The negotiations for a better deal for the public-funded Nigerian universities between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have become so indubitably Sisyphean so much so that the union would always be forced to declare industrial actions which in most cases would take months to attract the government’s attention.
Even when the government pretends to show interest in the outcome of the negotiations, it temporises and begins to divert attention of both the union and the public from the issues that led to the breakdown of industrial peace in the first place.
Most annoying is that after the government’s underhanded manipulations, subterfuges and delays, it spends humongous amounts of money on propaganda to confuse the undiscerning public about the points at issue.
It needs to be repeated that the current strike, which the government has allowed to fester, began as a two-week warning strike meant to nudge the authorities to respect both Memorandum of Understanding and Memorandum of Action, which were products of the 2020 strike that upended the calendar of the university system alongside the Covid 19 pandemic. The government kept dilly-dallying, setting up one committee after the other.
In the last six months, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has set up at least three committees to resolve its conflict with ASUU but none of the recommendations of these bodies has been respected by the government that empanelled these committees.
It is curious that since the strike started on February 14, 2022, the Minster of Education had only spoken twice, and on each occasion, he did not speak up to five minutes on the current crisis, which his ministry and that of Labour and Employment have incompetently handled. It appears that the issues are more than their capacities could comprehend. Can’t these guys be forced to go in order to allow competent people to breathe the desired air into the two offices?
It is heartening to read the response of the Briggs’ Committee dismissing the ugly and unpatriotic rumours emanating from government circles regarding the report of the committee in its efforts to genuinely resolve the feud between the government and ASUU, which the former does not have the gravitas to bring to an end. The Briggs’ Committee, made up of distinguished Nigerians, is fully aware that a devious attempt is being made to smear the members and their distinguished careers.
This government, true to type, is looking for excuses to render nugatory the duly signed 2009 Agreement between the Federal Government of Nigeria and ASUU. Adamu Adamu, in his warped logic, engaged in a red herring after the FEC meeting on August 17, 2022, when as part of his effete propaganda, he reduced the all-important matter between ASUU and the government to the issue of No-Work-No Pay.
The union embarked on a strike to protest the government’s failure to respect the Agreement of 2009, which among other very important matters, affects university lecturers, conditions of service, students’ welfare, revitalisation of the public universities, stoppage of the establishment of back water universities by both the Federal and State Governments, and the discontinuation of the usage of the IPPIS, which is a package of fraud employed to steal the salaries of workers by government officials in the Accountant- General’s Office. Committee after committee, the government wants to deepen the logjam by raising the shibboleth of No-Work-No Pay even when the issues that gave rise to the strike have not been resolved.
The government pretended to be studying the report of the Briggs’ Committee for many weeks, only for Adamu Adamu, who must arguably be the worst Minister of Education in the history of Nigeria, to lie openly that his lacklustre counterpart in the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Ngige, was not telling the truth when the latter told the world that President Buhari had given him (the Minister of Education) two weeks within which to resolve the industrial conflict so that students could go back to school.
Let it be stated without any form of equivocation that one of the reasons this current strike has lingered is partly because the two ministers have been at war with each other. Buhari himself appears not to know what is happening in Nigeria. There appears to be no general coordination, not only in the Ministries of Education and Labour, but the entirety of governmental architecture with the nation literally on its belly.
The economy has collapsed, with the national currency tumbling to the worst level in the history of the country; insecurity is beyond control, with bandits and invaders controlling many parts of the country; unemployment and inflation are sky-bound; the life of an average Nigerian has become worthless; government officials and their agents are busy stealing the country dry, making nonsense of the entire Human Development Index.
The crime of ASUU is that since 1981 it has insistently demanded that the governments at all levels should properly fund education instead of funneling the hard-earned resources of the country into dubious pockets and projects. It is strange that it has taken a series of strikes by the union for the current administration, after a lot of dithering and empty noises, to shamelessly agree that the IPPIS is a machine that has been illicitly used to steal from workers’ monthly salaries, having admitted that after testing all the payment platforms before the government, including the UTAS designed by ASUU, that the IPPIS scored the least mark.
Adamu Adamu, who prior to becoming a minister was gung-ho in his public support for ASUU in its dogged efforts to re-direct the attention of the government to fund education properly, has turned completely full circle to fight the union obviously as a result of his incompetence and new-found orientation. He has asked the union to call off its strike but the question is: Has the Agreement that took twelve years plus to reach between both parties been signed to warrant the suspension of the strike?
The union in particular, and Nigerians in general, should expect hack writers and shameless propagandists of all hues and stripes to twist the issues in contention, all aimed at diverting attention. The government has unfortunately realised that its hunger policy approach cannot force members of ASUU back to work. Nigerians and, in fact, the global community, need to be reminded why ASUU is “always” on strike. History shall bear the union out!
- Uwasomba writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State