Comrades and compatriots of the Press,
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, between Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th February, 2024.
At the meeting, the union undertook a comprehensive review of the state of its engagements with Federal and State Governments on how to reposition Nigeria‟s public universities for global reckoning by arresting the worsening living and working conditions in the universities and the nation at large.
The meeting was alarmed, going by the reports it received, on the failed promises of the Tinubu-led administration toward addressing the lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February–October 2022.
NEC was seriously alarmed by reports of the increasing number of Nigerian academics who have died or are currently nursing life-threatening ailments as a result of work-related stress and chronic pauperization arising from failed promises by the governments and the general macro- economic climate of the country.
This press conference is intended to update Nigerians on developments since the suspension of our last national strike action on Friday, 14th October, 2022 and our engagements with the current administration since its inception.
III. Renegotiation of FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement
ASUU‟s demand for negotiated salary with the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) is anchored on the International Labour Organisation‟s (ILO) Convention No. 98 which
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underscores the principle of collective bargaining. The last FGN/ASUU Agreement was in 2009.
The union has been without a renegotiated agreement with the FGN for 15 years. It would be recalled that, owing to the union‟s persistent call for the review of the 2009 Agreement, the Federal Government set up the Wale Babalakin-led Joint Renegotiation Committee in 2017.
For irreconcilable reasons, especially due to the Chairman‟s insistence on the re-introduction of the Education Bank, the process was stalled for over two years.
Consequently, the renegotiation committee was reconstituted with Prof Munzali Jibril as convener. Under the new Chairman, much progress was made as the Draft Agreement was ready within three (3) months.
However, government refused to sign the draft agreement for some inexplicable reasons.
The Late Emeritus Prof. Nimi Briggs became the next Chairman of the joint committee. ASUU did not meet with the Nimi-Briggs committee until extracting from it the mandate of its principal to conclude the process which had dragged for more than four years.
Renegotiation with Nimi Brigs was completed within six months. However, the then Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, truncated the process at the point of finalising the reviewed draft agreement. From 2021 till date, the document has remained in its draft form.
The most obvious implication of the truncation of the renegotiation of the Agreement is that university teachers in Nigeria have been on the same salary regime since 2009 when the value of naira to a dollar was N120! Today, it is above N1,500.
It is no longer news that the salaries of the highest paid professor, on the average, has been reduced to a meagre $210/month.
This is one of the least in the world! Unfortunately, even the unilateral award of 35% and 25% by the despotic Buhari administration, which has been activated through the National Wages, Salaries and Income Commission (NWSIC) through a circular, remains a promise in thin air one year after.
It appears members of the Nigerian ruling class are totally indifferent to the implications of the continued pauperization of academics for the Nigerian dream and the future of the country.
If they truly love Nigeria, they must have realized that no nation can truly be greater than the quality and commitment of its scholars. In other
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climes of nationalist-politicians and patriots, no government takes deliberate steps to kill the collective bargaining principle nor ignore the patriotic demands of its academics.
For the umpteenth time, ASUU calls on the President Tinubu-led administration to immediately set in motion the process leading to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria’s public universities.
Nigerian academics are tired of platitudes laced with disdain for intellectuals; only concrete steps to restore their eroded dignity and degraded lives can guarantee lasting peace on our campuses.
VI. Withheld Salary
The ILO Conventions guarantee the right of trade unions to use strike action as a means of pressing for its demands where it becomes absolutely necessary.
The last administration, engineered by Senator Ngige, activated the obnoxious „No-Work No- Pay‟ policy by withholding lecturers‟ seven and half months‟ salaries in federal universities and varying months in state universities.
Despite deploying the instrumentality of hunger and starvation against Nigerian academics, the Ngige-headed Ministry launched a full-scale war against ASUU included obtaining an injunction at the National Industrial Court.
However, the strike was basically suspended as a result of patriotic interventions of some well-meaning Nigerians, including the then Speaker of the House of Representative, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
At several formal and informal meetings while the court proceedings were ongoing, promises were made meeting the demands of ASUU, including the release of the withheld salaries.
Unfortunately, those promises were never kept, even with Rt. Hon Gbajabiamila as the Chief of Staff to the President and Commander-in-Chief.
There is no justification for withholding lecturers‟ salaries if not for the grand design by the ruling class to emasculate and ridicule them.
Nigerian academics have since made up for lost ground, covering two academic sessions in many universities within the period.
The total sum of withheld salaries is hardly worth more than one-third of its value given the massive devaluation of the Naira in the last one year.
And it is unimaginable that a government that raised lecturers‟ hopes a few months back will continue to deprive them of any modicum of comfort by withholding their entitlements.
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It goes without saying that a humiliated lecturer is a liability to the university, not an asset.
Therefore, ASUU calls on the Federal and State Government to, as a matter of urgency, release all the withheld salaries and third-party deductions of Nigerian academics to restore their fading hope in the Nigerian university system and Nigeria as a country.
To continue to ignore ASUU‟s formal and informal demand in this respect is to invite an avoidable industrial crisis in the system.
V. Arrears of Earned Academic Allowances:
Compatriots of the press, the Union brings to your attention that the Federal Government has lately been evasive on payment of the backlog of the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), part of which was captured in the 2023 National Budget for Federal Universities.
The December 2020 Memorandum of Action (MoA) between FGN and ASUU reaffirmed the mainstreaming of EAA into lecturers‟ salaries while the next tranche of the allowances was to be paid in 2021.
The scheduled payment was only aborted, the mainstreaming EAA which was supposed to commence in 2022 has remained a mirage in both Federal and State Universities.
ASUU wonders why it must take another round of strike action to get Government to release lecturers‟ entitlements that are already captured in the budget as made available to the union by Rt. Hon. Gbajabiamila!
VI. Illegal Dissolution of Governing Councils
NEC observed with dismay the continued attack and erosion of autonomy of public universities, as enshrined in the Universities‟ Miscellaneous Act, through illegal dissolution of Governing Councils.
Today, university vice-chancellors in connivance with the Federal and State Ministries of Education are illegally running the universities.
They have taken over the functions of the Council through illegal contract awards, approval of promotions, and recruitments without following due process.
NEC condemns these anomalies in strong terms. It calls on State and Federal Governments to reverse themselves where Governing Councils were dissolved without serving their terms and reconstitute Councils whose tenures have expired.
Vice Chancellors are also strongly advised to stop taking matters meant for Councils to the Ministries or
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Commissioners for approval as this has great consequences for the future of the universities.
VII. Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System
Compatriots of the press, the Tinubu administration has announced the exit of tertiary institutions from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IIPIS) – a corrupt salary payment system imposed on federal universities by the immediate Buhari-led government.
ASUU has consistently rejected the payment platforms because it grossly erodes the autonomy of our universities.
However, the union is worried that some elements inside and outside government may be planning to undermine the government directive in view of the ambiguity that currently surrounds that transition out of IPPIS with particular reference to the so-called “new IPPIS” with which January salaries were paid a few days ago.
As canvassed at the stakeholders‟ meeting held at the National Universities Commission (NUC) on 11th January, 2024, ASUU‟s position is very clear: Government should revert to quarterly releases of university funds to enable them design and implement their salary payment plans.
This is the hallmark of a truly autonomous university system as obtained in the 1960s and 1970s.
In addition, government should release promotion arrears and pay all academics who were unjustly denied their salaries arising from the obnoxious imposition of IPPIS.
VIII. Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard
NEC noted with serious concern that, despite its earlier rejection of the NUC-imposed CCMAS, the Commission is still hell bent on enforcing its implementation with effect from 2022/2023 academic year. Consequently, NEC calls on all university Senates to resist the surreptitious moves by NUC to erode their powers over academic programmes in their respective universities.
The Union advises NUC to, at this critical time, focus its attention on more pressing issues affecting our Universities, including proliferation of universities and the poor conditions of service for the academics.
ASUU strongly believes that patriotism demands that NUC should be at the forefront of making government address the reality of mass exodus of academics from our
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campuses otherwise called Akada Japa owing to the debilitating conditions under which they are made to work.
IX. Proliferation of Universities
Gentlemen of the press, you are aware that proliferation of Universities was one of the issues that led to the strike actions of 2020 and 2022, and part of the MoA signed by ASUU and FGN stressed the need to review the NUC Act to make it more potent in arresting the reckless and excessive establishment of universities.
A joint committee of ASUU and government was set up which submitted a draft bill to the National Assembly on this matter. However, that bill has not seen the light of day.
The fallout of that is the massive and reckless manner by which federal and state governments are establishing universities without making adequate preparations for their funding.
At Federal level, each Senator is targeting to establish a university as part of their constituency projects while the Visitors to State Universities who could not fund existing universities are establishing two or more universities for political gains.
This trend has put much stress on intervention funds of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) which are diverted to establish new universities contrary to the Fund‟s Law.
NEC was shocked to receive the report of a State Governor who proudly declared that he would establish ten (10) universities before the end of his tenure as if they are model nursery and primary schools!
ASUU would explore all legal means to resist the pervasive moves by politicians to keep proliferating crisis centres for the children of the poor in the name of universities.
X. Victimization and Threats at Federal University of Technology, Owerri
Compatriots of the Press may wish to note that the Vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) and her co-travelers have continued with the persecution of our members.
The attacks on committed ASUU members at FUTO come on the heels of the Union‟s principled stance on the illegal appointment of Dr Isa Ibrahim Ali Pantami as a Professor in that University while serving as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
NEC has received reports of attempts by the Vice- Chancellor, Prof (Mrs.) Nnenna N. Oti, to deny our members the right to unionize and
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fraternize on campus. The Vice-Chancellor whimsically stops union leaders from attending statutory meetings of Senate and university committees. NEC reaffirms its condemnation of the action of FUTO management and calls on the FUTO Vice- Chancellor to take the path of honour and reverse the illegal appointment.
We call on the Minister of Education and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on Prof Nnenna Oti, the Vice chancellor of FUTO to respect the Law of FUTO and stop persecuting our members for insisting that the right thing should be done in that university.
XI. TETFund Intervention
Reports reaching our union indicate that members of the National Assembly have lately been breathing down the necks of heads of tertiary institutions on the pretext of oversighting resources allocated to their universities by TETFund.
In particular, NEC regrets the invitation of Vice Chancellors and other Heads of tertiary institutions to come before them to defend the intervention funds allocated to them contrary to the provisions of the TETFund Act and the University Miscellaneous Act.
ASUU is worried that some our Vice-Chancellors could become susceptible to corruption and other sharp practices associated with such “oversight”.
NEC reminds our Vice-Chancellors and Pro- Chancellors that ASUU will stop at nothing to resist the increasing unethical moves to fritter away the TETFund intervention funds within or outside our universities.
XII. Underfunding of Universities
Funding for revitalization has been central in the struggle of our Union and it remains a cardinal demand in all our agreements and memoranda with governments. In the aftermath of the 2022 struggle, the Federal Government claimed to have budgeted the sum of one hundred and seventy billion naira (N170B) in the 2023 budget.
Our understanding was that N120 billion was meant to address part of the outstanding Needs Assessment Intervention Fund while the balance would go into paying one of the agreed tranches of EAA.
Sadly, however, Government has not released any fund to the universities based on the understanding. Consequently, efforts to address issues of shortage of lecture rooms and theatres; inadequate hostel and office accommodation; poor laboratories, studios, workshops and libraries; and supply and maintenance of
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utilities in our universities have been frustrated. This has compelled a number of university administration to raise fees, levies and sundry charges paid by the students beyond the reach of impoverished Nigerians.
NEC condemns in its entirety the wave of fee hike without inputs of the victims across out campuses.
Daily scandalous reports of stupendous funds diverted from government treasuries at State and Federal levels reinforce our belief that resources available to the country could support government-funded university education – without excessive pressures on parents as currently done.
Had Federal Government kept fate with our MoU 2013 which provided for N1.3 trillion over a period of six years, many of our universities should have be restored to a level at which they could attract foreign students and become renowned for cutting-edge and transformative research.
We challenge the Tinubu administration to urgently initiate moves to conduct another needs assessment exercise to empirically verify our call for massive intervention in our public universities.
It was Federal Government‟s response to a similar challenge in 2012 that gave rise to the aggregate sum of N1,3 trillion which Government has since abrogated.
For the avoidance of doubt, the NEC of ASUU reiterated its rejection of the Students‟ Loan scheme which is being promoted by the international money lending agencies such as IMF and World Bank.
Nigerians should be aware that the scheme is a way of starving public universities of funding and a ploy to divert public funds into private universities owned by politically-exposed individuals and their friends.
NEC further observed that the students‟ loan scheme will mortgage the entire university system and keep our promising students in perpetual indebtedness.
If the scheme could fail in some better managed economies, there is no guarantee that it will succeed in Nigeria where unbridled corruption, nepotism and other unsavoury tendencies conspired to kill the Education Bank project after over five years of its existence.
If State and Federal Governments truly want to invest in the lives of Nigerian students, grants and scholarships should be made available to students while the Needs-Based Budgeting System should be restored to the university system for greater efficiency.
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XIII. Deepening Socio-Economic Crisis
NEC reviewed the deepening socio-economic crisis which has worsened the insecurity situation in the country. Accentuated by the free-fall in the value of Naira vis-à-vis international currencies, the distortion in the petroleum sector, corruptly called “subsidy removal”, has ushered in a regime of high cost of transportation, unaffordable prices of commodities, job loss and ballooning joblessness, and general atmosphere of despair and despondency in the country.
The failure of government to provide effective measures that would cushion the effect of its anti-poor policies has further pushed the Nigerian masses down the abyss of abject poverty and hardships.
While calling on government to accelerate the process of arriving at a minimum living wage as demanded by the NLC, NEC calls on the Nigerian Government to urgently review all IMF/World Bank-sponsored economic policies which are increasingly degrading the quality of life of Nigerians.
Conclusion
Gentlemen of the press, we have used the opportunity of this press conference to draw your attention to the serial insensitivity of the government with respect to agreements and care for the welfare of hard-working lecturers in Nigerian public universities.
Despite the good intentions of Nigerian academics to make our universities globally competitive, government has continued to unleash hardship on the lecturers and students.
ASUU remains undaunted in this patriotic mission. We call on other patriots in the media, labour movement, student groups and civil society organisations to join our resolve to reposition the Nigerian university system for a transformed Nigeria.
The struggle continues! Thank you.
Emmanuel Osodeke
President
13th February, 2024