Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) recently embarked on a warning strike to press for improved funding of the universities, staff welfare and other matters. We hope that this will not lead to full-blown strike which will make university lecturets to boycott classrooms, abort the academic calendar and push parents to look beyond our shores for the education of their children. Members of the union seem to have found going on strike quite profitable.
A cursory computation by a Nigerian online newspaper revealed last week that “in the 19 years since Nigeria returned to civil rule under the Fourth Republic university teachers in the country have embarked on strike 14 times that saw them stay away from work for about 40 months. The last strike by the teachers was in November 2018.” The paper’s figures appear conservative. The ASUU members apparently think nothing is wrong pocketing nearly four years pay for doing no work.
The union exploits the weaknesses of Nigerian governments and institutions to wreak havoc on the education system, turning out half-baked graduates that are barely employable by reason of lack of diligent instruction and lectures, and undermining the education system while pretending to be trying to save it. The last consideration to them is students. Their sing-song is that they are trying to save the Nigerian university system whereas, indeed, they have rendered the system most unreliable in the world. Anxious parents look around them for alternatives as closely as Togo, Benin Republic and Ghana. The rich send their children to Europe, America, Canada, India, Turkey, and Russia. Nigerian students are everywhere in the world by reason of the unstable calendar of Nigerian universities. The cost runs into many billions of dollars.
Any strike at this time would rub the country on the wrong side. This is just not the time to be talking about a strike in Nigerian universities, at a time the world is wholly paralysed by the Coronavirus, when the country is looking up to the universities to help provide solution to the virus or making real contributions toward the solution of the health challenges posed by this novel virus. Nigeria should not be presented with any strike at a time the Federal Government is contending with a price collapse in the world oil market and the government has decided to revise the budget downwards to keep it realistic.
But irrespective of all this, there is no country in the civilised world where workers go on strike and expect to be paid for that day. That is why in those countries, strikes need delicate preparations, including securing an explicit mandate. The striking workers must vote openly and must be seen to vote for the strike, so everyone is sure and aware of the consequences of what is happening, including how to make up for the inevitable loss of income. Strikes are serious matters but ASUU seems to have turned it into a game. Members of the union rush into strikes because, to them, a strike is a paid holiday. As a bargaining tactic, the union has over-used it and strike has lost its effectiveness. The Nigerian public would not buy it at this time.
The background to the impending strike is that ASUU lost the argument in rejecting its inclusion in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), and when the Federal Government refused to fold, ASUU then recalled all the agreements made since 2009 which were not honoured by the government.
We commend the National Assembly for its timely intervention on the matter. We laud the Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, for his words of wisdom. Given the current situation in which the country is facing a pandemic and oil price collapse, we would have expected a privileged union like the ASUU to exercise a great deal of restraint and circumspection. It is not too late. It is encouraging to know that the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) would soon be married to IPPIS to accommodate the variations in the two systems. We think this is a good starting point. The union should take the next logical step to avoid another strike.
While we object to the speed and frequency of ASUU’s strikes, we must express our disappointment at the Federal Government’s neglect of and the absence of adequate funding for our universities. Universities are not cheap to run and in Nigeria’s case, they constitute vital national assets and we all know that wretched universities would only produce wretched graduates. We urge the National Assembly to use its good offices to finally settle once and for all the ASUU endless agitations over the 2009 agreement which have provided the lightning rod for endless strikes by ASUU.