Once again, the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, ASUU, and the Federal Government have reached an impasse as the Federal Government, at least for now, considers the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, it signed with ASUU in 2009 as being impossible to abide by. While ASUU remains adamant that the agreement remains binding once endorsed by both parties, the Federal Government gripes about the hefty sum that it is now being compelled to pay as backlog of allowances it failed to pay in accordance with the agreement earlier reached by both parties.
At the receiving end of this strike are the students whose fate is left hanging whenever ASUU resorts to indefinite strikes. While it may be justified that government remains the culprit in terms of dodging the implementation of agreements signed with ASUU, the frequent and usually lengthy strike is a means to an end that inflicts its own damage on an already comatose educational sector.
Although the demands of ASUU border on proper funding of education if the desire to attain an all – encompassing transformation agenda in the sector is to be achieved, the union should be wary of the negative effect the prolonged strike would have on education. It could even result in a total collapse of tertiary education.
The sad reality is that the neglect of the sector has been on for too long with disastrous consequences deserving quick intervention. But this may not be achievable overnight. The rot is premised on government’s miserly budgetary allocation to the educational sector. Therefore, seeking for 100 percent implementation, though desirable, may be a tall order at this point.
The hundreds of billions of naira the government has to make available to fulfil the agreement signed years back may not be possible, considering the body language of the Federal Government’s intervention team thus far and especially the purported reaction of Prof. Julius Okojie, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, that the amount presented to government for settling the unpaid allowances is too enormous. ASUU was taken aback that Okojie zeroed in on the huge allowances alone, said to be in the region of over N100 billion, as if that particular demand was the primary concern of the lecturers.
While this may be a cheap point, the fact remains that salaries of lecturers are increased after each strike, even as government continuously fails to commit the huge funds required for sundry aspects of developing the sector to it. It will be a refreshing departure from the usual trend if the current deadlock yields better results in terms of allocating substantial funds to other criticial aspects such as upgrading dilapidated infrastructure in tertiary institutions and adequate funding of research.
The government should revitalise the university system through progressive increase of budgetary allocations to the sector by 26 percent and setting up of research and development units by companies.
The shortcomings of the Federal Government warrant even more than the reproach it currently attracts for the deplorable condition of tertiary institutions. But ASUU cannot claim that the renumeration of its members has not improved from what obtained some years back. At least their take home pay now takes them home even if there may not be much to spare. The union should reach a reasonable compromise with government particularly in terms of full payment of allowances which might not be as prompt or as much as desired.
The distortion of the university calendar due to incessant strikes translates to students no longer graduating on schedule and this is contributing to churning out low quality, and in some instances, unemployable graduates. This should be of more concern to ASUU members even as they have every right to their claims as rightful purveyors of knowledge at the ivory towers.
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