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ASUU: strike without end
We have lost count of the number of meetings that the striking university lecturers and Federal Government officials have held over the incessant strike in our public universities, even in the last seven years of the Buhari presidency alone. Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had on March 14 declared an initial eight-week roll-over warning strike which it again rolled over on May 9, to allow the government more time to resolve all outstanding issues. The union’s president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said in a statement that “After extensive deliberations, noting the Government’s failure to live up to its responsibilities and speedily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the additional eight-week roll–over strike period declared on 14th March 2022, NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for 12 weeks to give government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.” The statement added that the strike would take effect from 12.01 a.m. on May 9.
Before these roll-over actions, ASUU had embarked on a prolonged strike on March 23, 2020, which coincided with the coronavirus pandemic, a thing which both combined to keep students at home for more than nine months.
Unfortunately, despite the meetings upon meetings that followed these strike actions, the universities have, at best, been functioning in fits and starts. What this tells us is that what is needed in the matter is bringing the true spirit of collective bargaining to bear by both parties. In other words, they have to come to negotiation table with an open mind rather than come combatively prepared not to shift ground. What the occasion calls for is the spirit of give and take.
The root cause of ASUU’s grouse with the Federal Government lay in the past. Specifically, it is about an agreement that both parties struck in 2009. It includes non-implementation of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) on funding for the revitalisation of both states and Federal Government’s universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ ASUU Agreement and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) platform instead of the government’s preferred Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
Other issues are earned academic allowances; state universities, promotion arrears, withheld salaries and non-remittance of third-party deductions.
The Federal Government announced the disbursement of some money to meet some of these requirements last year. Apparently, this has not been in tandem with the agreement reached with ASUU, hence the rolling over of the strike. The usual excuse is lack of funds.
This may be true; but only to some extent. Several actions of those in government and politicians generally do not support this claim. We here refer to what may be regarded as the latest action on the part of the political players that gives the impression that there is too much money in the system. This is the N100million nomination form fee that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) collected from each of its presidential aspirants. Many Nigerians were surprised with the ease with which each of the aspirants paid the money. Even though some of them claimed some amorphous persons or groups paid and obtained the forms on their behalf, Nigerians do not believe this claim.
This is even the more despicable, happening under a ruling party that came into power on the crest of a change mantra. And at a time the country is said to be short of cash.
This is only one example of the ostentatious displays that readily put a lie to claims of lack of funds to run the government or fund social infrastructure.
Incessant closure of universities due to strike has its implications: it makes academic calendar unpredictable; thus, it is only the time of admission to the university that is known, no one is certain of the time of graduation. Again, as we saw recently, various universities have had to adopt various academic calendars, a thing which compounds admissions and other processes for other stakeholders. Prolonged strike in the universities also have implications for the quality of teaching and learning, which makes the holders of certificates issued by many of the universities to be subjected to all manner of remedial programmes before they can be employed, especially outside of the country.
Apart from the problem of half-baked graduates, prolonged strike also makes students available for all manner of activities which they would otherwise not have had time for if their schools were in session. As the saying goes, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. We witnessed that much during the #EndSARS protest in October 2020. The scars are still very much around, and enough to remind us that a second protest of such magnitude would be disastrous indeed. Again, we are seeing flashes of that in several parts of the country.
We must avoid an escalation at all cost. This is why President Muhammadu Buhari must personally wade into the matter. The buck stops at his desk. Let it not be said that our universities were under lock and key for the better part of his eight-year tenure.
The lecturers must be ready to accept certain facts of life. One is that the agreement of 2009 might no longer be feasible. Two, we do not know any system where workers dictate how they should be paid. So, both parties should be able to work around resolving these issues amicably. But then, funding is key for the universities. Many of them are shadows of their former state. The government must be ready to improve on funding even as it must demonstrate its readiness to curb ostentatious lifestyle among its officials.