House, ASUU Bicker over Suspended Strike Action

Udora Orizu writes that the uncommon role played by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, in seeing to the suspension of the eight month old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, is now riddled with accusation of deception

The House of Representatives last week engaged in a war of words with the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke over his claim that the Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, used deception to convince the union to call off its eight months strike action.

Osodeke had in an interview while accusing Gbajabiamila of deception, also alleged that the Speaker failed to deliver on his written commitment that the government would, without delay, offset the arrears of salaries owed to members of the union for the time they were on strike.

Strikes by ASUU and failure of the government to find lasting solutions to the crises bedeviling the education sector, have continued to destroy the university system in Nigeria. Strikes  have been so repeated over the years that they have come to be recognized as a yearly event.

Almost every administration since the return of democratic rule experienced industrial action by the union. In 1999, shortly after the Obasanjo-Atiku administration was sworn in, ASUU embarked on a nationwide strike due to the failure of negotiations between the union and the Federal Government over the working conditions in Nigerian universities. The strike however lasted for five months.

In 2001, the union again embarked on another strike over the reinstatement of 49 lecturers sacked at the University of Ilorin. In December 2002, the union embarked on a two-week strike because of the failure of the Obasanjo administration to implement an agreement it had with the union during the previous strike.

Since then the union has embarked on strike 13 times and has continually blamed its decision on the failure of the government to meet its demands.

Early 2022, ASUU again embarked on strike. Osodeke while announcing the strike accused the Federal Government of failing to implement the Memorandum of Understanding and Memorandum of Action signed between the union and the government. Despite several interventions from pressure groups, protests by students, the union and the government couldn’t find a common ground.

Months later, in September, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, resolved to meet with the union with a view to resolving the issues. After series of meetings and negotiations, agreements were finally reached in October.

The Speaker expressed optimism that the industrial dispute would be over in a couple of days, as the leadership of the striking lecturers was set to sign an agreement to end the dispute based on the recommendations by the House that was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari.

He revealed that having received the House recommendations on the issue, President Buhari would make a pronouncement towards the final resolution of the issue.

But the president was yet to be heard before ASUU announced suspension of the strike. Osodeke while commending the Speaker said, if those in charge of education and labour had handled the matter the way he did, the strike would not have lasted more than two weeks or so.

As the union happily looked forward to payment of the backlog of salaries of members withheld during the eight months strike, their happiness was short lived when they received half pay for October, giving indication that nothing really changed.

For lecturers who have been without salaries for eight months, it was not funny receiving partial payment for work done. Realizing that the assurance that its members would be paid backlog of their salaries was probably a trick to get them back to classes, the union held an emergency national executive committee meeting to take a position.

Also, the union’s lead counsel, Femi Falana (SAN) called on Gbajabiamila and all those who pressurized ASUU to call off the strike to mount similar pressure on the government to implement all the agreements reached with the union.

Reacting, Gbajabiamila in a bid to eliminate the possibility of another industrial action by the union, called for calm, saying the issues are getting appropriate hearing.

He spoke on increased allocations to the education sector in the 2023 Appropriation Bill, the progress in UTAS/IPPIS payment systems and their intention to organize a National Summit on Tertiary Education.

The Speaker, however, annoyed some people when he said that the position taken by the executive that it was not obligated to pay salaries to lecturers for the time spent on strike was premised on the law and the government’s legitimate interest in preventing moral hazard and discouraging disruptive industrial actions.

Since then, the turn of events sadly began to raise questions as to whether anything was really gained from that good intervention by Gbajabiamila.

In December, 2022, ASUU President in an interview accused Gbajabiamila of using deception to convince the union to call off its strike action.

Frowning at the claim, the lawmakers in a statement signed by the House Spokesman, Hon. Benjamin Kalu said at no point did the Speaker commit to offset the arrears of salaries owed to union members for the time they were on strike.

He opined that Osodeke’s bad-faith approach to negotiations and his affinity for political brinkmanship are significant reasons the universities were on strike for so long.

Kalu said the House helped resolve the strike by making commitments to improve the welfare package of university lecturers and revitalisation funds to improve the infrastructure and operations of federal universities. 

These commitments, according to him, are reflected in the 2023 Appropriation Bill, which includes N170 billion to provide a level of increment in the welfare package of university lecturers and additional N300 billion in revitalisation funds.

He also said the House will continue to work with the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) and ASUU to facilitate the adoption of elements of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). 

While adding that this effort is being supervised by the Chairman of the House Committee on Tertiary Education, Hon. Aminu Suleiman, he urged ASUU president to desist from making further misleading statements.

Falana Asks Gbajabiamila to Apologize to ASUU

On his part, ASUU’s lawyer, Falana, has called on Speaker Gbajabiamila to apologise to the members of the union, faulting the Speaker for denying the agreement reached with ASUU.

Falana explained that a member of the Federal Executive Council truncated Gbajabiamila’s efforts regarding the resolution of matters related to the strike between the government and ASUU.

According to him, “It is public knowledge that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, intervened in the last strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities. Several meetings were held with the relevant stakeholders by the leadership of the House. While briefing the Nigerian people on the resolution of the crisis on October 10, 2022, the Speaker did categorically state as follows:

“We agreed with ASUU and the government on certain things which we took to Mr President. I have visited the president twice. The first time we made our recommendations with the government shifting some and ASUU shifting some. We spoke with Mr President. There was one sticking issue which was the issue of no work no pay. And the President did ask that he would suggest the recommendations and would have one more meeting which we did on Friday after the budget. That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him, and Mr President had agreed to settle things. I am not going to talk about that now, and that he would disclose whatever it is tomorrow,  Tuesday which is tomorrow.”

Falana added that having been embarrassed by the circumstance, the Speaker should have apologised to ASUU and the Nigerian people instead of denying the agreement reached with ASUU and President Buhari on the decision of the Federal Government to pay for the period covered by the strike.