The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU says, it is alarmed that despite the good intentions of Nigerian academics to make our universities globally competitive, government has continued to unleash hardship on the lecturers and students.
In a press conference in Umuahia Wednesday, following its National Executive Council, NEC meeting held at the Niger Delta University, weekend, the National President of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke said “the union undertook a comprehensive review of the state of its engagements with Federal and State Governments on how to reposition Nigeria’s public universities for global reckoning by arresting the worsening living and working conditions in the universities and the nation at large”.
ASUU, Osodeke disclosed, had during the meeting, reviewed its “Renegotiation of FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement, Withheld Salary, Arrears of Earned Academic Allowances, Illegal Dissolution of Governing Councils, Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard, Proliferation of Universities, Victimization and Threats at Federal University of Technology, Owerri, TETFund Intervention, Underfunding of Universities, and Deepening Socio-Economic Crisis”.
According to him, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is alarmed, going by the reports it received, on the failed promises of the Tinubu-led administration toward addressing the above as lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February-October 2022.
“Despite the good intentions of Nigerian academics to make our universities globally competitive, government has continued to unleash hardship on the lecturers and students”, he said.
Osodeke said, “NEC was seriously alarmed by reports of the increasing number of Nigerian academics who have died or are currently nursing life-threatening ailments as a result of work-related stress and chronic pauperization arising from failed promises by the governments and the general macroeconomic climate of the country”, and stated his desire “to update Nigerians on developments since the suspension of our last national strike action on Friday, 14″ October, 2022 and our engagements with the current administration since its inception”.
Osodeke noted, “FGN/ASUU Agreement was in 2009. The union has been without a renegotiated agreement with the FGN for 15 years”, stating on the Withheld Salary, “The last administration, engineered by Senator Ngige, activated the obnoxious ‘No-Work No Pay’ policy by withholding lecturers’ seven and half months’ salaries in federal universities and varying months in state universities, adding, “Despite deploying the instrumentality of hunger and starvation against Nigerian academics, the Ngige-headed Ministry launched a full-scale war against ASUU including obtaining an injunction at the National Industrial Court, stating, “Unfortunately, those promises were never kept, even with Rt. Hon Gbajabiamila as the Chief of Staff to the President and Commander-in-Chief”.
“Proliferation of Universities was one of the issues that led to the strike actions of 2020 and 2022, and part of the MoA signed by ASUU and FGN stressed the need to review the NUC Act to make it more potent in arresting the reckless and excessive establishment of universities. ASUU would explore all legal means to resist the pervasive moves by politicians to keep proliferating crisis centres for the children of the poor in the name of universities”, he warned.
On Victimization and Threats at Federal University of Technology, Owerri, the union said, “We call on the Minister of Education and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on Prof Nnenna Oti, the Vice chancellor of FUTO to respect the Law of FUTO and stop persecuting our members for insisting that the right thing should be done in that university, while onn TETFund Intervention, ASUU warned Chancellors that ASUU will stop at nothing to resist the increasing unethical moves to fritter away the TCTFund intervention funds within or outside our universities”.
According to the union, “Funding for revitalization has been central in the struggle of our Union and it remains a cardinal demand in all our agreements and memoranda with governments. NEC condemns in its entirety the wave of fee hike without inputs of the victims across out campuses. We challenge the Tinubu administration to urgently initiate moves to conduct another needs assessment exercise to empirically verify our call for massive intervention in our public universities”.
According to Osodeke, “NEC reviewed the deepening socio-economic crisis which has worsened the insecurity situation in the country. While calling on government to accelerate the process of arriving at a minimum living wage as demanded by the NLC, NEC. calls on the Nigerian Government to urgently review all IMF/World Bank sponsored economic policies which are increasingly degrading the quality of life of Nigerians.
“ASUU remains undaunted in this patriotic mission. We call on other patriots in the media, labour movement, student groups and civil society organisations to join our resolve to reposition the Nigerian university system for a transformed Nigeria”.