Nigeria: University Lecturers to Decide on Strike Monday

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would on Monday decide whether to proceed on another indefinite strike or to suspend the industrial action.
But the Director General of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies(MINILS), Ilorin, Mr. Issa Aremu has urged the lecturers to reconsider the idea of an industrial action

The National Executive Council (NEC) of the union has been meeting at the University of Lagos to review the positions of each of its branches on the sensitive matter of whether to declare industrial action or not.

But the final decision would be taken at the meeting tagged ‘NEC for NEC’, which commenced midnight on Sunday, after which the union would communicate its decision to the media today.

Last week, various branches of ASUU organised sensitisation campaigns and congress meetings on their campuses and disrupted lectures in preparation for the impending strike.

The union is protesting the federal government’s refusal to sign and implement the 2009 renegotiated agreement with ASUU and revitalization of public universities.

It said the 2009 renegotiated agreement contained a holistic package that includes the welfare of university staff, how the universities should be operated and the scheme of service, and others.

The union is also seeking the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) in place of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) that is currently in use for the payment of members’ salaries.

ASUU is also calling on the government to regulate the proliferation of state-owned universities. It alleged that some of these governors owe staff salaries and payment of university subventions, leaving the universities with failing infrastructures.

The last strike which started in March 2020 and ended in December, was said to be the longest in the history of ASUU strikes.
However, Aremu pointed out that any time the nation’s universities were shut down, it lowers universities’ possibility to be ranked among the best universities in the world.

He therefore advised both the federal government and members of ASUU against the strike and consider, “the bigger picture “which is the student.

Aremu who is also a former Deputy Vice President of the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) in a chat with journalists in Ilorin, yesterday, while speaking on the state of the nation, also urged the two key players in the looming strike to consider the children of the poor who he said would be mostly affected by the strike.

According to him, “All the parties must look at the bigger picture and the bigger picture is the students and in this case, students of the poor who are going to lose their academic calendar.”

He added: “Strike make sense if you make them brief, its to compel the other party to come for negotiation and once talk continue there must be cessation of hostilities so that all the parties will not negotiate under pressure. “

He recalled his days in tertiary institutions and said, “When I was expelled in ABU and started all over again in Port Harcourt, I didn’t feel it because the academic calendar kept running without stopping.

By 28, I have already gotten my Master degree, if I didn’t tell you, you won’t know.”
Aremu added: “Every time we shut down our universities, we lower our possibility to be ranked among the best universities in the world and only Nigeria does this.

“Nobody in the 21st century will believe for whatever reason whether poor funding, whether ASUU indefinite strike, Ghana cannot imagine that their universities will be shut down for one month, two months…six months, one year as it’s been routinely done in Nigeria today.”

The MINILS DG therefore urged stakeholders to understand that children of the rich won’t be affected by the strike and that proliferation of private universities in the south, far more than the north would further make the north educationally disadvantaged.

Uchechukwu Nnaike in Lagos and Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

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