Strike: We are tired of staying at home,undergrads appeal to ASUU,FG

By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.

FG,ASUU during one of the meetings called in Abuja to find lasting solution to the strike.

Undergraduates of public universities in Nigeria have appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU and the Federal government to reach an amicable resolution as the strike reached 120 days on Monday.

They made the passionate appeal in separate interview with our Correspondent in Lokoja on Sunday.

According to them,the strike had gone beyond tolerable level,adding that they were at the receiving end of it all in many instances.

Miss Abigail Alabi, a 300-level Biochemistry student, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria,described her staying at home idle due to the strike as “becoming unbecoming and making me restless as to when I will return to school to continue my studies.”

“For four months now, students of public universities have been forced to stay at home, doing nothing,as a result of ASUU strike. This is not good enough for the students’ educational ambition and the educational development of the country.

“Many of the affected students are said to have engaged in crime and other uncherishable activities,all because of the strike.

The Federal government and ASUU, should find ways of resolving the strike,we are tired of staying at home.

“When your mind stays idle,devil will make it its workshop,if care is not taken. So, FG and ASUU should do something urgent to save the situation,” she said.

Abdullahi Adamu, a party 400-level political science, University of Ibadan, said he had been going through psychological truman since the strike began, a development,he noted, had affected his health in away.

“The thinking as to when the strike will be called off for me and my colleagues to resume our studies has made my BP to rise beyond the normal level of 120/80.

“You will agree with me that hypertension is a silent killer,so I join millions of other colleagues in appealing to all the stake holders in the strike to take a critical look at the effect of it and save us the burden of the stagnation in our educational pursuit and call it off.

Christopher Aliyu,Aminat Salawu, Omeneke Mohammed, Shekinat Abdulkadir among other interviewees, also stressed the need to end the strike so that students could resume their studies.

Our Correspondent recalls that ASUU has embarked on at least eight strikes, since 2009 with telling effects on the tertiary education system in the country as well as the quality of students produced yearly.

ASUU said its strike was largely due to the failure of the federal government to implement agreements it entered into with the union since 2009 after a four-month strike.

Other agreements,the union said, include ;the 2017 Memoranda of Action, the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding, and the 2020 Memorandum of Action.

Below are the major demands of ASUU according to Business Day.

Funding for revitalisation of tertiary institutions

This dates back to the 2009 and 2013 agreements. The Federal Government agreed to inject a total of N1.3 trillion into public universities, both state and federal, in six tranches, starting from 2013, after the union decried the deplorable state of the institutions.

In 2013, the government was to release N200 billion, and for the five subsequent years, government was to release N220 billion each year.

After releasing the first tranche, the government stopped releasing the funds. In 2017, the government released N20 billion. In 2020, it promised to release N25 billion.

ASUU rejected the offer, insisting on N110 billion, which is 50 per cent of a tranche of N220 billion that it had demanded, but the government declined, citing paucity of funds.

The Federal Government has also asked ASUU to suggest other sources of funding. The union recommended value added tax and stamp duty, but decried that the government activated these sources and abandoned its agreement.

Payment of outstanding earned academic allowances (EAA)

In 2009, the Federal Government agreed to pay lecturers EAA, but the issue has lingered for years over the failure to implement it.

The government finally agreed to pay the first tranche of the backlog of allowances in November 2019 and the second instalment by August 2020.

But nothing was paid. The union also demanded mainstreaming payments of EAA into the annual budgets, beginning from the 2019 budget.

In 2020, the Federal Government agreed to pay N40 billion. The government recently said it had released N22.127 billion earned allowances of both academic and non-academic workers of universities to 38 universities.

Renegotiation of 2009 agreements

The Federal Government agreed to renegotiate the 2009 agreement to review university’s conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom.

The conditions of service include a separate salary structure for university lectures to be known as ‘Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure’.

Thirteen years later, the government recently inaugurated a seven-man committee, but ASUU has since refused to recognise the committee, and this could be seen prolonging the strike action.

Review of NUC 2004 Act to tackle the proliferation of universities

The union is calling for the review of the Nigeria Universities Commission (2004) Act to tackle the proliferation of universities.

The union decried that proliferation had become almost the order of the day as it appeared that both federal and state governments had turned universities to constituency projects. This, it noted, was turning universities into glorified secondary schools while standards continue to deteriorate.

26 per cent budgetary allocation to education sector

In a bid to improve the education sector, the union demanded 26 percent of Nigeria’s annual budget to be allocated to education, and half of that allocation to universities.

Implementation of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

Since the introduction of the IPPIS, ASUU has been kicking against it for many reasons. It said the system would make university operations difficult and inefficient, adding that universities operate a flexible payroll system to ensure flexible recruitment of lectures, to attract scholars from across the world, among others.

To this end, it deployed its own ‘UTAS,’ which it said passed the integrity test by the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) but the Federal Government has rejected it, insisting that UTAS failed the integrity test.

Constitution of visitation panels

This is one prayer that is finally being implemented by the Federal Government. According to the law, the government ought to visit its universities every five years, but the last visit was conducted in January 2011.

After several meetings with government and strike actions, the Nigerian government finally inaugurated 10 panels for 36 universities; six for 25 polytechnics, and five for 21 colleges of education.

Withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues of unions

Another lingering issue is the release of withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues of unions, which were all contained on December 22, 2020 Memorandum of Action.

ASUU accused the Federal Government of deducting check-off dues on behalf of the union and refused to remit the same between February and June 2020.

Salary shortfall

Since December 2015, lecturers in both federal and state universities in Nigeria had been experiencing a shortfall in their salaries as certain percentages were allegedly being deducted from their salaries by the government while the deductions were allegedly not being remitted to the appropriate quarters.

However, the union confirmed that issues around salary shortfall have been addressed by the Federal Government.