All across most universities in Nigeria, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) met at an emergency congress meeting on Thursday February 3. The discussion and deliberation centred on the report of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Union (FNG/ASUU) and the level of implementation thus far.
The major issues in the agreement over the years has been; revitalisation of public universities, restructuring of salary structure of lecturers and the novel row over the Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS) which the university dons vehemently opposed and seek to be replaced with the University Transparency and Accountability System (UTAS).
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As it was the general outcome across the country, the union branches came out with a communique at the end of their respective meetings, to declare Monday a work-free day to mobilise their members for an indefinite strike.
The implication is that our children will be back home few months after the suspension of the nearly year-long industrial action.
This has also further exposed the insincerity of government towards the education system which is the backbone of human capital development. It is obvious that the previous agreements entered between the federal government and the union, where the Minister of Labour and Employment served as the lead government negotiator amounts only to a fruitless exercise. It only pacified the university lecturers back to the lecture rooms without addressing the germane issues of the agreements signed as far back as 2009 in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
For the students, the whole drama means that after the prolonged ASUU strike of 2020 and the excruciating effects of COVID-19, which destabilised the academic calendar, another round of strike looms with loads of uncertainties.
Despite the nagging demand of the lecturers along with cries of students who are the victims, the major interest of those in the corridors of power in Aso Rock and the Ministry of Education is who will succeeds the president come 2023.
As at the last check, the annual budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Education has remained perpetually below 10 per cent despite UNESCO recommendation for a minimum of 25 per cent allocation.
I call on the federal government to kicks tart an immediate and aggressive implementation of all agreements reached with ASUU. This is the only way of rescuing our institutions of higher learning from total collapse.
Tijani Hassan Abdulkarim wrote from Kano [email protected]
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