UPDATE: ASUU begins nationwide indefinite strike

IN spite of the coronavirus pandemic threatening the nation and the world, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has ordered its members nationwide to commence total, comprehensive and indefinite strike action effective from Monday, March 23, 2020.

ASUU President, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, who briefed newsmen on Monday in Abuja said the resolution was reached at an emergency meeting of the national executive council of the union to review the two weeks warning strike that ended today.

ASUU had declared the two weeks warning strike on March 9 over the stoppage of the salaries of the Union members for refusing to enrol on the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS) platform.

ASUU said not even the coronavirus pandemic ravaging countries of the including Nigeria, could stop the union members from embarking on the indefinite strike since the “Nigerian government has elected to use hunger as a weapon of war against its academics and we are not going to sit and watch.”

Ogunyemi said: “Based on the review of reports from ASUU leadership’s engagements with Government, NEC concluded that Government had failed to satisfactorily address the outstanding issues raised in the FGN-ASUU 2019 Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) and ignored the objections of ASUU against IPPIS.

“Consequently, NEC resolved to embark on a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike action beginning Monday, 23rd March 2020 until the issues are satisfactorily resolved.”

He said the outbreak of the coronavirus has exposed the hypocrisy and lip-service paid to healthcare delivery, infrastructure and education by the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

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Although the Federal has closed down the universities for one month as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the implication of the indefinite strike is that the universities would remain closed even after the coronavirus crisis, if the issues underpinning issues are not resolved.

He revealed that government ignited the events that the two-week warning strike, adding that government ignored the outstanding issues in the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action of February 7, 2019 and refused to act on at least three letters written by the Union.

According to him, government triggered the crisis not when it introduced the IPPIS and tried to sell it through dialogue, but when it resorted to the use of force.

“Government officials provoked Nigerian academics into strike when it stopped the payment of salaries of academic of staff in Federal universities, citing Mr President’s Budget speech as a directive to ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).”

He recalled that during a meeting of ASUU leadership with President Muhammadu Buhari on January 9, the President promised to set up a high-powered enquiry to look into how much could be allowed in terms of management of resources and personnel by the universities, within the limit of the Constitution.

According to him, ASUU was still expecting the fulfilment of the promise when the Union was confronted with the “obnoxious and unilateral” stoppage of salaries of by the government on the account of non-enrolment on the IPPIS platform.

He insisted that ASUU has consistently rejected IPPIS because of its technical and procedural deficiencies.

ASUU president further noted the Union was vindicated with the payment of some categories of university staff through IPPIS platform las month, saying the Union’s fears about distortion in take-home pay, non-release of third-party deductions, including union dues and cooperative deductions, arbitrary award of sums on the payment, inability to link the personnel information with payroll system have been confirmed.

He added that if the government had encouraged the Union when the idea of IPPIS in universities was first mooted in 2013/2014, a credible alternative would have since been provided.

Ogunyemi, disclosed that the Union has already spent over N10 million on development of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), which ASUU has proposed as an alternative to IPPIS.

Ogunyemi lamented that “as part of general crisis occasioned by bad governance and criminal abandonment of the constitutional responsibility of public purpose, it was not surprising that our health facilities were not equipped and staffed to respond emergencies such as the coronavirus pandemic.”

He said was not convinced the governments at all levels were prepared to grapple with the globalised disease, saying instead of maximising the use of Nigerian scientists and other critical stakeholders to fight the pandemic, the Nigerian government is using groups of politicians and bureaucrats assuming leadership in the fight against the virus.

He said: “Our Union finds it hypocritical that while the Nigerian rulers compete for space on national television to talk about the coronavirus, very little is on the ground to support the media hype.

“It is a shame that Abuja, the nation’s capital city, has less than 50 intensive care units ready in case of a serious outbreak. In fact, the chief medical director in Gwagwalada is currently converting the old emergency unit into an isolation centre.

“Nothing illustrates the disinterestedness of the ruling class in the quality of life issues for people outside their class more than Nigeria’s response to COVID-19.

“Budgetary allocations to education and health have remained scandalously low over the years. The National Health Act remains largely unimplementable.

“The 2020 budgetary allocation to the health sector was a paltry 0.4 per cent of the entire 11 trillion naira, a far cry from the 2001 Abuja declaration, which adopted a minimum of 15 per cent.

“The entire allocation to health N46 billion, which translates N300 to each Nigerian. It is not only a threat to individual security, but to national security. It speaks volume of when a country of 200 million people allocates little or nothing in its budgetary planning for the healthcare of its people,” he said.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE