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From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
The Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) has said that the current impasse between it and the Federal Government will continue to linger if the federal government does not retrace its step from indulging in wrong priorities that will not be in the interest of the masses.
The Akure Zonal Coordinator Of ASUU, Professor, Olufayo Olu-Olu, made the remarks at a press conference on the current impasse between ASUU and the federal government held Wednesday, at the Ekiti State University(EKSU) Ado-Ekiti.
Prof Olu Olu said that the situation is worsening as the government is not committed to addressing issues that will end the strike. He lamented that many of the lecturers had not been paid salaries in some universities for up to ten months now because the government is always insisting on the adoption of its own mode of payment which is the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), urging the federal government to accept the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a payment solution in all tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
“ASUU has been at the forefront of the fight for a globally competitive education system especially as it affects tertiary education in Nigeria. The issues at stake have always revolved around funding for revitalisation of the Nigerian University System, University Transparency and Accountability Solution(UTAS) and Renegotiation among others.’
Prof Olu-Olu said ASUU painfully and sadly went on strike on the 14th of February, 2022 to enlist the commitment of the government on the aforementioned issues, but as of the eighth week of the strike, nothing has changed due to the insensitivity of the government.
According to him, a responsive government would be expected to have gone into action when the Union declared the four-week rolling strike, describing the scenario as an embarrassment to the nation and the international community, whereby the government has continued to pay lip service to the issues raised despite the uproar of the great Nigerian students and their helpless parents.
‘It is indeed sad that since 2009, the government finds it difficulty toeing the path of honour to implement the agreement reached by the negotiation team and ASUU, but finds it easier embarking on political jamborees across the nation, spending millions of naira on school feeding programme and proliferating more higher institutions when the existing ones are in comatose. What an irony”! he queried.
The ASUU Zonal Chairman further maintained that as if what he referred to as an insult to our sensibilities as a nation is not enough, ‘government has continued unrepentantly to rob our members of our meagre income through the instrumentality of the magical and fraudulent IPPIS under which some of our members have not been paid for months”.
The ASUU helmsman, explained that a trusted alternative-University Transparency and Accountability Solution(UTAS) which was provided free for the government by the Union to save the government of millions of dollars being squandered on foreign agencies has been suffering a twist of fate after being tested and approved by the same government. He added that the
National Information Technology and Development Agency(NITDA)in an earlier integrity test conducted on UTAS had written a report scoring UTAS 99.3%, but as the stakeholders in the educational sector are awaiting the report, it was according to him, allegedly mischievously destroyed by one of the powers-that-be in that agency contrary to what was reportedly scored, saying: ‘In a sane clime, this alone is enough to warrant his removal from office, but the way he keeps galvanizing on the corridor of power is suggestive of his acting a script by the sworn enemies of the Nigerian masses and students.’
He alleged that the interventions of the relevant stakeholders in the education sector are not yielding fruits because of the unwholesome role played by the agency, urging concerned stakeholders not to rest on their oars, but to confront the challenge with a view to arresting the ills of the educational system.
The union leader reiterated that “ASUU is not the one delaying negotiations as it is always open to renegotiations, but will only return to classes when the government has shown enough commitments to the fulfilment of its own signed agreement”.
Some ASUU Chairmen from universities in the zone, in their separate contributions, pointed out that a Memorandum of Understanding, Memorandum of Action and so on, would be signed with the government to give a template, stating that at a specific time they would do this, but at the end, nothing would be implemented, and the moment they heard ASUU had suspended its strike, that would be the end of all.
‘That’s the reason that we have to come out again and again. And some of our members are dying. Those dying in the classrooms. In this university, we know some of our members died of a stroke, a friend died in the classroom…’
They posited that ASUU has been making concessions: ‘What we are saying is that if the government received the draft agreement, in May 2021, and up till now, they have not even deemed it fit to look at it, to spot out grey areas for it to be renegotiated, what have we been talking about? For one full year, they held onto the document and did nothing with it. this is where we are sensing keep them busy syndrome”.
The contributors challenged the government to point out areas they want to be renegotiated, and they are ready to look into it, saying that it is not enough for government to just accuse them of asking for too much. To them, the government has not come out to tell Nigerians what is in the renegotiated agreement that they could not handle.
‘Government finds it difficult to toe the line of agreement reached in 2009, rather it engages in wasting resources. The priority of the government is no more to develop the nation, their priority is in their pockets.” We have more than one hundred public universities in Nigeria today, lecturers have been on strike for the past good number of months and the government went ahead to approve more universities, for what? If education is not being funded, there is no way our politicking could be correct. It is important to know that the priorities of the federal government are not right. No other priority aside from politics, they continue to package themselves into power, and neglect what will benefit the masses.’
They further cited the instance of the era of COVID-19, where they alleged that the money government spent on feeding children at home was nearly the same, if not more than a whole budget for education for that year, wondering where on earth that could be heard, stressing that no country develops on the level of wrong priorities but on the level of what would be appropriately channelled to education.
‘So if the government is not giving the right priority to education, we will still remain where we are. We will just be hearing that countries are developing and we remain at the base. So there is a need for government to actually fund education properly and ensure that it is out to develop it. Imagine a professor after ten years of even getting to the bar, goes home with N416,000 monthly, which is equivalent to 800 dollars. We should talk about our salaries, and that’s what has been there since 2009. How many times has the pump price increased since 2009? How many times have electricity tariffs increased? We are the only sector that our salaries are not increased, we fight for our salaries, go to the universities no younger ones are coming in.’
In attendance were, Chairmen from the universities that are in the Akure Zonal office of ASUU, they include the Chairman, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti(FUOYE), Dr Akin Omonijo, Chairman, Federal University Of Technology, Akure (FUTA) Prof. Yinka Awopetu, Chairman, Obafemi Awolowo University(OAU) Ile-Ife, Dr Adeola Egbedokun, Chairman, Ekiti State University(EKSU), Ado-Ekiti. Dr Kayode Arogundade, and the Zonal Coordinator, Prof. Olufayo Olu-Olu.
