Reasons why ASUU strike will last

I write this with a bleeding heart but with a deep sense of reality as a concerned final year student of a Nigerian University

Many people have asked the same question “why is strike a reoccurring decimal in Nigerian educational system?” yet a convincing answer still eludes them. Others have begun to assume that ASUU and Federal Government (FG) actually enjoy the strike; I believe this is not true, though without a convincing reason.

 

I have looked at the issue from ASUU’s standpoint and from FG’s standpoint and one thing is clear, that the strike which commenced on Wednesday 3^rd July is most likely going to last for longer than most of us think.

Going down the history lane, I see that sometime in June 2001, ASUU and the FG had an agreement to comprehensively and comparatively deal with the issues of Funding, University Autonomy and Academic Freedom and Conditions of Service, all with the aim of making our Universities internationally competitive. It was also agreed that the Agreement shall be comprehensively reviewed every three years.

  

It is unfortunate that Government within the three years (2001-2004) showed no serious commitment to the implementation of the provisions of the Agreements. This led to one or two strikes which resulted in the setting up of the Dialogue Committee by the then Minister of Labour and Productivity. The work of that Dialogue Committee, alongside that of the Technical Committee produced a document which, if implemented would have started to address those basic issues earlier highlighted in the 2001 agreement.

By early 2004, the year the Agreement was due for re-negotiation; it became obvious that the Federal Government had no laid down plan of implementing the provision of the agreement on renegotiation. This is because the Government negotiation team showed several signs of unreadiness to negotiate with ASUU. First the government team kept postponing the dates of their meeting, and in February 2007 during another meeting, the government negotiation team were reported to have come without any data of its own. It expected ASUU after producing data on education, funding, remuneration, budgetary allocation, international comparison on various aspects of university system, to produce verifications of its own data. Also in march 2007, the chairman of the government negotiation tram confirmed that the mandate of the government negotiation team was persuade ASUU to accept Government's terms and not to negotiate. At this point ASUU were left with little or no choice. By then the bone of contention were just Funding of Universities, Basic Salary, University Autonomy and Academic Freedom, and Other matters.

In 2009, there seemed to be a breakthrough as FG finally signed an agreement (Memorandum Of Understanding ) with ASUU after a 3 months strike. Most of us have heard about this agreement but many do not know the contents. The nine components of the 2009 agreement include:

i. Funding requirements for Revitalization of the Nigerian Universities
ii. Federal Government Assistance to State Universities
iii. Establishment of NUPEMCO
iv. Progressive increase in Annual Budgetary Allocation to Education to 26% between 2009 and 2020
v. Earned Allowances
vi. Amendment of the Pension/Retirement Age of Academics on the Professorial cadre from 65 to 70 years
vii. Reinstatement of prematurely dissolved Governing Councils
viii. Transfer of Federal Government Landed Property to Universities
ix. Setting up of Research Development Council and Provision of Research Equipment to laboratories and classrooms in our universities.

However, up until 2012 all the components of the agreement were yet to be implemented, and so ASUU went on a strike that lasted for almost two months, the strike ended on 2^nd February, 2012 because ASUU considered the interest of the revitalization of the Nigerian Universities. Following the suspension of the strike, government responded by setting up a Committee via TETFund to assess the needs of Nigerian Universities in terms of infrastructure and required quantum of fund. Government also mandated the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) to document and compute the financial implication of implementing the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement.

  

Unfortunately up till this moment, only two out of the nine commitments, reinstatement of Governing Councils and the Amendment of Retirement Age Act have been met. And so on July 1, 2013 the ASUU President Dr. Nasir Fagge Isa declared a nationwide strike in his words “It is in the light of the above, especially having exhausted all other options, that ASUU-NEC at its meeting in Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, between 29th and 30th June 2013 resolved to call out all its members on a nation-wide strike action beginning from Wednesday, 3rd July, 2013. The strike action is comprehensive and total. Our members shall withdraw their services until Government fully implements all the outstanding aspects of the 2009 Agreement, and commences the process of review of the same Agreement”.

  

One can now see how resolved ASUU has become on the issue of this strike, and this is coming after years of waiting for the implementation of the ASUU/FG agreement 

On the other hand on 2^nd July, the minister of Education, Professor Ruqqayatu Rufai exonerated the federal government from blame over the on-going strike by university lecturers saying the government has made an offer to the lecturers but was yet to receive any response from their union.

Also on Monday 15^th July, the joint education committee of the National Assembly along with the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa'i, met with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on the on-going strike by the union. During which the chairman of the committee, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, had urged the union to reduce its demands to only three:  funding of the institutions, university autonomy and earned academic allowances. ASUU President, Dr. Nasir Fagge, said the union was not interested in commencing a fresh negotiation on the agreement it had with the federal government in 2009, alleging that the government had cultivated the tradition of reaching agreements with ASUU only to go back on it. The meeting eventually ended in a deadlock with ASUU demanding 100 per cent implementation of the 2009 agreement as a condition for suspending the strike. 

The picture is now clear to all and sundry that unless FG implements her agreement with ASUU or maybe ASUU soft-pedals on their demands, the strike is probably going to last a while longer than many of us think. The question is who is going to give in FG or ASUU?

Like the saying goes when two elephants fight the grass is what suffers, it is Nigerian Students that are paying the expensive price of this strike saga. Imagine staying at home for the next two or more months for something you are not directly involved in. we all believe the youths are a key factor in the bright future of Nigeria, but is this how that future will be achieved??? I don’t think so

With deep felt passion for a greater, better, and educated Nigeria I ask every good Nigerian out there “how can we stand in the gap between ASUU and FG to quickly end this unfortunate situation???