In October 2009, the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), entered into an agreement on conditions of service for university lecturers; funding of public universities, university autonomy and academic freedom, among others. It was the first major strike after the nine months strike by the union, suspended in December 2020, under the then President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi. However, all has not been well after the 2020 suspension of strike as always, as the union had continued to frown at the federal government’s failure to fulfill its part of agreements reached that had led to the conditional suspension of each strike. From when the present ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke came on board, it has been from one strike ultimatum to the other, with the hope that government will sit up and address the union’s concerns however, the lecturers eventually down tools in all public universities on 14th February 2022.
How it started
The strike came on the heels of Government’s failure to satisfactorily implement the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with the Union in December 2020 on funding for revitalization of public universities (both Federal and States), renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ ASUU Agreement, deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), Earned Academic Allowances, State Universities, promotion arrears, withheld salaries, and non-remittance of third-party deductions. Miffed by the union’s decision to shut universities, minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige during the first conciliation meeting between the government side and ASUU , had declared the strike as illegal, as the demands of the union were already being addressed since last year. He added that he strike was a clear breach of the law, following failure of the union to go through the normal process before embarking on the industrial action.
Ngige’s action
Ngige said: “I saw their letter in my office on February 18, which is last Friday and as you know, they started their action on Monday, February 14. So, it is a clear breach of labour laws. There are violations. “If you must notify us of an intending strike action, you give us a minimum of 14 days notice. I pointed it out to them that we are a country guided by laws. Nobody is above the law. They should obey it.” ”We are shocked that they went on this strike. These issues were discussed November/ December last year, up to the time we paid the monies for the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA). It was done last year. We paid N22.172B. So, they have received the money. “The second area is renegotiation of the 2009 agreement. It talks about renegotiation of their conditions of service, both salaries and allowances. I made it clear to them that there is a government process. The Federal Ministry of Education alone cannot wake up and increase your salaries. “There was a committee we empanelled in the Federal Ministry Education to take it up because they are their direct employer. That committee was headed by Prof. Manzali and there was a draft proposal, which Education Ministry has to agree on with them and then break it up to the higher bodies of the government, the Presidential Committee on Salaries (PSC) and from the PSC, it can then go to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval.”
Dispute
Regarding the dispute over payment platform for the lecturers, Ngige recalled that NITDA finished their assessment of the University Transparency and AccountabilitySolutions(UTAS) developed by ASUU and its supervising Minister, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy sent the report to him. On the outstanding issue of revitalization fund 2022, he said the government side, comprising of the Finance and Education ministers and the Chief of Staff would meet as directed by Mr. President, to finalize grey areas on the issue.” Ngige was certain that ASUU would call off the strike before expiration of the one month warning strike however, students were kept at home for eight months, as both government and ASUU continued to rigmarole, not minding the negative impact of the strike on their integrity and on the students who are always at the receiving end. From the one month warning strike in February, it was extended for another two months as a result of alleged stoppage of university lecturers’ salaries by Ngige whereas salaries for the other university unions also on strike was approved.
Expiration of strike
At the expiration of the extended two months warning strike, there was a second extension of three months before the union eventually declared an indefinite strike at the sixth month of staying off work. Things had spiraled out of control when government had invoked the “No Work No Pay” policy against the striking lecturers. To find an end to the contention, several conciliatory meetings were held between ASUU and key parastatals representing the Federal Government; Ministers of Labour, Ministers of Education, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) etc. Some meetings were equally held with leadership of House of Representatives led by the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila ,but industrial harmony was far fro being achieved, even after President Muhammadu Buhari had issued an ultimatum for all demands to be met and the strike called off. The minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, further inaugurated a seven man committee chaired by Pro-Chancellor, Alex Ekweme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs, with a three months mandate to conclude renegotiation of the 2009 agreement reached between government and ASUU at workable terms. Adamu who lamented the incessant strike actions by ASUU, expressed optimism that the outcome of the renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement with University-based Unions would engender industrial peace and harmony in public universities in Nigeria. He appealed to the reconstituted Committee to double its effort towards concluding the assignment and producing a realistic and workable draft Agreements that would holistically tackle the challenges confronting the NUS and reposition it to effectively play its very important role in national development.
Unfortunately, the report of the committee suffered a setback following ASUU’s non acceptance of the award of a Recommended Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS), on the grounds it was presented to them by the Prof. Nimi Briggs-led committee in a disrespectful manner.
According to Prof. Osodeke, the ‘award salary’ was “against the principle of collective bargaining, based on the Wages Boards and Industrial Council’s Decree No 1 of 1973, the Trade Dispute Act (1976), ILO Conventions 49 (1948), 91(1950), 154 (1988) and recommendation 153 (1981), Udoji Commission Report of 1974, and Cookey Commission Report of 1981.
“The Munzali Jibril-led renegotiation committee submitted the first Draft Agreement in May 2021 but government’s official response did not come until about one year later! Again, the Award presented by the Nimi Briggs-led Team came across in a manner of take-it-or-leave-it on a sheet of paper. No serious country in the world treats their scholars this way.
FG insincere
He further accused the Federal Government of insincerity in its approach to resolving the lingering crisis in the university academic system, and demanded the government, through the Ministry of Education, should return to the New Draft Agreement of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Renegotiation Committee, whose work according to him, “spanned a total of five and half years as a demonstration of good faith.”
The government on its part through the Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo, had said there was no money to pay the salary recommended by the committee due to dwindling resources. Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Arc. Sonny Echono who also said limited resources was a major factor affecting Federal Government’s ability to meet all the demands put forward by the striking university lecturers, adding that the issues under agitation by ASUU related to the ministry of education had been met except two out of which one of the issues requires huge amount of money to address.
But ASUU insisted that governments claim of paucity of revenue was not tenable. ”This is because of several reasons chief of which is poor management of the economy. This has given rise to leakages in the revenue of governments at all levels. There is wastefulspending, misappropriation of fund and outright stealing of our collective patrimony. “ASUU believes that if the leakages in the management of the country’s resources are stopped, there will be more than enough to meet the nation’s revenue and expenditure targets without borrowing and plunging the country into a debt crisis as is the case now.” To drive home its point, the union moved to reject government’s offer of 35 per cent salary increase for Professors and 23.5 per cent increase for every other category of workforce in Federal Universities, the budgetary provision of N150 billion for the revitalization of Federal Universities and 50 billion for payment of outstanding areas of earned academic allowances of lecturers all to be paid in the first quarter of 2023. Even though the offer was rejected, the education minister, Adamu shortly before setting up another committee but this time comprising of Pro-Chancellors and Vice Chancellors of Federal Universities to look at other demands that ASUU has presented particularly the areas there has been no consensus, noted that an agreement was reached with ASUU members that henceforth, allowances pertaining to ad-hoc duties of the academic and nonacademic staff shall be paid as at when due by the Governing Councils of Universities to which such services were rendered and to the staff who performed such services.
Adamu’s stance
Adamu who confessed that resolving the industrial dispute between the Federal Government and ASUU members was not as easy as he thought it could be, had urged all Councils and Senates of Universities, to rise up to their responsibilities, make policies that would stop university based unions from embarking on strikes. “We have done the best that we could in the circumstance to resolve this issue but to no avail. However, all hope is not lost. After inter-ministerial consultations and rounds of hard negotiations with all government agencies, we interacted with the Unions. I personally, gave it all it required to resolve the current challenges. “I met the Unions anywhere and everywhere possible with facts, figures, and with absolute sincerity. For example, I directly met with ASUU leadership in my house, in my office and at the ASUU Secretariat on several different occasions, in addition to other formal engagements going on.” Adamu’s confession of ASUU proving difficult is not the first, his labour counterpart, Sen. Ngige, had earlier accused the union of making negotiation difficult and as a result, resulting in prolonged strike action. “Negotiation now is being made impossible by ASUU. For example, ASUU insists that National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) should take the payment platform, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) that it developed and deploy it for payment in the university whether it is good or bad , whether it failed integrity and vulnerability test or not . “And ASUU members know that fraud committed on payment platforms can run into billions. If a hacker adds zeros to hundreds, it becomes billions. NITDA brought out the report of its test on UTAS – that it passed the user acceptability but failed vulnerability and integrity tests- the two critical tests that prevent fraud. “Again, I went beyond my schedule as a conciliator, spoke to ASUU and NITDA to continue the test and see whether they can make up the lapses and arrive at 100% because that is what NITDA insists on that they cannot even take the platform at 99.9% of vulnerability and integrity. That they can’t take that risk on a payment system, that it can be hacked into. “I have done what Napoleon could not do . You can ask them, the ASUU leadership. I’m sure that in the innermost part of their hearts, they can’t sweep away my untiring efforts. I’m the only conciliator lately, who has conciliated and put timelines on agreements and pushed all the parties, the government side to implement and stick to the timelines. Such fidelity wasn’t there hitherto. “Last year alone, based on the timelines I put on the 2020 agreement, they got N92.7b in terms of Revitalization and Earned Academic/Earned Allowances for the university system. I went out of the schedule of my office, to the Ministry of Finance, to the Office of the Accountant General myself, on occasions, to ensure these monies were paid.”
ASUU reacts
In a swift reaction, ASUU while asking government to stop misleading the nation on UTAS saying the User Acceptance Test (UAT) and Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Test (VAPT) scored the platform as high as 85% and 75% contrary to governments claims by UTAS integrity tests were a failure. Tired with the industrial disharmony with the lecturers, government finally referred ASUU to National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) for adjudication on 8th September 2022, about seven months after the union embarked on strike. Government had another ace in its hands; it went further to register a breakaway faction of the lecturers’ union, Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA), and the Nigeria Association of Medical and Dental Lecturers in Academics (NAMDA). With the registration of both university based unions especially CONUA, the Federal Government has strategically broken the ranks of ASUU.
NICN’s decision
On 21st September, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), Abuja Division ordered ASUU) granted an order of interlocutory injunction, restraining ASUU from continuing their indefinite strike, pending the determination of the substantive suit before the court
The judgment delivered by Justice Polycarp Hamman was however appealed by ASUU, who warned that even if the court succeed in forcing its members to resume classes they could not force themtoteachwiththeiropenminds.
Prof, Osodeke maintained ASSU was willing to end its seven-month old strike at the time, once concrete agreements were reached with the Federal Government by putting a proposal on the table and were willing to negotiate constructively.
“On all these issues, we have given the government a minimum that we can accept, but they have not responded on issue of revitalisation, on issue of earned allowance and on issues that we have all discussed. We negotiated and agreed that they should sign and this is very simple, not more than one day.”
(New Telegraph)
