Save public varsities from collapse, ASUU begs Tinubu

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, on Friday, said that only the intervention of President Bola Tinubu could save public universities from being thrown into another prolonged strike action.

The union called on eminent Nigerians to prevail on President Tinubu to stop acting so indifferently to the parlous state of the public universities as well as the genuine demands of the lecturers regarding funding of the university among other welfare concerns.

The union said that the refusal of the government to be alive to its financial responsibility and commitment to the public universities is dangerous and would only continue to encourage the collapse of the public universities.

The ASUU Chairman, Lagos Zone, Prof Adelaja Odukoya, made this call on Friday at a press briefing held at the ASUU Secretariat of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.

Those in attendance at the briefing included leaders of ASUU from Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Lagos State University, University of Lagos, and Olabisi Onabanjo University among others.

Prof Odukoya said it was sad and painful that the present administration has failed to embrace proper funding of the universities but will rather continue to uphold the erstwhile tokenism that drove the universities into its present parlous condition.

He said that the issues that may force the universities to embark on yet another prolonged strike very soon are the deliberate refusal of the Federal Government to sign and implement the re-negotiated FGN/ASUU Agreement, non-payment of Earned Academic Allowances, and arrears of promotion.

Others are non-release of third-party deductions criminal failure to implement the recommendations of the White Papers on Visitation Panels to Federal Universities and refusal to address the unending retrogressive proliferation of Universities.

ASUU condemned in strong terms the creation of more universities by the federal and state government when it has failed to fund the existing ones saying that this is only encouraging duplication of duties with its attendant increase in overhead cost and expenditures.

Rather than establishing new universities, the union said that the government should have expanded the scope of many of the existing universities that have the capacity to increase their student population and some academic programmes being run in such institutions.

The union said “Regrettably Visitors of Federal and State universities have turned the establishment of universities into constituency projects.

“This development is obviously harmful, retrogressive, and unacceptable. Our Union hereby calls for the review and strengthening of the NUC laws to arrest the negative trends”.

Odukoya said “The deliberate refusal of the Tinubu-led Federal Government to sign and implement the concluded renegotiated 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement is a criminal violation of the Collective Bargaining principles as enshrined in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention.

“The renegotiated agreement was concluded in 2021 after five years of renegotiation for which both the Government and ASUU committed massive resources, with the hope of achieving a reversal of the dwindling fortune of our Universities as the apex agency of human capacity development.

“With the deliberate refusal of the Federal Government to sign and implement the renegotiated Agreement, our members have been stretched beyond their elastic limit of patience and our union urges the Tinubu-led Federal Government to without further delay, set in motion machinery for the immediate signing and implementation of the renegotiated Agreement to avoid another round of industrial crises in our public universities”.

The union also demanded the abrogation of the IPPIS payment system describing it as a cesspit of centralised corruption eroding the university’s autonomy and making life difficult for the lecturers

Odulaja said that despite government pronouncement on the exit of the universities from IPPIS, the deliberate refusal of co-government and ministry officials to migrate the University Payroll System away from the platform is unfortunate, condemnable, and a confirmation that Nigeria is a becoming lawless State.

The union also lamented the refusal of the Federal Government to pay three and half months’ salaries of its members in addition to the outstanding Earned Academic Allowances since 2020 still outstanding.

ASUU said the failure of the government to be alive to its financial responsibility has no doubt exposed its members to a range of financial difficulties given the prevailing economic hardship.

Odulaja said “The issues in contentions do not require rock science to resolve. All the issues in contention can be immediately resolved if President Tinubu as the Commander-in-Chief would perform the functions of his office by immediately interfacing directly with the leadership of our Union.

“The President should make good his promise to the Nigerian Nation that “No child of school age would stay at home due to avoidable industrial unrest in our ivory towers”.

“Our union demands that all withheld deductions; unpaid promotion arrears; unpaid salaries of staff on sabbatical, adjunct, etc. be paid in the interest of peace in the Nigerian University System.

“Our union once again as part of her intellectual contribution to national development offers the immediate adoption by the Federal Government of the more economical, robust, and efficient University Transparency and Accountability Solution to replace the illegal, widely rejected, and corruption-infested IPPIS.”