Strike: We won’t go back to class until govt implements past agreements –ASUU

As the indefinite strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff
Union of Universities continues, the union has said it will not
call it off until its demands to the government are met.

ASUU had on Sunday embarked on a nationwide strike, which has
reportedly grounded academic activities in about 80 federal and
state universities across the country, over the failure of the
Federal Government to implement the 2009 agreement between the two
parties.

But the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, told our
reporter during the week that members of the union would not return
to the class if the demands it had itemised to the government last
November were not implemented.

Ogunyemi said the strike would end “when the government is ready
to do the right thing as we spelt out during our engagement with
the government at the National Assembly in November last year.”

And when asked the least that the government would have to do to
get the striking lecturers back to their classrooms, the ASUU
president replied that an action plan involving about seven items
must be followed.

He said, “The least has been defined. In November last year,
when we went to the National Assembly, the issues were itemised,
seven, eight of them. The government was expected to have followed
that pathway, to follow what I would call the action plan for
resolving the matter.

“But for deviating from the action plan, the government exposed
itself to the suspicion that it didn’t mean well. If it meant well,
it must go back to that plan and from there, we address the
issues.

“The government has defined the process for addressing the
problem; it just needs to go back to it. It is because it didn’t
act on the understanding, that is why we are back to where we are.
This action was needless; it is like we were forced into it.
Implementation must commence and the implementation we are talking
about is not the issue of renegotiation.”

Speaking on some of the agreements, Ogunyemi noted that
government had reneged on a 2013 agreement to revitalise
universities with N1.3tn over a period of six years.

“The first year, the government was to release N200bn, which it
did, but it took a long time for us to access it. But since that
release in 2013, no single kobo has been released thereafter.

“For 2014, N220bn 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 N825bn for
revitalisation of our universities,” he said.

He said Nigeria loses N500m to education tourism annually within
Africa, while accusing the ruling class of killing the country’s
education system so that their children, who were given quality
education abroad, could return to dominate the poor. “In the last
two years, what has been allocated to education in the budget is
between six and seven per cent. Even in countries where they had
wars like Rwanda and Sudan, they are still allocating well above 20
per cent to education. Our citizens are rushing to Ghana, most
universities there are public universities,” he said.

A meeting between the Federal Government and ASUU on Thursday
was deadlocked and the latter consequently rejected government’s
request to end the strike.

It was learnt that the two parties had failed to agree on the
demand of the union that universities should be exempted from using
the Treasury Single Account.

Punch

As the indefinite strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff
Union of Universities continues, the union has said it will not
call it off until its demands to the government are met.

ASUU had on Sunday embarked on a nationwide strike, which has
reportedly grounded academic activities in about 80 federal and
state universities across the country, over the failure of the
Federal Government to implement the 2009 agreement between the two
parties.

But the President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, told our
reporter during the week that members of the union would not return
to the class if the demands it had itemised to the government last
November were not implemented.

Ogunyemi said the strike would end “when the government is ready
to do the right thing as we spelt out during our engagement with
the government at the National Assembly in November last year.”

And when asked the least that the government would have to do to
get the striking lecturers back to their classrooms, the ASUU
president replied that an action plan involving about seven items
must be followed.

He said, “The least has been defined. In November last year,
when we went to the National Assembly, the issues were itemised,
seven, eight of them. The government was expected to have followed
that pathway, to follow what I would call the action plan for
resolving the matter.

“But for deviating from the action plan, the government exposed
itself to the suspicion that it didn’t mean well. If it meant well,
it must go back to that plan and from there, we address the
issues.

“The government has defined the process for addressing the
problem; it just needs to go back to it. It is because it didn’t
act on the understanding, that is why we are back to where we are.
This action was needless; it is like we were forced into it.
Implementation must commence and the implementation we are talking
about is not the issue of renegotiation.”

Speaking on some of the agreements, Ogunyemi noted that
government had reneged on a 2013 agreement to revitalise
universities with N1.3tn over a period of six years.

“The first year, the government was to release N200bn, which it
did, but it took a long time for us to access it. But since that
release in 2013, no single kobo has been released thereafter.

“For 2014, N220bn 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 N825bn for
revitalisation of our universities,” he said.

He said Nigeria loses N500m to education tourism annually within
Africa, while accusing the ruling class of killing the country’s
education system so that their children, who were given quality
education abroad, could return to dominate the poor. “In the last
two years, what has been allocated to education in the budget is
between six and seven per cent. Even in countries where they had
wars like Rwanda and Sudan, they are still allocating well above 20
per cent to education. Our citizens are rushing to Ghana, most
universities there are public universities,” he said.

A meeting between the Federal Government and ASUU on Thursday
was deadlocked and the latter consequently rejected government’s
request to end the strike.

It was learnt that the two parties had failed to agree on the
demand of the union that universities should be exempted from using
the Treasury Single Account.

Punch