strike in 2020.

According to him, part of what the National Assembly promised was to ensure that the 2021 budget accommodates the demands of ASUU, but they failed to do this, noting that the Speaker inviting the union was nothing new as he did not fulfill his promise to add the demands of the union into 2021 budget.

Akinwole who stated that Nigerians should make government responsible, said those in government are not monsters who cannot be challenged, insisting that the claim by the Minister of Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, that the 2009 agreements had been renegotiated with previous administration was total falsehood.

He disclosed that the union was on the verge of concluding the renegotiation before government jettisoned collective bargaining which forced it to proceed on an indefinite strike, stating that but for ASUU struggles the leadership of Nigeria would have had easy ride of taking education out of the reach of children of common man in order for them to become slaves to the children of the ruling class.

While calling on Nigerians to reject what he termed as the plan of making children of the poor to serve the children of the rich, Akinwole said Nigerians should stand up and make government fund public universities, stop proliferation of universities without funding existing ones, release white paper of visitation panel and pay lecturers wages commensurate with Africa’s top rated universities and release revitalisation funds to universities.

“I have two of my children at home with me. The ASUU President does not have children studying abroad.  It is all lies and a strategy to paint him in bad light.

“We were supposed to be reviewing our salaries every three years according to the 2009 agreement but here we are in 2022 still fighting to earn something reasonable.

“When it comes to the masses, they will say no money but they increase their own allowances and heaven did not fall.

“ASUU does not want Nigeria to be irrelevant in the area of education. Education is global and that is why we have to give our children global standard education and funding has a major role to play and we need to attract international scholars if we have competitive conditions of service,” he added.