On December 23, 2020, the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) agreed to shelve the union’s industrial action that saw all public universities in the country locked up for nine months. The loggerhead between the two parties stemmed from ASUU’s demand for what it called a better public tertiary education system.
ASUU had in March, after a two week warning strike embarked on an indefinite strike to drive home its demands from the federal government which were the rejection of the forced enrolment of the lecturers on Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) which was developed by the government to ensue transparency in personnel remuneration.
The union also demanded for more funding for public universities and the renegotiation of the 2009 FG/ASUU agreement, while it also called for the constitution of Visitation Panels to Federal Universities.
The federal government had initially halted the salary of members of the union who had refused to enroll in the IPPIS. The Accountant General of the Federation in a letter to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning in January said that salaries to the lecturers would henceforth be done though the IPPIS.
However the government has agreed to pay the lecturers N40 billion Earned Academic Allowance, N30 Billion for the revitalization of the education sector and the areas of salaries. Although the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige said the FG has agreed with the lecturers on seven out of the eight points they are contending on, what has not become clear to all is the nature of the agreement reached with the lecturers.
While there have been back and forth in negotiation between the government and the lecturers, students of these public universities were left idle for over a session as academic activities were halted.
It is unfortunate that the education system of this country would become a tool for political and personal negotiation while the future of young Nigerians are left hanging. As far as the university academic year is concern, there was no academic activity in all public universities across the country in 2020.
ASUU has consistently told Nigerians that the bone of contention between the body and the federal government is not salary but a better funding for the sector. For us as a news medium, the state of the tertiary education in Nigeria is a shame. Nigerian universities pass out graduates who are unemployable even in the sector and areas of their studies. The impact of the tertiary education is rather not felt on the economy. Yet lecturers calls for more funding from the government. While the government has its share of the rot, the union must also take responsibility for the decay in the sector.
The incessant industrial action by the union has done more harm to the system than any good. It is therefore important that the Federal Government and the ASUU find alternative means of settling their contentious issues without putting the future of Nigerian students at stake. Rather than embarking on perennial down-tooling, the FG and ASUU should rather approach the industrial court to settle their score for the sake of the educational sector of the country.
