The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has explained why it has transmuted its ongoing industrial action from roll-over strike to comprehensive, total and indefinite strike.
The lecturers’ union said that the action is in protest against the federal government’s failure to release the promised balance of one tranche of revitalisation funds for universities after over one year, failure to release the white paper report of the visitation panel to universities and the failure to deploy the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of lecturers.
This disclosure is contained in a statement signed by the ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, after the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC), where the decision to further extend the over 6-month-old strike was taken.
Osodeke in the statement titled, ‘ASUU strikes are to save public universities,’ said that the NEC observed with regret that the union has experienced a lot of deceit of the highest level in over 5 years as the Federal Government engaged the lecturers’ union in fruitless and unending negotiation without a display of utmost fidelity.
What the ASUU President is saying
Osodeke said that ASUU rejected the miserable, unilateral, and insulting take-it or-leave-it offers of between N30, 000 and N60,000 monthly salary increase that was given to the union, describing it as an attempt to abrogate the principle of collective bargaining which has guided ASUU engagements with Federal Government since 1981.
The statement from Osodeke partly reads,
- ‘’The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held an emergency meeting at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, Abuja on Sunday, 28th August, 2022. The meeting was called mainly to review developments since its last resolution that rolled over the nationwide strike action for another four weeks starting from 1st August, 2022.
- ‘’NEC observed with regret that the Union had experienced a lot of deceit of the highest level in the last five and half years as the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) engaged ASUU in fruitless and unending negotiation without a display of utmost fidelity.
- ‘’NEC recalled that, before meeting with our Union, the Nimi Briggs Committee confirmed to ASUU in writing that it was consulting with all relevant stakeholders in order to aggregate Government’s position/offer. After intensive bargaining, ASUU came to a compromise with the Professor Briggs-led Team leading to the submission of the second Draft Agreement to the Federal Government in June, 2022 for consideration and approval for signing by the two parties within one week.
- ‘’This was done in line with the principle of collective bargaining. Shortly after and against all expectations, however, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, and later his Minister of State, Festus Kayamo, alleged that the Union chased away representatives of government agencies and thereafter fixed unreasonable and unimplementable salary package for its members.
- ‘’Subsequently, some miserable, unilateral, and insulting take-it or-leave-it offers of between N30, 000 and N60,000 monthly salary were thrown at the Union. This was obviously an attempt to abrogate the principle of collective bargaining which has guided ASUU engagements with Federal Government since 1981.
- ‘’NEC noted that ASUU and other well-meaning Nigerians have expressed serious disappointment by and consternation on the attitude of the Government conveyed by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who had deliberately misinformed the public and reduced the current struggle of ASUU to the payment of withheld salaries, claiming that all other contentious issues had been resolved.
- ‘’For the avoidance of doubt, however, none of the issues that forced our Union to resume the suspended strike as listed in the December 2020 FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) has been satisfactorily addressed by the Government to date.
- ‘’The draft renegotiated FGN-ASUU Agreement (second draft) remains unsigned; the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) has not been adopted and deployed to replace the discredited Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS); and the White Papers on Visitation Panels to Federal Universities, if ready as claimed by Government more than six months ago, are nowhere to be found.
- ‘’Similarly, Government has not delivered on the promised balance of one tranche of the Revitalization Fund more than one year after, the outstanding two tranches of the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) have not been released; and nothing has since happened on the promised support for amendment to the Law of the National Universities Commission (NUC) to stem the tide of proliferation of universities especially by the State Governments.
What you should know
- The union had on February 14, 2022, embarked on a 4-week total and comprehensive strike to press home their unresolved demands on the federal government.
- Some of the lecturers’ demands include funding for the revitalisation of public universities, which amounts to N1.1 trillion, payment of earned academic allowances, and adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a preferred payment option, instead of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), payment of promotion arrears and the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement.
- The Federal Government’s Briggs renegotiation committee, had since April 2022, been meeting with ASUU and other labour unions in the universities, who went on strike due to its dispute with the government and non-resolution of demands of the 2009 agreements signed with the federal government.
- After further extensions of the industrial action, ASUU remained adamant in its resolve to press on with its demand as it once again on August 1 extended its ongoing strike by another 4 weeks to give the Federal Government more time to resolve outstanding issues in its dispute with it.
- Minister of Education Adamu Adamu had earlier said that the insistence of ASUU on the payment of the withheld salaries was stalling negotiations by the parties.
- He added that the government had met all the demands of ASUU, except the payment of 6 months’ salary arrears which President Muhammadu Buhari rejected when a proposal to the effect was presented to him.