New Telegraph

At last, respite for varsity system

˜FG: 98% of union’s demands met

˜ASUU to monitor govt’s implementation of agreements

 

RELIEF

 

The Nigerian university system, last week, heaved a sigh of relief following the suspension of the almost 10-month-old nationwide indefinite strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)

 

Stakeholders: FG to fund, implement agreements

 

 

After a long lull due to the protracted indefinite nationwide strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) respite has finally come the way of the Nigerian public university system. Last week, ASUU suspended its over nine-month-old strike that has since March 23, 2020 held the university down, disrupting academic and research activities in the institutions, after a two-week warning strike ended without any resolution of the face-off with the government.

 

The union through its National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, had on Wednesday, December 23 announced the suspension of the strike, paving the way for the students to return to their campuses after nine months of shutting down the campuses against them.

 

But, prior to the last week suspension of the strike, several hope raised by stakeholders, especially parents and students, towards the resolution of the crisis and reopening of the universities, had been dashed due to the failure of series negotiations between the Federal Government team, led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige and ASUU, led by Prof. Ogunyemi that ended in a deadlock.

 

For over nine months, the university lecturers, under their umbrella union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have been at loggerheads with the Federal Government over the failure to implement the 2009 Agreements signed with the government.

 

Before the strike was declared in March, the ASUU President said that the union reviewed the outstanding issues in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement, the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the 2017 Memorandum of Action (MoA), which had not been significantly addressed, after a two-week warning strike declared on Monday, March 9, 2020, to convince the government to address the issues as outlined in the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action of February 7, 2019.

 

The issues are funding for revitalisation of public universities; Earned      Academic Allowances (EAA); salary shortfall, proliferation of state universities; visitation panels; reconstitution of the Government Renegotiating Team; and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), and lately the withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues of union members, as well as the replacement of the IPPIS with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

 

ASUU had repeatedly rejected the IPPIS payment platform, claiming that it infringed on the autonomy and freedom of the university system, and described the payment platform as a booby trap for universities.

 

This, however, resulted in withholding of members of the union’s several months’ salary by the Federal Government, which insisted that the lecturers must key into the platform without which their salaries would no longer be paid through the old system.

 

In place of IPPIS, the union had therefore proposed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) platform for use in the universities instead of the controversial government’s new payment policy. Few days before the suspension of the strike, Ngige said that the Federal Government had met 98 per cent of the demands of ASUU, and assured stakeholders that the university system would at least reopen by January, next year.

 

“Well, it is a journey of a thousand miles, which you will have to take one step first. All things being equal, we will agree now to agree because we were disagreeing before. We disagree to agree and agree to disagree before, but I hope we will agree to agree.

 

Once we do that, universities will open in January,” the Minister had said. Ngige, who dismissed and described as baseless the allegation that he was responsible for the prolonged nationwide strike by ASUU, said “it is rather ASUU which  has bluntly refused to reciprocate the Federal Government offers by refusing to either teach, conduct research or engage in other academic values for which they are paid, that should be held responsible.

 

As part of moves to end the strike, the Federal Government, Ngige noted had fulfilled all the demands of ASUU, which include the constitution of visitation panels to federal universities as already approved by the President; the revival of the Renegotiation Committee for the 2009 ASUU/FG Agreement; the government has also acceded to a hybrid payment platform which is not 100 per cent IPPIS for the payment of the lecturers’ salaries and Earned Academic Allowances/Earned Allowances (pending the result and conclusion of the integrity and usability test on the University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS) by the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA); approval of N70 billion, comprising N40 billion for Earned Academic Allowances/ Earned Allowances and N30 billion for revitalisation of the universities for payment.

 

According to the Minister, out of compassion of the Federal Government, it paid the lecturers February, March, April, May and June salaries, and stepped down the “No Work, No pay policy” as contained in Section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act, Cap T8, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004 to pay the university teachers’ salaries and to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 on them with a view for an early call-off of strike, but which ASUU bluntly refused.

 

Addressing journalists at a press conference announcing the suspension of the strike at the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA), ASUU President said the decision to return to the classroom was reached based on agreement with the Federal Government at Tuesday’s meeting, which addressed most of the union’s demands.

 

The suspension of the strike, Ogunyemi said, was not without a caveat, as ASUU has set up an Implementation Committee that would monitor the government’s response and implementation of the agreements, and the timeline attached with a view to considering the next step.

 

“On the basis of the foregoing, the NEC resolved that the current strike by the union should be suspended conditionally with effect from 12.01am Thursday, December 24, 2020. However, should the government fail to fulfill its own part of the agreement, ASUU will resume its suspended strike as deemed necessary,” he said.

 

While reading out some of the resolutions by ASUU National Executive Council (NEC) to review the agreement with the Federal Government, Ogunyemi said that the union resolved to give another chance to the government to prove that it can be trusted.

 

“The NEC agreed to accept agreements reached between ASUU and the Federal Government at the meeting on Tuesday, December 22, but resolved to consciously and diligently monitor its implementation,” he added.

 

On the withheld lecturer’s salaries by the Federal Government, the union leader said that the payment had already commenced, but not completed yet, stating that it was also agreed that no ASUU member would suffer any loss of deserved benefits as a result of participation in the strike.

 

Besides, Ogunyemi further hinted that the NEC resolved to conditionally suspend the strike and to pursue fervently the areas in the ASUU-FG Agreement of 2009 and Memorandum of Action 2013 that require legislation such as the mainstreaming of the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) into the annual budget and amend   ment of the Executive Bill in respect of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Act 2004. Ogunyemi, however, listed major demands of ASUU for which agreement was reached to include, the immediate release of Earned Academic Allowances and mainstreaming of the EAA into the annual budget, using the agreed formula; immediate engagement of the universities and other research centres in the fight against COVID-19.

 

Part of the agreements is that government should expedite action on the test processes and ensure the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) in which the integrity test was at the last stage, as payment platform for the payment of salaries in the university system; and that the government should fast track the FG-ASUU renegotiation exercise to ensure that it was concluded within the timelines agreed by both parties.

 

Based on these and many other agreements reached, Ogunyemi noted that ASUU undertook the decision to go back to classrooms and laboratories to do their best for the students and country.

 

“We are going back to rekindle the motivation and aspirations in our members to strive to encourage our students to excel, all in expectations that governments, both federal and state, will sincerely fulfill their own part of the bargain,” he said.

 

When asked about his reaction to the strike, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe hinted that the suspension of the ninemonth- old industrial action by ASUU might not be enough to guarantee the much-anticipated return of smooth academic activities to the universities nationwide, if the demands were not implemented.

He said it was not true that the Committee of Vice-Chancellor of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) did not intervene in the protracted ASUU strike as being insinuated, but noted that the Committee had been vigorously working background and has usually be in contact with all the principal actors in the crisis towards resolving the logjam.

 

On his part, the immediate past Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Ademola Dasylva, who frowned over the lip service successive governments have been paying to university education, said that “if the Federal Government thinks that it deserves the praise of ASUU, or of the Nigerian students or the general public because it has agreed to implement whatever claimed percentage of the negotiated agreement, then it must be mistaken.”

 

He stated that it was high time the Federal Government woke up to its responsibility, noting that unfortunately the focus had been on ASUU, as if the body of academe is the issue, but should be on the Federal Government and its representatives that have been playing the conquistadors.

 

The don, who insisted that a responsive government should normally honour and ensure implementation of agreement that it willingly entered into with a union such as ASUU, as a hallmark of a responsible government, added that had the government funded and implemented the agreement, there would have been significant improvement on the teaching and learning environment, the lecture rooms, the libraries, and hostel accommodation in the public universities.

 

Dasylva said: “Similarly, had the Federal Government honoured the agreement the laboratories would have been properly equipped, and the lecturers would have been well motivated to perform optimally. Our public universities would, at least, have been able to meet the benchmark of the global standards and best practices, as well as earn a much improved Web ranking.

 

“Any serious and responsive government that takes issues of education and research seriously would have made the implementation of the agreement a priority. “Put on the performance scale, the current government and its relevant agencies had performed abysmally low. The ASUU strike under reference was on for roughly over nine months and now that it has been called off, there is nothing to be excited about.

 

The strike would not have been this long had the representatives of the Federal Government been serious about it. There were unwarranted distractions occasioned by the IPPIS issue, which did not take the peculiarities of the universities into consideration.

 

“ASUU succeeded in providing an alternative to IPPIS, that is UTAS at no extra cost, but the nation witnessed the unfortunate drama that ensued. The Minister of Labour and Employment also deliberately played crude politics with the lives and destiny of Nigerian youthful students, which many Nigerians considered very ungodly and dastardly act. In a serious country he would have been relieved of his post as Minister.

 

The resolution arrived at, now, had long been suggested at the commencement of the FG/ASUU negotiation meetings, but puerile ego and muscle-flexing on the part of those officials representing the Federal Government had frustrated logical reasoning.

 

“If, therefore, the FG is sincere with its current response, it might, hopefully, lead to a full turn around restoration of the public University system in Nigeria.

 

Therefore, what this demands of us all is patience and vigilance because once bitten twice shy, some of those characters in government cannot be trusted. Everything, to them, is politics and that is why our university system, like other units and systems are in the current pitiable state.”

 

The Dean, School of Transport at the Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Samuel Odewumi, urged the Federal Government to take communications of discontent from university staff unions very serious, even as he expressed worry how the government usually ignored scores of letters from ASUU on their intention to go on strike.

 

He noted that for the government to wait to negotiate when strike is already called, a development which makes it costly and deficient in goodwill, is unprogressive, adding that when agreement is reached, there must be sincere effort on the part of the government to faithfully implement such.

 

Odewumi said: “If there is any reason for inability to implement any agreement, the government should invite and interface with the unions for them to know and obtain another agreement rather than assume that they do not owe the unions any explanation for not implementing the agreement already signed. “I think ASUU should also come up with some alternatives to fullblown strike, like extending its warning strike in a staccato format; dressing in black or with black bound; citizens’ engagement and enlightenment; press week to obtain the buy in of media, students and other relevant stakeholders. Once these steps are taken it will make strikes unnecessary and when it is unavoidably called it will be more impactful because there will be massive pressure on the government which will force them to act faster.

 

Meanwhile, a Vice-Chancellor has also described ASUU as the soul of the existence of Nigerian university system, saying that if not for the union, probably there would not be anything called Nigerian public universities today in terms of their struggle to have a university system that would stand the test of time.

 

He said: “The government at all levels is not ready to properly fund the university system and the education sector in general, and if not for ASUU, the universities would not have gotten the little we are talking about that is still sustaining the system.

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