Friday, March 29, 2024

ASUU-FG 40-yr battle has cost students so much – Stakeholders

…urge union to rethink its strategy

   We’re always forced to go on strike, our actions have yielded positive results – ASUU president

There is a popular saying that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. This, many stakeholders believe, has always been the result whenever the Academic Staff Union of Universities and government at both the state and Federal levels disagree, especially over the issues of lecturers’ remuneration and the terrible state of the nation’s universities. The students are always at the receiving end of the quarrel between ASUU and the government. And this has also been the scenario in the past 40 years since university lecturers in Nigeria came together under the umbrella of ASUU.

But stakeholders are now also saying the 40 years of frequent face-off between ASUU and the government have not yielded the desired. Rather, they argue that this frequent spat between the lecturers’ body and the government has become a threat to the nation’s higher education sector.

 

 

This ASUU strike is meaningless and hurts the wrong target. The politicians’ children are either schooling abroad or settled in private universities scattered in Nigeria. Of what use is it disrupting the academics of the children of the same people you seek to fight for?

 

They want ASUU to rethink its strategies and come with an alternative to the use of strike actions in its dealings with the government.

The year 2018 is remarkable in the history of ASUU as it marks its four decades of active, aggressive and high-level professional labour unionism in Nigerian universities.

ASUU was formed in 1978 as a labour union of lecturers in Nigerian universities under the Nigeria Labour Congress.

Assault on academic freedom was the subject of resistance by ASUU throughout the 1980s. In 1980-1981, ASUU had a struggle with the Shehu Shagari government. Its concerns were funding, salaries, autonomy and academic freedom, the brain drain, and the survival of the university system.

In 1988, the Babangida government disaffiliated ASUU from the NLC and to weaken ASUU, made the payment of check-off dues voluntary

In 1988, the academic staff became impoverished. The Elongated University Salary Scale was not implemented; so the union went on strike.

The strike led to the proscription of ASUU on August 7, 1988. With Prof. Jibril Aminu as Minister of Education, the Federal Government banned ASUU, seized all its property, made announcements directing all universities to immediately pay the EUSS backdated to January

ASUU responded by forming a new University Lecturers Association

By 1992, the situation of academic staff on the university campuses had become more intolerable. The drive to leave the universities for foreign countries and the private sector had become, for many lecturers, the solution to the decay in the universities and the demoralisation of university teachers.

In 1990, ASUU was de-proscribed. In 1991, following the Delegates Conference in Badagry, ASUU asked the Babangida regime for negotiation.

The failure by the Federal Government to negotiate seriously on the conditions in the universities led to the 1992 strike declared on May 14, 1992 and suspended after one week.  Government did not resume negotiation. ASUU resumed its strike immediately on July 20, 1993. ASUU was banned for a second time on August 23, 1992. ASUU had the support of the public, the professional organisations, National Association of Nigerian Students and others.

When all the tactics to break the strike failed, the government had to devise a way of negotiating with a banned union. This took place between the Federal Government’s team led by Owelle Chikelu, the Minister of Establishment and Management Services, and representatives of the then Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities.

In 1994, ASUU went on strike demanding from Abacha’s government re-negotiation of the Agreement, the re-instatement of the over eighty lecturers, whose appointments were terminated at the University of Abuja by Prof. Isa Mohammed and the de-annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections.

The strike did not succeed for the political demand.

The struggle for the reinstatement of their UNIABUJA colleagues and the renegotiation of the Agreement continued throughout Abacha’s regime.

Another strike was declared in 1996 by ASUU to press home its demand for the re-negotiation of the 1992 agreement and the reinstatement of the UNIABUJA sacked academics. This strike lasted for six months.

The Obasanjo regime, after much pressure, agreed to set up its Negotiating Team led by Prof. Ayo Banjo and the negotiations began on August 28, 2000. The Agreement was to be signed in December 2001.

The Obasanjo government did not implement the 2001 agreement, prompting ASUU to embark on another strike on December 29, 2002.

The strike was suspended in June 2003.

Under the Obasanjo administration, the union embarked on another strike on the July 1, 2013 and called it off on Tuesday, December 17, 2013.

The then ASUU President, Nasir Fagge, said that the council wanted areas in the ASUU-FGN agreement of 2009 that required policy and legislative steps to be promptly addressed for the challenges facing the system to be effectively taken care of.

ASUU also embarked on a nationwide indefinite strike action in August 2017 over what they termed the Federal Government’s failure to honour past agreements.

Currently, the union has embarked on an indefinite strike, requesting for the 2009 agreement and re-opening of the negotiation.

Obviously, students are forced to stay at home during the industrial action, making them the victims of the ASUU-government
face-off.

With the current situation, stakeholders have continued to express their concern for the students in universities across the country.

According to them, the incessant strikes called for serious concern as no session had been free without ASUU at either the national or local level embarking on a strike, resulting in the disruption of the academic calendar.

According to a Moderator at the Concerned Parents and Educators Forum, Helen Essein, who is also a lawyer, ASUU’s strike actions over the years have threatened the Nigerian students rather than its target, the government.

“This ASUU strike is meaningless and hurts the wrong target. The politicians’ children are either schooling abroad or settled in private universities scattered in Nigeria. Of what use is it disrupting the academics of the children of the same people you seek to fight for?” Essein said.

Essein, therefore, urged the union to fight through with their votes in the upcoming election.

She added, “If only ASUU and Nigeria Union of Teachers knew the kind of potential power they possess, they wouldn’t be cutting their noses to spite their faces. They would simply drop hints about the kind of candidate their members would be voting for in the next elections and every member would be expected to abide by it.

“Remember, members of the academia are usually used as returning officers, polling agents etc., they must resist the urge to assist politicians in rigging, no matter the stomach infrastructure involved. They must not fritter away their children’s future for a bowl of pottage.

“Please stop these meaningless strikes, which bear no fruit. Come together and fight our common enemy -the selfish politicians.”

Another educationist, Elvis Amechi said, “Many parents cannot afford to pay their children’s tuition fees in Nigerian private universities neither can they afford sending their children abroad. The effect of the struggle is on all of us.”

But ASUU National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, explained in an exclusive interview with our correspondent that the union had always been forced to go on strike to get immediate results.

According to him, ASUU’s agitations have always yielded results which have made public universities stronger.

Ogunyemi said, “Speaking seriously, ASUU does not like strike actions. Strike, for ASUU, is the option for last resort. We are always being forced to go on strike. You people said ASUU shouldn’t go on strike because it is becoming too many, but the situation will go the way primary and school teachers have gone. The powers have subdued them and their agitation for improved quality of primary and secondary school education and that is why we are where we are today.

“If people are saying that we are always going on strike, they should also be asked whether by going on strike we have brought about any change into the system. The stakeholders who think we are always going on strike should proffer another means for us. If we decide not to vote, the person that will win will still win.”

The ASUU president further noted, “No public primary school teacher wants his child to go to a public primary school, same as public secondary school teachers.  Do we want the situation whereby the public universities will be in such state?

“What we are indirectly calling for is the over looked consequences of the poor infrastructure that are collapsing, which may consume all of us. Look at the public primary and secondary schools and we are complaining about the standard of education falling. The rich are even sending their children abroad for primary school not to say
secondary.

“If we keep mute like the secondary and primary schools that have fallen, we may be destroying the education of the poor. Our fellow citizens should see what we are doing as a response to a patriotic call to get what is meant for education to enhance development. The children of the rich do not school here, we cannot allow them to destroy our education. If we all rise for ASUU, this issue will be solved once and for all.”

Ogunyemi, therefore, said that ASUU’s strike actions had brought in TETFUND and other intervention funds to the rescue of the nation’s universities.

He said, “In 1992, we went on strike and when we came back we brought in TETFUND and that agency has been responsible for more than 90 per cent infrastructure on public campuses today. It is not true that ASUU strike is doing more damage than improving the
system.

“In 2013, when we went on strike for intervention fund, government released N200billion and in three years the money was used to equip our campuses. You can check it out, you will see projects with the intervention fund tagged with it. The fund has made tremendous change.”

Popular Articles