- We commend govt’s decision to pay four months of ASUU salaries
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has taken a major step towards normalising relations between the Federal Government and university teachers. The president has decided to pay four months of the eight months salaries of the lecturers that were seized following the invocation of the ‘no pay, no work’ rule against them by the Buhari administration. This was sequel to persistent breakdown of talks between the government and the university teachers, during the teachers’ last round of strike, last year.
The lecturers had embarked on strike from February 14, 2022, to October 27, 2022, to protest sundry issues, including successive governments’ failure to honour agreements they willingly entered into with them.
A statement by Ajuri Ngelale, presidential spokesman, explained the rationale for the presidential prerogative: “In view of his determination to mitigate the difficulties being felt during the implementation of key economic reforms in the country, as well as his recognition of the faithful implementation of terms which were agreed upon during the fruitful deliberations between ASUU and the Federal Government of Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu has directed the grant of an exceptional last waiver of the “No Work, No Pay” order on ASUU, which will allow for the previously striking members of ASUU to receive four months of salary accruals out of the eight months of salary which was withheld during the eight-month industrial action undertaken by the union.”
But the initiative is with a proviso that the waiver would be the last to be granted by the government to ASUU or any other union in the education sector.
We commend the president for this initiative. Things are really hard in the country, especially with the reengineering of the economy by the present government. Even those that are receiving full salaries find it tough to cope with the pains of the economic reforms. It is therefore thoughtful of the government to realise this fact and to have taken steps to mitigate the hardship on the lecturers.
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This ‘no victor, no vanquished’ approach is good for governance. It is better than a zero sum game which would have compounded the lecturers’ woes and the students would have been the ones to bear the brunt. The release of the four months salaries would at least mitigate the temptation on the part of the lecturers to either depend on their students’ generosity and or compulsory ‘levy’ to survive. The educational sector would be the ultimate loser in such a situation.
While applauding the government for this initiative, we hope both parties have learnt lessons from the circumstances that led to this juncture.
A sore point that led to breakdown in the relationship between the two parties was persistent flagrant repudiation by government of several agreements they both willingly reached.
It is not as if ASUU had no justification to feel angry about this and several other reasons, like poor funding of the universities, with its implications for learning, teaching and research, among others.
But is strike, particularly prolonged strike like the 2022 experience that lasted eight months, the answer to the crises in the universities? We do not think so.
Lest we forget, there was a nine-month strike by the lecturers in 2020, another three months strike in 2018, among others. If strike was the solution, our universities would have been some of the best in the world.
We implore the government to take a wholistic view of the situation on our campuses with a view to changing the situation from its present comatose state to one conducive to the undertaking of the appropriate functions in the citadels of learning.
Persistent strike, particularly as a first resort, is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good.
