ASUU PRESS CONFERENCE ON AUGUST 22, 2013 TEXT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES (ASUU) ON THE ONGOING NATIONWIDE STRIKE HELD ON THURSDAY, 22ND AUGUST, 2013 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, AKOKA-YABA Protocols: Preamble Gentlemen of the Press, On Monday, 20th August 2013, our Union met with a Federal Government Team led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Governor Gabriel Suswam over the on-going strike in the universities. This was about the tenth time we were meeting with Government since the action commenced on 2nd July, 2013. As you are aware, the strike in the universities is about getting Government to implement the 2009 Agreement as captured in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Government on 24th January 2012 and Recommendations in the Report of Government’s Committee on Needs Assessment on Nigerian (Public) Universities (CNANU) of July, 2012. At the Monday, 20th August meeting, the Government Team spoke with a tinge of finality. As already widely reported, Government had declared that it will not implement the agreed massive injection of funds to revitalise public universities. Rather, it is only making a dubious statement of supporting some universities with the sum of N100 billion. Government had also declared that it will not pay university academics their Earned Allowances which accumulated from 2009 to 2013. Rather, it is talking about providing N30 billion to assist various Governing Councils of Federal Universities to defray the arrears of N92 billion owed to all categories of staff in the university system. It was a sinister ‘take it, or leave it’ threat of grab-the-crumbs or starve-to-death! ASUU was shocked at the level of deceit, dishonesty and lack of integrity displayed by Government. Here was a Government that had been propping on the Union at least since the release of the MoU in January 2012! Never in the history of ASUU-Government relations have we, as a Union, ever experienced the kind of volte-face exhibited by Government. At one stage in the interaction, the SGF ridiculed the Agreement, the MoU and the Needs Assessment Report, mocking the Minister of Education to “go and give them N400 billion.” At which members of the Government team scornfully laughed! As a union whose members constitute the intellectual cream of society and which operates on the basis of principles, we find the events of 20th August and other recent positions on the matter by Government bewildering, embarrassing and highly unacceptable. ASUU cannot believe that the Agreement, the MoU and the Needs Assessment Report undertaken an endorsed by the highest public officials in the land would be so blatantly ridiculed by the same people. At this stage and in order to counter the persistent and pernicious Government propaganda about ASUU’s responsibility in closing the Universities and its desire to have the Universities reopened, it is important that we give a blow by blow account of the issues and events that have resulted in the current situation. Between hope and haplessness In effect, Government appears to have repudiated the 2009 Agreement, the MoU and its own Needs Assessment Report. What has emerged is that Government never intended to implement the provisions of any of these important documents; while publicly and privately encoring ASUU and the country to trust it and to believe that, for once, it was determined to address the decay and rot in the universities, its true intention all along was to take the country and ASUU for a costly ride. Gentlemen of the Press, you would recall that early into the strike, a meeting was facilitated between ASUU and Government by the Education Committees of the National Assembly on how to resolve the crisis. Unfortunately, this did not yield meaningful results mainly due to Government’s act of deception and insincerity. Subsequent meetings have also failed to address the outstanding issues about the Agreement and MoU in ways that would suggest that Government is seriously committed to arresting the further decline of the already appalling state of our public universities. Consequently, our universities have remained closed to academic activities, our children are losing precious time required for teaching and learning and our country continues to lose out in many facets that connect to the provision of high quality education. The Governor Gabriel Suswam-led Implementation Committee Gentlemen of the Press, in the course of discussions leading to the 2012 MoU, Government assured ASUU that N100 billion was available to immediately stimulate the revitalisation of public universities, once the priorities of academic institutions were determined. This gave rise to setting up of the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities (CNANU). The committee, headed by the erstwhile Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, submitted its report to the Federal Government in July 2012. Meanwhile, in the 2009 Agreement, the funding requirement provides that all Federal universities would require a total sum of N1.5 trillion spread over three years (2009 – 2011) to address the rot and decay in the universities. The three-year period lapsed without any serious efforts to implement the provision. With the coming of the MoU in January 2012, Government promised to “stimulate the process of revitalizing the university system with an initial sum of N100 billion” for 2012 which will be built up to a yearly sum of N400 billion “in the next three (3) years” (2013 – 2015) as intervention. Government however insisted that it will need to conduct a needs assessment to determine what exactly would be done with the fund. This is what gave birth to the Needs Assessment Committee which conducted the exercise. Coincidently, the Technical Committee on the Needs Assessment Report (set up by the National Economic Council) also came up with about N800 billion as the estimated amount needed to revitalize Nigerian public universities in the short run of two years; translating into an annual intervention of N400 billion. It is important to stress that, by our own estimation, the MoU should have fetched Nigerian public universities a total sum of N500 billion by now if Government were to faithfully implement the understanding reached with ASUU in 2012. A continuation of that process would have yielded a Revitalization Fund of N1.3 trillion by the year 2015 as earlier explained. In the alternative, Government could have set aside the estimated sum of N800 billion required to implement the short-term recommendations of the Needs Assessment Report for 2012 and 2013 put together. But, alas, all the Government is gloating over now is N100 billion which is nowhere near the scientifically-arrived congruent sums in the 2009 Agreement, the 2012 MoU and the 2013 Technical Report on the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities. What further evidence do we need to establish Government’s bad faith? As discussions on the foregoing processed, the Federal Government set up a new Implementation Committee of the Needs Assessment Report headed by Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State. The initial reaction of our Union was that bringing new persons on board in place of the earlier membership, would amount to undue delays and a clog in the path of sustainable implementation of the Report. On a second thought, however, ASUU decided to overlook thus and accepted to work with the Committee; if only to demonstrate the union’s genuine concern for speedy resolution of the matter. Our Union had had a number of interactions with the Governor Suswam Committee since then with the hope of aligning the patriotic zeal that gave rise to the Agreement with its implementation. We are at pains to report that the Government side has fully reverted to its “no-fund” refrain which epitomises a grand design to frustrate the 2009 Agreement and all other procedures related to it. This is highly unfortunate. How could the same Federal Government that, within the last three years, generously supported private concerns like the Airlines and Banks with trillions of Naira from the public vaults as “bail outs” suddenly turn round to say it as no fund to conscientiously revitalise its own public universities? The Government largesse which was extended to the Nollywood is also still fresh in our memory. Again, we ask, why should the funding of education, and university education for that matter, continue to be treated with levity? Available information indicates that the Suswam Committee was to be used as smokescreen to deceive ASUU, Nigerian students and their parents as well as other unsusopecting members of the public on the purportedly released N100 billion for the implementation of the Needs Assessment Report. First, Government plans to divert the regular yearly allocations to universities by TETFund to make at least 70% of the N100 billion. This is unacceptable to ASUU; it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, since the idea of ‘revitalisation’ took full cognisance of the intervention role of the TETFund ab initio. Again, contrary to subsisting operational procedures, about 75% of monies meant for revitalising universities would not be released to them as the Suswam Committee plans to hand over the construction of the hostel projects to the Federal Ministry of Education and/or the National Universities Commission (NUC) for implementation. This is illegal; neither the Ministry nor NUC is backed by Laws of Nigerian public universities to divert monies meant for the development of these institutions into centrally-executed projects. Until and unless the Suswam Committee gives the Union a guarantee that it would not serve as another means of recycling money and of diverting fund meant for the schools, ASUU will not continue to deliberate in the ongoing meeting. In addition, we see a continuation of outrageous contract regimes in the plan to centrally coordinate the construction of student hostels as done in the case of the 12 newly established federal universities with the TETFund resources. Our students, no doubt, deserve decent accommodation for them to live and learn better than what obtains now. Nevertheless, the NUC has been acting contrary to its statutory function as a regulatory agency, transmuting itself to a “Tenders’ Board” which awarded contracts for the construction of 560 bed spaces hostel for each university at a whopping sum of N1.2 billion. This contract sum translates into N2.143 million per bed space and N8.571 million per room. We foresee more of such scandalous contracts with the new students’ hostel project being planned by the Suswam Committee. To be specific, the Committee is proposing to commit as much as N1.6 million to a bed space; whereas our random check suggests that this could go for between N200, 000. 00 and N400, 000.00 – depending on location. We call on the National Assembly to further investigate this matter as part of their oversight function. The hype about Earned academic Allowances Government has devoted so much energy into its efforts to distort the main triggers of ASUU’s strike. When the strike started, Government mischievously announced to Nigerians that ASUU’s strike was chiefly for the sake of money in the form of Earned Academic Allowances. In fact, at one of the meetings, the Chief Government Representative told the Joint Senate- House of Representatives Committees on Education that the MoU signed by Government did not contain the expressed commitment of Government to provide N100 billion immediately, and N400 billion yearly for the next three years. It took the Chairman of Senate Committee on Education’s intervention to remind the government official that he began his presentation by acknowledging the authenticity of the MoU. For the same reason, at every meeting with the Government Team, the same government functionary repeated that earned allowances were the major issue in dispute even when the Union has said, repeatedly, that for any solution to be acceptable to our members, it must include the implementation of the funding component of the Agreement. ASUU Team was particularly amused that, government believed that what our members are looking for is just money to spend. Why else would government, through the Minister of Finance dangle N30 billion as if it was a dole-out when, in fact, that amount of money was unrelated to the Agreement and the work of the Implementation Committee? We have said it everywhere, and all the time, and we still say it here again that our members have earned their allowances by working for them. They are not begging for crumbs from Government. The Nigerian Government owe them and they deserve to be paid. Passing the buck to University Governing Councils, is only a repeat performance of a one-act play. This tactic has been tried severally even by military dictators in the past, and it ended in vain. The only honourable and patriotic option left for Government is to get off the merry-go- round and implement the 2009 Agreement judiciously. Nothing short of that would make our Union to review its earlier position. Improper conducted examinations in some Universities We are disturbed that, in the desperation of some Vice- Chancellors to undermine the ongoing efforts to attract substantial funding support for our public universities, some examinations are being conducted under situations that undermine their credibility. The conduct of final degree examinations outside the Campuses at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and Lagos State University (LASU), with improper invigilation and under policemen cover, casts serious doubts on the authenticity of such examinations. The same goes for Post UTME so far held in some universities. We appeal to our Vice-Chancellor to cease from further eroding the credibility of the academic profession which the iconic status of their offices represents. They should remember that they are destroying themselves and their professional calling by desecrating the sacred ethos of university degree and selection examinations. Resolving the crisis Gentlemen of the Press, our enthusiasm, which we falsely believed was also shared by the Government Team through the MoU in 2012, was fired by the conviction that, with sincerity and good faith, the implementation of the 2009 Agreement would give the much-needed impetus for transforming our universities within a short time and making our country visible on the global radar of development. Unfortunately, this hope was dashed by Government’s insensitivity and demonstrations of bad faith. Consequently, our members are left with no other choice than to prosecute this strike to its logical conclusion. ASUU members nationwide are saying this strike will not be suspended until and unless the Government respects the 2009 Agreement and makes concrete efforts to implement it in the best interest of the country. We therefore use this medium to, once again, thank our students and their parents for supporting this struggle to save public universities and the Nigerian nation. We equally thank other patriotic Nigerians in the media, labour and civil society organizations for identifying with ASUU to secure our collective future. While appreciating your understanding and support so far, we urge you to remain steadfast for us to regain the lost glory of Nigeria’s public universities once and for all. Gentlemen of the Press, you will probably agree with ASUU that the key to the development of any nation is its education. University education is the master key because the greatness of every country is determined by the quality of its education, especially its universities. It is only by repositioning our universities to compete globally that we can make Nigeria great again. The alternative is to continue in the path cleared for us by the duo of IMF and World Bank, which dictates that we surrender our country and the future of our children to continued slavery. We deserve to be free. To achieve freedom, we must struggle to free our education. And, with a revitalised university system, Nigeria shall be free! The struggle continues! Thank you
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 20:50:19 +0000
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