This Is Why ASUU Strike Mustn’t Hold

Many Nigerian
students and stakeholders in the education sector shuddered when the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, warned of a looming strike over the Federal Government’s reticence on its demand for the implementation of the agreement with the union signed in 2009 and 2013.
A statement by ASUU’s National President, Comrade Biodun Ogunyemi, confirmed that the Federal Government’s silence on the implementation of the agreements was the reason for the proposed strike action.
The ASUU chairman has always reiterated that the pact the union signed with the government is only observed in the breach. The agreements in question had caused two major strike actions; one in 2012 and the other in 2013. Students lost so much to the strike.
The 2009 pact stipulated that government would have to pay academic allowances, implement the NEEDS assessment reports and register the Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company. It is explicit that these require big time spending to achieve.
Rather than enforce the agreement, the Federal Government complicated matters by stopping the funding of primary and secondary schools owned by the universities. Also stopped is the payment of their staff salaries.
The government also jettisoned the responsibility to provide electricity, stationery and chemicals for laboratories in their own higher institutions. This new stand of the government might have exasperated the lecturers to renew their demands at this inauspicious time.
In the 2013 accord, the Federal Government was required to rehabilitate the decaying infrastructure in the universities. After an initial payment of N1.2 trillion with a promise to disburse N200 million annually, government has been unable to meet the payment schedules and, of course, making such payments now is not feasible because of the sharp drop in revenue.
The terms of both pacts indicate that the government assented to more than it could chew at the time they were signed. I am still wondering why the deals were entered into without considering the vagaries of the oil market from where funds could have been got for their implementation.
ASUU also raised the issue of low budgetary allocation to tertiary education. The union has always said that allocation to the education sector in the national budget, which is usually not higher than 12 percent, is paltry and far below the 26 percent benchmark of UNESCO.
Nigerian universities are experiencing unprecedented hard times. The Chairman of the Bauchi Zone of ASUU, Prof. Nanmwa Voncir, captured the current state of the universities when he stated that many universities find it hard to pay salaries while state universities are managing to survive without subventions. According to the university don, the situation may be unbearable for lecturers and compel them to exit to other countries.
I don’t agree less with the eminent scholar. The problems facing the universities are legion. Therefore, the authorities have to be proactive and begin immediate talks with the union.
An area the dialogue should focus on is ASUU’s insistence that the 2009 agreement be reviewed in line with one of the terms that states a review of the document should be done every three years. But since 2012, the government has failed to set up a negotiation team despite repeated requests by the union.
I see the proposed strike by ASUU as an opportunity for the federal government to reopen negotiations with the university lecturers and review the agreements entirely. This time around, candid position on what the nation can afford should be canvassed given the present economic reality.
The federal authorities must listen to ASUU and reach an agreement that is just. Nigerians are tired of strikes. Frequent industrial action in higher institutions in the country is the reason Nigerians travel abroad in droves to avoid interrupted academic calendar. It is the foreign country to which the dollar or pounds is paid that benefit economically.

Arnold Alalibo