By Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun
True, the Federal Government had enrolled everyone under its payroll into this scheme in order to fight ghost workers and arrest corruption at source. ASUU had vehemently refused to embrace this because, according to it, IPPIS is an “imposition” by the World Bank, is it? According to Daily Post, ASUU also argues that IPPIS would erode university autonomy. It developed a separate accountability platform for the universities known as the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS. The Federal Government had reached an interim agreement to integrate the UTAS into the IPPIS, still ASUU said no. The Federal Government in January 2020 stopped paying salaries of ASUU members who were not enrolled on IPPIS.
It’s crystal clear that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been going on strike for a number of years over the same issue-government not honoring agreements reached with the union, maybe this time the IPPIS is another different one from the issue we have always been a seeing?. For the record, opinion polls even think that ASUU strikes in Nigerian universities have become so problematic that parents and students are divided in their opinion on who is responsible for these irreconcilable crises.
When some view government nonchalant attitude and lack of commitment to the welfare of the education sector as the cause, others blame ASUU on their radicalism, confrontational approach and insatiable demand. Yet, apart from the sentiments being expressed by these opinions, not so much effort in the form of research has been extended towards this industrial crisis. One can say this again?
The question now is why does the FG always have this loggerhead with the same ASUU than any other union? Why does this demand remained consistent and unresolved over the years? Regarding the causes, Adavbiele study of 2015 dived into the causes of strike actions, it includes unfair treatment to the employees victimization, violation of legislation and poor application of the provision of collective bargaining. Seemingly, Osabuohien and Ogunrinola works also agreed that unions within the system have often based their demands on adequate funding of the system, university autonomy and academic freedom, as well as salary and conditions of service. It also notes that high handedness, arbitrariness and corruption, on the part of University.
In reference to an article published in a on “Causes, Effects And Management Of ASUU Strikes In Nigeria 2003-2013, on the cause for 2013 strike”, the article highlighted Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the president of ASUU, speaking on some of the agreement held with the government, noted that government had reneged on a 2013 agreement to revitalize universities with 1.3trillion over a period of six years. The first year, the government was to release N200billion, which it did, but it took a long time for us to access it.
But since that release in 2013, no single has been released thereafter. For 2014, N220billion was not released. Again 2015 and 2016, nothing was released up to the third quarter of 2017. In all, we can estimate the outstanding amount to be about N825billion for revitalization of our universities and in the last years, what has been allocated to education in the between six and seven percent.
Again, republished in the article, “ASUU Industrial Actions: Between ASUU and Government Is It an Issue of Rightness?” it reported that in the Guardian Newspaper of Saturday, August 29, 2009, Levi Obijiofor in his article “ASUU: Same Old Story”, “The Guardian pointed out meticulously how federal funding for university education has plummeted from 11.12 percent in 1999 to abysmal figure of 4.54 percent in 2004, in 2000. According to the Guardian, budgetary allocation to university education was at 8.76 percent down from 11.12 percent in just one year. 7.0 percent in 2001; 6.1 percent in 2002, 4.75 percent in 2003; 4.54 percent in 2004; 10.6 percent in 2009; 6.4 percent in 2010; 6.2 percent in 2011, 8.43 percent in 2012 and 8.7 percent in 2013, fast forward to 2020, the budgetary allocation for education in 2020 is N671.07 billion, constituting 6.7 per cent. But still far below the prescribed UNESCO’s 26% will be a departure from the norm. It however depressing that on the average, Nigeria spends less than 9.0 percent of its annual budget on education. Isn’t this provoking enough? When will Nigeria ever priotise education?
Now, averring with scholars who have opined that incessant strike actions have great implication on the stress level of and students. According to a 2013 study, stress is often described as a constant phenomenon in the life of everybody. Stress has a tendency of leading to a shortfall in the expectation of both lecturers and students. One can look back and talk about the many effect of strike on students and staff. According to Michael, 1986 in Doublegist, Strikes have four dimensions which include, frequency, the number of work stoppages in a given unit of analysis over specific period of time; breadth, the number of workers who participate in work stoppages; durations, the length of stoppage usually in main days of work lost; Impact, the number of working days lost through stoppages.
A May, 2018 International Journal of Education and Research talks about some other negative effect of ASUU strike. It unfurled of how ASUU strikes have usually affected the students in a number of ways. This includes but not limited to lack of opportunities to make up for lost times and inadequate implementation of curriculum. Strike action renders both students and lecturers emotionally and psychologically unstable. ASUU industrial actions usually prolongs students’ academic years and most of the students end up missing the Federal Government compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme as a result of over age. Also, while other students begin their second degree or master’s degree at age 22, some Nigerian students are not sure of obtaining a first degree even at age 30 majorly due to incessant strike actions and lack of proper funding of the universities to be able to admit a large number of students. Again, you can imagine another situation of being in the same level since 2019, now we are about entering into another year? When will all these stop?
Other effects mentioned includes social integration, rural regeneration, political efficiency, cultural development and maintenance, human resource development, proper understanding of civic responsibilities, socio-economic, progress, potentials development, modern men creation, and Improved social philosophy.
Conclusively, the variants of strikes embarked upon by this uncompromising union in the past 20 years have marred four academic sessions, according to facts available in the Federal Ministry of Education. It has wrecked the academic progress of millions of Nigerian vulnerable students. Since top politicians, government officials and the wealthy in our society send their children abroad and private universities to escape these educational fractures, it means that ASUU’s frequent strikes affect mostly children of the masses, who cannot even afford spending a dollar per day. Last time I checked, Buhari’s daughter schools in London, I think? Now, maybe one should somehow also rebuke ASUU’s overplaying industrial strike roles, maybe it was one of the reasons some of its members last year broke away to form the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, whose members have readily embraced the Federal Government’s IPPIS scheme. ASUU should evidently reconsider. Maybe they should find alternative.
Finally, as a final year undergraduate of a public University, it’s obvious that I’m pained and infuriated espying my mates in private universities getting convocated in times like this, while I ‘discomfitingly’ watch ASUU and FG play the game of thrones. Hence, on behalf of fellow final year students of public universities, and other students who hungrily wants to resume education, I plead with ASUU and FG to come into conclusion, the Union must temper justice over mercy, and have a rethink and allow the IPPIS and UTAS to coexist because the universities cannot be left out of the war against corruption. As a writer once said ‘minimising corruption at source will help correct some of the neglects which routinely push ASUU to strikes’. Federal government must also learn the rules of negotiation and be sincere in dealing with ASUU, fund education and let stop running around this same circle of 1988.
Read the first part here
