The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) declared a four-week warning strike on Monday, February 14, to press home the union’s demand to the federal government.
The federal government called for a reconciliation meeting with ASUU on Tuesday, February 22. The meeting was inconclusive, prompting a reschedule for February 28.
Before the meetings could happen, stories flooded the social media that ASUU is demanding trillions of naira from the federal government to end the strike. Ifeanyi Abada, the chairman of ASUU, University of Nigeria, Nsukka chapter, told BusinessDay that the stories on social media are not true.
“Maybe what they are talking about is the cumulative monetary value of meeting ASUU’s Earned Academic Allowance which has not been paid since 2009,” Abada said.
“If that is what they are saying, then that tells you what the union has been going through. ASUU did not ask the federal government for any amount of money; rather, it demanded what is due to it since 2009.”
Kayode Eesuola, a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos also pointed out that the earned allowance is not a negotiable issue.
“Our earned academic allowance is our entitlement, we are not placing any demand on the federal government per se, it is our right and we had an agreement (MoU) on this in 2009, which they (federal government) failed to honour,” Eesuola said.
AQWA2qQQq“ASUU had to reach a memorandum of Action (MoA) in which we made it clear to the federal government that should they fail again to honour our agreement the union will take industrial action. It may interest you to know that senior lecturers in Nigeria are earning less than N500,000, while their equivalent in the army and other agencies are earning far beyond that.”
Both lecturers made it clear that ASUU’s demands are basically a call on the government to replace the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPIS) with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).
According to the lecturers, ASUU cannot go with IPIS because its work is purely intellectual and not like every other job out there.
Besides, they said, ASUU is asking the federal government to revitalise the university system because the public universities are the last hope of the common man. Many Nigerians cannot afford the cost of sending their children to private universities; hence, it is ideal that the public universities are upgraded. And every responsible government should make that its priority.
Close to that is the union’s stand against the proliferation of universities ongoing in the country. Members of the union are arguing that if the federal government is not able to upgrade the existing tertiary institutions, it does not make sense for it to establish new ones.
Read also: ASUU Strike: Students stage protests as meeting with minister ends in deadlock
Nigerians respond to ASUU strike
In the face of all these points raised by ASUU, some Nigerians are worried that the union seems not to be considerate of the masses, especially the students.
Edet Abang, a parent with two children in public universities argued that ASUU should have found another avenue to vent its anger than going on strike at every little disagreement with the federal government.
“For me, ASUU members are entitled to earn their salaries as and when due, but my reservation with the union is that at every little disagreement they are on strike. Now, the end result of their action does not add value to the education system they claimed to be defending. The students after losing many lecture contacts due to the strikes are rushed through lectures that give rise to half-baked graduates,” he said.
Okechukwu Emeribe feels ASUU should have involved the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in its dialogue as the issue on the ground concerns the students as well.
“ASUU’s failure to involve NANS in the dialogue leaves much to be desired. If the union is sincere with its fight, then the students must be carried along in the deliberations, after all, they claimed to be fighting for the good of the country, and the country belongs to every one of us,” he noted.
Afolayan Olarenwaju, an educationist is worried that the demands of ASUU, as nice as it may sound, do not in general terms seem to have the interest of the poor at heart.
“ASUU said that the federal government should stop building more public universities, while many Nigerian students are trooping abroad for lack of admission in our public universities,” Olanrewaju said.
“Out of about 5,000 Nigeria trapped in the Russia-Ukraine war, 4,000 of them are said to be students. Imagine that, that is about 80percent. Many Nigerians are schooling in Ghana and other West African countries for the same reasons.
“When you try to equate the financial implications, you will see the amount of money leaving Nigeria on yearly basis due to few university admission spaces available.”
