Inside FG - ASUU Deal ‘ASUU began strike after 351 letters to FG, 150 meetings with officials’ Category: Big Story Published on Sunday, 10 November 2013 05:01 Written by Isa Sa’idu, Zaria, From Haruna Gimba Yaya, Kano & Ismail Adebayo, Abuja Hits: 683 President Goodluck Jonathan (left) with Academic Staff Union of Universities delegates during the president’s meeting with the union at the Presidential Villa, Abuja last week. Since September 2009, when the leadership of the Academic Union of Universities (ASUU) entered into an agreement with the federal government on funding of universities, the union had written 351 letters and met various government officials at least 150 times to remind government on the need to honour the agreement promise, a source close to ASUU has disclosed. It was after all the said efforts had failed to yield results that the union ordered its members to down tools in July, the source added. It is against this backdrop that the leadership of ASUU believed that it is being unfairly treated by both the government and a segment of the Nigerian public, as it has taken all the necessary measures to avoid embarking on the current strike action, but was forced to resort to it owing to alleged government’s nonchalant posture, it was gathered. “They thought we are stupid and that was why they didn’t take us seriously. Between 2009 and last September, we wrote about 351 letters concerning the discussion and we met with government officials for not less than 150 times. This is why even some of our colleagues were skeptical, thinking that we have compromised the 2009 agreement,” our source said. The source also said ASUU usually always took many things into consideration before embarking on strike. “It is not as people think that we just embark on strike for improvement of our salaries and allowances. These people thought that we are stupid and that is why we always embark on strike, forgetting that about 70 per cent of our members are always affected by ASUU strikes because they are also pursuing their second or third degrees. What we are doing is about the system that is collapsing, and the federal government’s NEEDS Assessment report has vindicated our position. “On their own, they set up a committee to verify this decay that we are talking about, thinking that we are exaggerating this decay in our universities. Government selected its people and a representative from us. The committee vindicated us in their report, saying that what ASUU is saying about decay in Nigerian universities is true. What they saw during their work as a federal government committee was 1,000 times higher than how ASUU is putting it,” the source said. The source, who did not want to disclose what President Goodluck Jonathan has offered the union in order to pacify them to end their ongoing strike at their last meeting with the federal government, however, said that the meeting with the president centred around the 2009 agreement. “We told them to go and implement that agreement. We are not part of the implementation team. It is the government that is required to implement the agreement. We said that there is decay in our universities and we estimated over N3 trillion to address that decay, but we said there is no way a government would put N3 trillion at a time. This is why we said lets inject the amount we have agreed with them in five years. This provision was made with the belief that if it is properly followed, it would bring significant improvement in the universities and if such trend is maintained, we believed that very soon we would address the challenges of our universities and make them competitive with other universities in the world,” the source said. According to ASUU, since the signing of the 2009 agreement, the federal government was only able to address the salary component of it. “But even for the salary component, no single academic staff has been paid any allowance since 2009. We told them if they want us to negotiate another agreement outside the 2009, we can sit down with them to tell us the level of implementation, what they can do now and what they cannot do now. “We are human beings, we can give concessions because this is our profession and our own lives. It is always disheartening when go into a classroom to deliver lectures, because of certain conditions, the students cannot comprehend and at the end of the day we would be accused of producing half-baked graduates. These are the issues we discussed with the president,” our source said. FGN/ASUU 2009 agreement Part of the 2009 agreement provides for autonomy and funding of the universities. This is the serious bone of contention that led to the present stalemate. The agreement, for example, provides under what it described as a long-term solution to the problems facing the universities, for 26 per cent of federal and states’ budgets to be channelled to the education sector, with 50 per cent of that figure earmarked for universities. Other section of the agreement provides for a special salary structure for university lecturers, which include earned allowances, honoraria, supervision of postgraduate students and leave allowances, as well as pension matters and even retirement age for professors, which was put at 70. The 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, which was produced in January of that year, was an offshoot of the FGN/ASUU 2001 agreement and it further states that: “The single Term of Reference of the Committee (FGN/ASUU negotiation committee) was to re-negotiate the 2001 FGN/ASUU Agreement and enter into a workable Agreement. “In the course of discussion, the committee agreed that the essence of the re-negotiation was: i) to reverse the decay in the university system, in order to reposition it for greater responsibilities in national development; ii) to reverse the brain drain, not only by enhancing the remuneration of academic staff, but also by disengaging them from the encumbrances of a unified civil service wage structure; iii) to restore Nigerian universities through immediate, massive and sustained financial intervention; and iv) to ensure genuine university autonomy and academic freedom.” Lecturers’ opinion As all eyes are set on tomorrow’s ‘decisive’ congresses of the about 120 branches of ASUU nationwide, where decisions would be taken on whether to accept the offers made by President Jonathan or to reject them and continue with the industrial action, some lecturers have said they support calling off of the strike. According to Dr Moveh David Omeiza of department of political science at the Ahmadu Bello University, ASUU national body and his colleagues should accept what the federal government has offered, “but [must] ensure that they [government] make commitment on the remaining aspects of the agreement.” “I think this is better. The federal government has been mobilizing various groups against us (ASUU), which makes public opinion to be in favour of the government. For that, I think we should accept what the government has offered and allow them to make commitment on the other aspects,” Dr Omeiza said. On how they have been coping with life since government stopped paying them salary, Dr Omeiza said the ABU chapter of ASUU has initiated a strategy where soft loan were given to members. Dr Isa Umar Faruk of the department of Geography, Bayero University, Kano (BUK), said he would vote for an end to the strike largely because of his students and their parents, who are the prime victims of the ASUU action. “But representatives of the ministries of labour and productivity and those of finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria, as well as the Nigerian Labour Congress and Trade Congress should all be made to sign whatever the president has offered to end the strike. These promises of the president that would be endorsed by those stakeholders that I have mentioned should be published on the newspapers and other mediums, so that whenever the president violates his promises, people can be able to judge. “This is my personal opinion on the whole issue because it has now reached a point where some parents are seeing us as those who do not want their children to have education. History would remember us among those that struggled for the education sector in Nigeria and would remember whoever that did otherwise,” Dr Faruk said. Chairman of ABU-ASUU, Dr Muhammad Kabir Aliyu, said the union was not enjoying the present strike, adding that it had become necessary in order to save the system from total collapse. ‘Dr Fagge is a dogged fighter’ A university don, Professor Tanko Idris, has described the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Nasir Isa Fagge, as a man who would always stand his ground to achieve a set objective. Professor Tanko, who stated this during an interview with Sunday Trust, said the ASUU leader was a man who would always stick to his words even in the face of pressure from government. The professor, who is also the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Bayero University Kano (BUK), said he was sure the ASUU president was capable of withstanding pressures from any quarters, in the face of the ongoing strike by university lecturers. “I have known Dr Fagge since my days as the ASUU chairman in BUK. Throughout our struggles then, I knew him to be a man of his words, with a foresight when dealing with issues. He always stood by his words and whenever he was pursuing a target, he would not relent until that target was achieved, especially if he was representing the people on that mission. For example, if he is given people’s mandate like the current ASUU struggle, he will not succumb to any pressure until he delivers the mandate,” Professor Tanko said. According to him, despite the pressure that was being mounted on the ASUU president over the current strike action by university teachers, the president had no power to single handedly ask lecturers to return to classes. “Whoever is on that seat as ASUU president doesn’t have the monopoly to end the strike on his own accord. He must consult other national leaders of the union and executives at the local chapters before a decision can be taken. So it is not about pressure, because no matter the pressure, he must consult other ASUU members before the strike can be called off. “It is for that reason that whenever they had a meeting with government representatives, he would tell newsmen that he will have to first relay the outcome to his principals, as they were the ones to decide the next line of action,” he added. Professor Tanko added that, “So even if there is pressure on him to end the strike, that pressure will not be on his shoulders alone, as other ASUU officials and zonal congresses have to also share the pressure.” Debunking insinuations from some quarters that the ASUU president could be influenced with financial incentives, Professor Tanko said: “Dr Fagge was once the chairman of the local chapter of ASUU, he also served as BUK zonal coordinator and during all these periods, he was never found wanting. To my knowledge, he never collected bribes or used his position as representative of the people to enrich himself or to his own advantage at the expense of the teeming ASUU members he was representing.” Similarly, the chairman of the union in University of Abuja, Dr Clement Chup, described Dr Fagge as a complete gentleman and an intelligent and forward-looking academician. Dr Chup, who spoke with our correspondent on phone, said the president had never defaulted in defending the position of the union during talks with government. “He has carried on well with everything concerning the strike and negotiations with federal government based on the principles of the union. He has never, at anytime, left us out in whatever his leadership is doing on behalf of the union. He is a man who listens and consults widely before taking decisions. “We are solidly behind him and we will go to any length with his leadership on the need to do the right thing for the education sector. Our national president has done very well to move the union ahead. He has also made a lot of sacrifices for the cause of ASUU. We are behind him because he is the kind of person we want in the union. Besides, he is disciplined, highly principled and selfless. His experience has really helped us as a union. I think we are very proud of him and we remain committed to his leadership,” he said. Corroborating, a former student of the ASUU president, said the union leader was always committed and dedicated as a lecturer. “Dr Fagge was my lecturer as an undergraduate student of Physics in BUK and from my first year in the school, I always knew him as a principled man; he was a man of his words even in his relationship with students. He was kind and always straightforward,” Munzali Musa said. Musa, who is a post-graduate student in Turkey, said Dr Fagge was always punctual for classes. “As a lecturer of Nuclear Physics, the ASUU president was to me one of the best lecturers in the physics department.” sundaytrust.ng/index.php/top-stories/14978-inside-fg-asuu-deal-asuu-began-strike-after-351-letters-to-fg-150-meetings-with-officials
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 19:49:27 +0000
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