The Academic Staff Union of Universities on Thursday said it would not call off its strike until the salary arrears of its members were paid.
The university lecturers also said they would not teach
students to make up for the six months they had been on strike if the Federal
Government failed to pay for the “period of strike.”
The union’s national president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke,
disclosed this to The PUNCH in response to a statement by the Minister of
Education, Adamu Adamu, that the Federal Government would not concede to ASUU’s demands for the backlog
of salaries withheld within the period.
The PUNCH reports that ASUU embarked on a one-month warning
strike on February 14. However, the union has extended the strike several times
in the past six months.
Other associations such as the Senior Staff Association of
Nigerian Universities, Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Educational
Institutions and National Association of Academic Technologists later followed
suit, shutting down public universities nationwide.
Adamu had told State House correspondents on Thursday that
the government would not pay the lecturers for the period of strike.
But reacting to the government’s position, Osodeke said, “He
is joking. If they fail to pay, we will not teach those students; we won’t make
up for that period. We will start a new session (2022/2023). We won’t conduct
examinations; we will start a fresh session totally.
“Lecturers are not doctors that once life is gone, it can’t
be brought back. For lecturers, we can still resume where we stopped and still
teach them and make up for lost time. But for us, if they fail to pay we won’t
make up for the lost time. We won’t go back to fill backlogs; the schools will
start a new session, 2022/2023. Examinations and the period lost won’t be
taught.”
He added, ‘’If they want to do ‘no work no pay,’ we will
also do ‘no pay no work.’ If they won’t pay the backlog, we won’t teach the
backlog. We are not like other workers. He doesn’t know what he is saying.”
‘FG’s offer miserable’
Explaining why the meeting with the government had been
unable to resolve the lingering strike in a statement on Thursday, Osodeke
explained that the government’s offer was poor.
He disclosed that the union told the Federal Government
through the ministry of education to return to the New Draft Agreement of the
2009 FGN/ASUU Renegotiation Committee whose work spanned a total of five and
half years as a demonstration of good faith.
The PUNCH had reported that last Tuesday, ASUU met with the
government through the Prof Nimi Briggs committee.
The statement titled, ‘Why ASUU rejects government’s award
of salary’, read, “The major reason given by the Federal Government for the
miserly offer-paucity of revenue, is not tenable.
“This is because of several reasons, chief of which is poor
management of the economy. This has
given rise to leakages in the revenue of governments at all levels. There is
wasteful spending, misappropriation of
funds and outright stealing of our collective patrimony.
“ASUU believes that if the leakages in the management of the country’s resources are stopped, there
will be more than enough to meet the nation’s revenue and expenditure targets without borrowing and plunging the
country into a debt crisis as is the case now.”
Osodeke in the statement explained that the government
imposed the ongoing strike action on ASUU, saying the FG encouraged it to
linger because of its provocative indifference.
The union further said, “The Munzali Jibril-led
renegotiation committee submitted the
first Draft Agreement in May 2021, but
the government’s official response did
not come until about one year later! Again, awards presented by the Nimi
Briggs-led Team came across in a manner of take-it-or-leave-it on a sheet of
paper. No serious country in the world treats their scholars this way.”
It stressed that the government’s surreptitious move to set
aside the principle of collective bargaining, which
was globally in practice, had the potential of damaging lecturers’ psyche and
destroying their commitment to the
university system.
According to ASUU, rejecting a salary package arrived at
through collective bargaining is a repudiation of the government’s pronouncements on reversing
brain drain.
However, speaking to journalists at the 47th session of the
State House Ministerial Media Briefing organized by the Presidential
Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the education minister
said ASUU’s demands to be paid salaries for the six-month strike period is
stalling its negotiations with the union.
Adamu assured that five of the striking university-based
unions will return to work within the next one week, whereas ASUU’s remain
uncertain.
He denied receiving a two-week ultimatum from the President,
adding that he successfully concluded his work one week after meeting with him
on July 18.
‘No deadline’
The minister explained: “The President never gave me any
deadline. I promised that I could do it within the shortest possible time. And
for your information, one week after that pledge, I had already finished my job
because I had given all the six unions the offer made by the government, and I
want to tell you, in principle, all of them accepted it.
“The only exception was ASUU that gave me two other
conditions, which I told them would not be acceptable to the government. So, I
can tell you within the next one week, these five unions will call off the
strike. But I cannot say the same for ASUU.”
He said the lecturers were insisting that they should be
paid for the period they were on strike.
“And I told them the Federal Government will not. All
contentious issues between the government and ASUU had been settled except the
quest for members’ salaries for the period of strike to be paid, a demand that
Buhari has flatly rejected.”
The minister therefore said the demand by ASUU to be paid
salaries for the six-month strike period was stalling its negotiations with the
union.
Adamu also argued that ASUU should bear the liability of
compensating university students for the time wasted, not the FG.
According to him, if the students are determined to get
compensated, they should take ASUU and other striking unions to court and claim
damages incurred over the strike period.
He regretted that ASUU proceeded with the strike despite the
Buhari regime and agencies such as TETFUND and UBEC directly investing N2.5tn
into education.
Adamu, however, noted that renegotiations are ongoing,
adding, “we are doing everything humanly possible to conclude the negotiations.
I am sure that the current efforts would yield the desired results and return
our children back to school.”
The minister also disclosed that although the ASUU-proposed
University Transparency Accountability Solution and University Peculiar
Personnel and Payroll System out-performed the government-backed Integrated
Personnel Payroll and Information System in the efficiency tests conducted, the
FG has not approved UTAS as claimed in some quarters.
Consequently, he said the FG will integrate ASUU’s
peculiarities in any of the platforms eventually adopted.
This includes updating IPPIS to now accommodate payment of
lecturers on sabbatical.
Adamu lamented that some governors of Northern states are
“destroying” education at the primary school level through mismanagement.
Almajiri system
The minister also said the almajiri system inherited from
the Jonathan administration was not properly implemented.
Adamu revealed that the FG had so far identified 70 illegal
universities and 125 Colleges of Education.
He said in spite of the efforts of the Muhammadu Buhari
regime at ensuring unfettered access to university education, the challenges
posed by illegal universities still persist.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students
explained its position on the demand by the minister that ASUU should be sued.
This was contained in a statement signed by the union’s
President, Sunday Asefon, on Thursday.
Asefon was reacting
to the statement by the education minister that the affected students should
“take ASUU to court” to claim damages incurred over the strike period.
Responding, the NANS President said it could not sue ASUU,
noting that the union is neither a proprietor nor beneficiary of fees paid.
The statement read in part, “Perhaps, the only thing Malam Adamu Adamu has gotten right since he
became a minister is the fact that Nigerian students needed to be compensated
for their wasted time, opportunities and resources.
‘’However, the minister is clever by half by suggesting ASUU
should be held liable for the liabilities. ASUU is neither the proprietor of
our tertiary institutions nor the beneficiary of the exorbitant fees we pay
across our tertiary institutions in Nigeria.’’
In a related development, the Royal Commonwealth Society,
Nigeria branch, has pledged to mediate between the striking lecturers and the
FG using the instrument of ‘academic diplomacy.’
The Country Director of the society, Mr Blackson Bayewumi,
said this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja
on Thursday.
Bayewumi appealed to ASUU to embrace meaningful dialogue,
consultations and compromise at resolving the prolonged academic strike. -PUNCH
0 comments:
Post a Comment