Asuu vs govt cont.

On July 1, 2013, Nigerian university lecturers,
under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU), began a nationwide
indefinite strike. The decision of ASUU to
embark on the industrial action, according to
its President, Dr. Nasir Isa Fagge, was taken
due to the failure of the Federal Government
(FG) to implement a 2009 agreement and 2012
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it
entered with the union.
The suspension of its earlier strike of
December 4, 2011 in January 2012, declared
to pressurise FG to fulfil its promise, gave rise
to the MoU which equally captured the various
issues contained in the 2009 agreement. Key
areas of the agreement as identified by ASUU
then are as follows: funding requirements for
revitalisation of the Nigerian universities;
Federal Government’s assistance to State
Universities; Establishment of NUPEMCO
(Nigerian University Pension Management
Commission); progressive increase in annual
budgetary allocation to education to 26%
between 2009 and 2020 and earned
allowances. Others are: amendment of the
pension/retirement age of academics on the
professorial cadre from 65 to 70 years;
reinstatement of prematurely dissolved
governing councils; transfer of Federal
Government landed property to universities
and setting up of Research Development
Council and provision of research equipment
to laboratories and classrooms in the
universities.
Out of all the above items in the said treaty
signed by FG and ASUU, government had made
essential laws on the 70 years retirement age
of lecturers as well as the creation of
NUPEMCO. Among the remaining issues, the
funding requirements for the revitalisation of
Nigerian universities and the payment of
Earned Allowances appeared to have caused
more brouhaha.
The 2009 pact reportedly provides that all
federal universities would need the sum of
N1.5 trillion to be spread over three years
(2009-2011) for the regeneration of the
institutions. However, this figure was said to
have been reduced to N1.3 trillion and the
gesture extended to state universities through
the 2012 MoU. The N1.3 trillion, according to
the MoU, was expected to be released over a
period of four years – N100b in 2012 and an
annual sum of N400b in the following three
years. The ASUU helmsman, Fagge, was quoted
as saying:
“By our own estimation, the MoU should have
fetched the Nigerian public universities a total
of N500b now if Government were to have
faithfully implemented the understanding
reached with ASUU in 2012. A continuation of
that process would have yielded a revitalisation
fund of N1.3 trillion by the year 2015.”
So far, the FG is said to have released the sum
of N130b. From this released amount, N30b is
for the payment of earned allowances to
lecturers, which is supposed to be N92b and
N100b is for the revitalisation of the
universities, as against the N500b which it
ought to have released based on the MoU.
According to the FG, the government has no
money to meet the entire demands of ASUU, as
doing so may lead to a total shutdown of
governance in the country.
But ASUU is of the view that the Federal
Government was just being deceitful and
dishonourable, and as such, it insisted their
members would not go back to work until
their demands were fully met. The union
through Fagge said the FG had shown great
generosity to private concerns like the airlines
and financial institutions with trillions of naira
from public treasuries as ‘bailouts’. Fagge also
recalled the government’s largesse extended to
Nollywood, which he said was still very fresh in
their memories. The ASUU boss, therefore,
wondered why the same FG will now say it has
no money to fund the revitalisation of public
universities, knowing full well that education is
the bedrock of any development, of which
university education plays a key role.
During a protest in Ekiti by the National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to
urge FG to yield to ASUU’s request, Comrade
Asafon Sunday, who is the South-West Zone
Director of Action and Mobilisation of the
student body, said, “Between 2000 and 2011,
government earned about N48.48 trillion from
the sale of oil alone, against N3.10 trillion
earned between 1979 and 1999. The Federal
Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in 2012 financial
year alone declared a sum of N5.12 trillion as
revenue generated from tax paid by the
masses. With this upsurge in the revenue at the
disposal of the Nigerian government, one
would have expected such to translate to
commensurate improvement in the quality of
public education as well as other social
services.”
However, many Nigerians and groups in the
country have continued to appeal to ASUU to
call off the over two months old strike. One of
such pleas came from the Vice-Chairman,
Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs,
Senator Nurudeen Abatemi-Usman. The
Senator, who is the youngest lawmaker in the
Red Chamber, said it was important for ASUU
members to reconsider their position and
return to the classrooms, in the interest of the
students who are directly bearing the brunt of
the industrial action.
While noting that the demands of ASUU are
legitimate, reasonable and absolutely in order,
as they are geared towards ensuring proper
funding of public universities in the country,
Abatemi-Usman said the lecturers should
consider the plight of the students.
The Senator, however, called on the FG to yield
to ASUU’s demands as contained in the
agreement it signed with the body. According
to him, “a sincere and judicious
implementation of the said agreement by the
FG, freely entered into with the union, will go
a long way in improving the quality of
education in Nigeria. Hence, the need for the
two sides to quickly reach a compromise and
allow the universities to resume academic
activities so that the students who are
presently idled by the strike can continue with
their studies.”
As against the argument of some, who are
blaming ASUU for going on strike, there is
virtually no country in the world where its
university system has no history of strike.
Recently, universities in Venezuela, Ghana,
Kenya, Cameroun, Sri Lanka and South Africa
went on strike at different times to push for
either pay rise, payment of certain allowances
or increased funding for higher education. In
2011, members of the University and College
Union (UCU), England, embarked on an
industrial action over changes to their pension
scheme. So, ASUU’s strike action aimed at
pressurising government to improve the
quality of education with adequate funding
cannot be said to be out of place.
Be that as it may, members of the union
should listen to voices of concerned Nigerians
who are calling on them to call off the strike
for the sake of the students. The lecturers and
administrative staff of Walter Sisulu University
in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
resumed work on Monday, September 9, 2013,
after six weeks of strike.
The university workers said they took the
students’ predicament into consideration to
end the industrial action, as they were only
offered 5% salary increase against their
demand of 10%. ASUU should please reason in
this same direction and have mercy on the
students of public universities in the country.