No headway as ASUU battles govtover extra allowances, funding - When the Academic Staff Union ofUniversities, ASUU, embarked on a nationalstrike on July 1, 2013 due to the refusal ofFederal Government to implement the 2009agreement it signed with the union whichhad several components, includingadequate funding of education sector,Nigerians feared another long winter fortheir children forced to return home.Strike by lecturers in public universities hasbecome a normal trend every two years.The nation is accustomed to disruptedacademic sessions that at times linger onfor about six months.To have an uninterrupted academiccalendar in the university system isabnormal. So the strike factor is usually builtinto the calendar. An academic programmescheduled for three or four years, could lastfor seven years.The blame for this can rightly be placed atthe door step of the Federal Government,fond of breaching negotiated agreementsreached with ASUU. There is the question offailed leadership, corruption, show ofinsincerity and lack of commitment toagreements; knowing that any breachwould lead to shutting down of theuniversities by a frustrated union whichfeels government is unwilling to developeducation in the country. The governmentis yet to understand that any refusal tohonour agreement freely signed withoutduress tantamounts to a breach of contract,actionable in law.Already, the public university system is indecadence in all ramifications. Most of theover 30 Federal and 36 State universitiesare in bad condition. Physical infrastructurefor teaching and learning are grosslyinadequate, dilapidated and over stretched.The laboratories and workshops areobsolete, poor furnishings, poor power andwater supply, outdated equipment,crowded hostels and unhygienic livingconditions.Many of the universities don’t have videoconferencing facility, only a fraction haveor use interactive white boards. Many arewithout public address systems in theirlecture rooms, while none of theuniversities had fully automated libraryresources.Education Minister, Prof. Ruqayattu Ahmedand ASUU President, Nasir Issa-FageeApart from all these inadequacies, it hasbeen found in a Federal Ministry ofEducation Report, that many of theuniversities are grossly understaffed,relying mainly on part-time and visitinglecturers, with several under-qualifiedacademic staff, lacking effective staffdevelopment programmes. Recently, theNational Universities Commission (NUC)came out with a directive that all universitylecturers must possess Ph. D degrees withina given time or lose their appointments.Only about 43% of academic staff in theuniversity system have doctorate degrees,the remaining 57% don’t.According to the report, there are 37,504lecturers in public universities, but only28,128 (about 75%) are engaged on fulltime basis, the rest 25% are either part-time,visiting, on sabbatical or on contract.Against this sordid scenario, one canunderstand the struggle of ASUU to reformand transform public universities to meetwith the standards obtainable in otherclimes.Our leaders are not ready to embark of thistransformation because they are notcommitted to proper and adequate fundingof education of which UNESCOrecommended 26% of national budget. ButNigeria allocates less than 10% of herbudget to education which is even amongthe lowest in Africa. Yet this nation can dobetter.People in government and politicians arequick to send their children to UK, USA,Canada, Australia, Ukrain, Russia, and evennearby Ghana, Togo, Benin for universityeducation. Because of their ill-gotten wealth,they can patronise expensive privateinstitutions, rather than increase funding toupgrade public schools at home.Dr. Nasir Fagge, ASUU National President,had explained that the strike was not just toreposition the education sector, particularlythe university system, but to salvage ourcountry. He said ASUU was determined toprosecute the strike to its logical conclusion,and that the implementation of theagreement was a cardinal issue that mustbe accomplished by the union as this wouldtransform the country’s university system.Government offered a paltry N100 billionfor infrastructure, and N30 billion forearned allowances, a far cry from N87billion demanded.On accepting the offer of N30 billion andgoing back to class while reachingagreement on when the next installmentswill be paid, Fagge rejected this, saying, “Wehad made that mistake before wherebyonly the salary component of theagreement was singled out and so we cannot afford to make such a mistake again.Until the whole agreement is fullyimplemented, we are not going to call offthis strike.”Over N500 billion is needed forinfrastructure upgrade.President Goodluck Jonathan and othereminent Nigerians had appealed to ASUU totake the N30 billion offer by governmentand return to classroom.The union had demanded for N87 billion(not N92 billion) in extra allowancestranslated as excess work load, highcarriage of students per lecturer,responsibility allowance which includedsupervision of academic projects for final-year students, Masters, Ph.D theses, courseadvice, administrative duties as heads ofdepartments, deans of faculties, hallmasters, etc.Because of inadequate staffing, the workload had been heavy with one lecturer to200, or even 300 students.Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, instating the government position had saidthe money – N92 billion according to her,which ASUU was demanding (but refutedby the union to be actually N87bn) was notonly unrealistic, but also not within thereach of the Federal Government.Her words at a 2-day conference ofCommissioners of Finance and Accountants-General of States Ministries of Finance heldin Minna, Niger State. “At present, ASUUwants the government to pay N92 billion inextra allowances when resources are notthere and when we are working tointegrate past increases in pensions. Weneed to make choices in this country as weare getting to the stage where recurrentexpenditures take the bulk of our resourcesand people get paid but can do no work.”Series of deadlock had characterisedmeetings between ASUU leaders and theFederal Government Team lead by GovernorSuswam of Benue State to resolve the crisisand pave way for lecturers to return backto work.Mr. James Bidemi, a Senior Managementstaff in a public university, commended theASUU action which seemed good andappropriate, but cautioned if the dispute isnot resolved, it could destroy universityeducation in the country. He called for stateof emergency on education.“Government should meet at least 50% to60% of ASUU demand, and people willsupport government in the appeal for thestrike to be called off. It’s about anagreement which government was boundto implement and also endeavour to tacklethe decaying infrastructure in theuniversity system.” A university teacher, inhis reaction, wondered why the Minister ofEducation failed to capture these earnedallowances owed to lecturers by the 2009agreement in the 2013 budget. If they werelegislators, the funds will be available.Meanwhile, the strike is biting hard asstudents have been roaming the streets,lured into criminality and social vices likeprostitution, drug trafficking, kidnappingand political thuggery.Chief Joshua Nwosu, a businessman withthree children in the university now athome blamed bad and insensitive leadersfor the horrible condition of the educationsystem.“The government just refused toallocate sufficient fund to education despitethe abundant financial resources available.Millions of our youths are jobless, yetgovernment is not willing to provideadequate money for educationaldevelopment. Something drastic must bedone to save our education from totalcollapse. President Jonathan should act fastand be patriotic.”