The national strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has once again disrupted the academic calendar. While students and their parents groan about the impropriety of the strike, ASUU leaders defend their decision to shut the classrooms until the Federal Government honours the 2009 Agreement.
After a three-year break from prolonged national strikes, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) started an indefinite strike on Monday, causing concern for students and their parents.
The lecturers are not to return to the classrooms or laboratories of public universities until the Federal Government honours the 2009 agreement with the union.
The unfulfilled agreement the union is fighting for include the non-payment of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), the failure to complete modalities to set up the Nigerian Universities Pension Commission, withdrawal of funding from staff schools, and the non-injection of the agreed N200 million funds yearly into the university system to support infrastructural development.
The directive had immediate effect in many public universities were classes stopped abruptly and examinations suspended. In others, academic activities slowly grounded to a halt – with some schools cramping the examination timetable to conclude the academic session with minimal damage. However, some other institutions could not salvage the session as they were scheduled to start examinations in a few weeks.
The strike was in full effect at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), University of Ibadan (UI), Ekiti State University (EKSU), Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE), and Bayero University Kano (BUK), University of Calabar, among others.
At BUK on Tuesday, students were seen leaving the campus with their suitcases. The situation was similar at EKSU and FUOYE with a good number of students travelling back home while those who did not travel were holed up in their hostels both on campus and off-campus. At UNILAG, where examination was scheduled to commence in two weeks, many students hung around waiting for directives to vacate the hostel, while at UI, students were forced to stop examination midstream.
When our correspondent visited the Federal University Lokoja (FUL) on Monday night, examinations were ongoing in some of the departments. While the 200-Level Economics students sat for one of their papers on Tuesday morning, others in 100 Level had theirs in one of the courses at 11.30am.
A student in the History Department, who gave her name as Blessing, said she was billed to finish her end-of-semester examinations by Saturday, but that the papers were crammed, to make all end by Thursday.
However, not all public universities may join the strike. The Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, which usually always complies with ASUU strikes, and the Delta State University (DELSU) are not on strike because of problems in the local chapters of the union; while the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) has a tradition of not joining ASUU strikes for over a decade.
Students: strike not fair
Students were unanimous in describing the strike as unfair, particularly coming at a time institutions are about conducting examinations to complete the 2016/2017 academic session. For some others, such as FUOYE, the Benue State University and Kogi State University (KSU), where students recently resumed after various local strikes that kept them at home for long, this one is a sad blow.
A BUK student, Silver Dada, said: “These ASUU people are not trying at all. They did not consider the hardship our parents are facing in this economic meltdown. For a course of five years, with this strike, which is indefinite, I may end up spending six years in the university. They are doing this because all their children are schooling abroad. Please, help me to tell ASUU and the Federal Government to settle their differences because we are going for another round of suffering. I cannot just imagine what is actually happening in the academic system and education system of Nigeria. This is quite unfair.”
Another BUK student, Joshua Enenche, who was on his way out when he spoke with The Nation, described the ASUU strike as a big disappointment and big shame to Nigeria.
“I am going back to my parents without knowing when I am coming back because the strike is indefinite. The government must rise up and do something urgent to resolve the crisis in the shortest possible time because an idle mind is the devils playing ground,” he said.
A UNICAL student, Jane Okwocha, said students were idling away time in school.
“We came to school on Monday morning for lectures but no one came to teach us. There were no academic activities the entire day. Today, Tuesday, again nothing is happening. Some of us you have seen are those who belong to study groups or have tutorials among themselves. I think it is quite unfair to the students. What this means is that there is hardly any academic session that does not gets disrupted by these strikes.”
A student of KSU, who had already spent five months at home, said the situation at the institution would become even worse with the national strike.
The source said: “We are in a quandary here, and just when we were hoping that some miracle will unknot the issues, it has gotten worse. We are in double jeopardy. Our ASUU has problem with the state government, and, now this!”
Peter Abah, a 400-Level English student at the Benue State University (BSU) also recently resumed school after a strike. He expressed concern about the incessant strikes and called on the Federal Government to tackle the matter once and for all in the interest of young people.
Nigerian Youth and Students Organisation (NYSO) National President, Comrade, Tonye Tom-George, at a briefing on Tuesday said the strike was untimely.
“It is unfortunate that at this crucial time that our universities just started recuperating from the damages done by the same strike in the previous years, that the same ASUU is embarking on another indefinite strike.”
Niger Delta Students Union Government, National President, Edom Smart, appealed to ASUU to consider the recession affecting students and their parents/guardians, urging the Federal Government to expedite action in the implementation of the ASUU agreement.
However, another group, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), backed the strike. Its LASU Coordinator, Akorede Dhikrullah, urged students to look beyond the effect of the strike, saying it would benefit them, if well implemented.
A statement by the group accused public servants of spending money that would have been used to meet the lecturers’ demands.
“For us in the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), we find it unacceptable that while the government finds money to buy exotic cars for lawmakers, finance the outrageously expensive treatment of President Buhari in London and guarantees insanely luxurious lifestyle for political office holders, it is unable to find money to fund public education and meet the needs of academic staff,” it reads in part.
Parents: strike an expensive venture
A parent with three students at BSU, Mr Terna Ugande, said the strike was costing him too much money.
“I am at loss over the current strike because I have three children in the university. It has cost me enormous money. My hope was that this year they would graduate,” he said.
A mother, Mrs Angela Obodo, who has three daughters at the University of Port Harcourt, said she almost collapsed when her children called to inform her that they might be returning home because of another strike.
Obodo said: “This is sad news for me. I cannot afford to have them at home. What is the problem? If they owe the lecturers, the government should settle them because at the end, it is our children that will suffer. They are about to write their exam; they should allow them to finish this semester first before anything.”
Another parent, Mr Paul Adebamito, whose daughter schools at EKSU, said he was saddened that the strike commence at a week students were supposed to start their examination urging ASUU and government to reach an agreement to prevent a lengthy face-off.
He said: “What pains me most was that the lecturers went on strike a week the students were supposed to start their examination. With this situation, many of the students will be doing a lot of negative things.”
Mr Archibong Andinam, a parent with a child at UNICAL, urged the government and lecturers to resolve the impasse to limit the negative effect on students.
“These issues have lingered for too long and it is never a pleasant experience when our children have to come back home and just stay like that. The negative impact is so much. The constant disruption of their academics is not the best for their entire teaching-learning process. There is a calendar that should be adhered to for effective teaching and learning, but with the constant disruptions, I really wonder how effective the whole process would really be.”
ASUU: recession no excuse
While both parents and students have urged ASUU to consider the poor economy and not insist on getting all its demands, members of the union do not agree.
ASUU Chairman at EKSU, Prof Olufayo Olu-Olu, said there was nothing wrong about the timing of the strike as the university teachers had endured a long wait to have the agreement implemented.
Olu-Olu revealed that part of the agreement was the setting up of a pension scheme to which ASUU as a body had contributed over N1 billion. However, members who were retiring could not access the funds because the Nigerian Universities Pension Commission had not being licensed.
He said: “You (government) have an agreement with a body since 2009 for God’s sake; it is a long time because this is 2017 and that makes it eight good years.
“We kept on reminding them and within these eight years, there have been changing governments and you are hearing how they have been embezzling money and spending huge amounts of money on elections every four years.
“Those in the Executive arm, those in the Senate, House of Representatives and House of Assembly members, are earning huge sums of money, despite the recession in our country and the same government has refused to implement our agreement.”
The immediate past chairman of Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike chapter, Comrade Uzochukwu Onyebinama, said contrary to insinuations by many that persistent industrial actions by the lecturers was having negative effect on the education system, he said it had brought huge benefits the system.
Onyebinama, who spoke to our reporter at the institution on Tuesday, blamed the government for being insensitive to the plight of students and lecturers.
“Well, the strikes are not the reasons for the fallen educational standards. The reason is really lack of facilities. You are here in my office and as you can see, I don’t even have light. I cannot even engage in any meaningful activity today. The essence of this strike is to redress these inadequacies to enable us perform.
To end persistent strikes, he said the government should be alive to its responsibilities.
“This strike is to get the outstanding agreement of 2009 implemented. If they have done that, we won’t be talking about the strike.
“They should address the issue of salary shortfall. It began in 2015 actually, but since this January, we have not received our salaries in full. It is eight months as we speak. Our earned allowance from 2014 till date hasn’t been paid. When we were on a week strike last year, the leadership of the National Assembly intervened and made an offer to clear the arrears after they concluded the forensic audit of the money already released, we said that we don’t want the money to be paid in piece mill, that we will wait for the next 6months to allow them finish what they were doing, that ended in June and government hasn’t written to tell us if they have concluded with the audit.”
ASUU Chairman of UI, Dr Deji Omole, said it was sad that after the last major strike in 2013, which lasted six months, the Federal Government only realeased N200 billion to improve facilities in public universities once instead of annually. He said the government is owing federal universities N880 billion intervention fund and N128 billion fearned academic allowances.
Spokesperson of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian universities, Prof Michael Faborode, faulted the government’s handling of its negotiation with the union.
He said the issues ASUU has raised were cogent and should not be treated lightly.
“The ASUU strike is a result of mishandling and non-demonstration of sincerity by the government. There should have been no strike with forthright engagement with the education sector, but we have been playing to the gallery.
“While serious apprehension persists about the state of our education from primary to tertiary level, the NEEDS Assessment conducted in 2012 did not tell a lie about how bad things were. Yet, government after government played around with the future and destiny of the country, while more and more government officials and the rich send their children abroad, including to West African countries, with the implied capital flight.
“It makes no sense, as in the health sector too, that we allow our own facilities and institutions to decay, while we scamper overseas draining the already dwindling resources to sustain other economies, and our own continue to rot.
“We are too eager to complain about quality of education and that no Nigerian university is highly-rated globally. The way forward is a visible pragmatic commitment to taking the issue of knowledge-driven economy that accords proper priority and focus on quality and functional education very seriously. It is very obvious that the nation is handling education with levity and disturbing insincerity and we have to face the reality. Pretending or hoping that we can continue to patch-patch without serious soul-searching and redefinition of purpose will be wishful thinking,” he said.
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