Why ASUU enjoys strikes

AT one time, within a year, ASUU members went on strike for seven months but  got salaries for the seven months! At another time, also within a year, the union members stayed at home for six months but got paid by the government for the six months! This noxious practice happens virtually every year. A union of academics or any labour union for that matter would be stupid not to get such free money for its members! That is their own dividends of democracy or a share of the national cake! In 1999, ASUU embarked on strike for five months and got paid by the government. In 2001, the union got its own share of the national cake by staying at home for three months! In 2002, the union members were at home for two weeks, it did not affect their monthly salaries. In 2003, ASUU members downed tools for a whopping6 months. Government still paid their salaries! The union was on strike for two weeks in 2005, one week in 2006 and three months in 2007; they still smiled to the banks every month! Who will see an opportunity for freebies orfree money and not take it?!

The aberration of getting paid for sleeping at home continued in 2008 (one week), 2009 (four months), 2010 (five months) and 2011 (two months)!The intensity of industrial action by ASUU picked up again in 2013. The union embarked on strike for 5 and a half months and still received salaries from the government! There were other strikes that did not affect the emoluments of ASUU between 2013 and 2020 when it capped its “distinguished career” with an unprecedented industrial action that lasted nine months. And government, which now appears helpless, still paid the academics. ASUU is plotting another industrial action in the hope of getting paid for not working again! After collecting salaries for not working for nine months in 2020, ASUU has the gusto and temerity to declare a lecture-free day as a prelude to another industrial action. What manner of nation is Nigeria that condones such impunity! According to the 24 December, 2020 edition of Daily Trust, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof Isaq Adewole, “warned the Federal Government against paying lecturers for the nine months that they did not work, saying that would encourage more strikes in the future.”

While academics in public universities are receiving salaries for not working, their counterparts in private universities only collect salaries with proof work. The government must be held responsible for violating the law of the land on industrial action. Just because it wants children to remain in school, it continues to pander to the whims and caprices of ASUU rather than apply the law, as it does with others. Section 43 of Trade Dispute Act explicitly provides: “(1) (a)where any worker takes part in a strike, he shall not be entitled to any wages or  other remuneration for the period of the strike.” At any rate, the government kind gesture has produced negative results, in which government has been made to look stupid, castrated and incapable of exerting its authority over its own workers. It is time to apply the sledgehammer. No lecturer is forced to remain in the university system. There is mobility of labour. If the system does not satisfy you, you’re free to move elsewhere rather than hold the entire nation to ransom every now and then. But you can’t have your cake and eat it. It’s time ASUU stopped ripping off the nation. If you don’t work, you cannot receive salaries. And stop the deceit, the sophistry of doing community service while in bed!

We may wish to recall that the ex-President of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, declared before a bewildered nation that “…our members are not tired of withdrawing their services”! Why not? When you’re sure of collecting salaries for not working! As pointed out by many commentators,especially some conscientious lecturers, ASUU has overplayed its hand and has lost public confidence. Now, parents want their wards to complete their education within a stipulated time even though they understand the challenges confronting the education sector – indeed all the sectors of the economy. Besides, it is widely acknowledged that a large chunk of what students are taught in the varsities has no utilitarian or practical applications outside the varsity system. So, parents are more or less concerned about having their children complete their education in a record time and move to work places to begin the second level of their education. This much Nigerian employers of labour will confirm. It is always easy for ASUU to see the speck in government’s eye while ignoring the massive log in its own eye. There are innumerable proven cases where a lecturer would declare to a student that ‘you will not graduate’ and the student would not graduate until the gods of the lecturer are appeased.  This is not a question of ‘a few bad eggs’. It is pervasive in ouruniversities.

It was ASUU yesterday, ASUU today and ASUU tomorrow, as if ASUU is the only union in the country. Other unions in the education sector and other sectors of the economy, including conservation unions of doctors, nurses, judiciary workers, etc. now follow in the footsteps of ASUU. This has been the pattern since 90s when ASUU turned strike into a weapon for negotiating salary increment under differentcontraptionsincludingEarned Academic Allowance. Meanwhile corruption continues to fester in the varsities such that many of them cannot access the billions of naira lying fallow at TETFUND because they are unable to account for how they spent previous money released by TETFUND. Some varsities engage in indiscriminate employment especially of non academic staff which sometimes results in shortfall in salaries of staff, including academic staff, since government has a financial vote for each institution.ASUU usually claims that government officials have their wards abroad and that this is the reason why they treat the education sector with disdain. But I know many of my previous colleagues in ASUU that equally have their children abroad and in private schools in Nigeria. Even when the system was better in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and we got virtually what we wanted as lecturers, many politicians still sent their children abroad for tertiary education.

While governmentis guilty and must be held accountable for the unwholesome situation in our ivory towers, it is amusing to accuse government of not fulfilling “the agreement it voluntary entered into with ASUU”. Did government ever voluntarily sign any agreement with ASUU? ASUU would literally hold a gun to the head of the government by always obtaining the so-called agreements during strikes. The public adds its own pressure during industrial action, and government would be forced to sign agreements that are, on the face of it, are not realistic or implementable just to get the teachers back to class.Government should now repudiate all such agreements without further ado.

Anytime ASUU is embarking on strike for purposes of pocket enhancement, it usually pushes to the public domain ‘rot in the education sector’. If government were to sit every month to negotiate salaries with ASUU, NASU, SSANU, NAAT, all in the universities, and then move to polytechnics to conduct the same negotiations with the different workers’ unions, then to colleges of education, down to primary schools, I suppose there will be no time for any other business for government.

At his inaugural lecture in 2009, Prof MunirOgunsanwo took umbrage at his union – ASUU: “The concept of unified salary structure for members of the academic staff is not only retrogressive but archaic and encourages indolence. Under this system, a hardworking, industrious and innovative academic staff would have to seek motivation elsewhere as there is no difference between his ‘take-home’ pay and that of a lazy colleague who will not accept any administrative responsibility but rather indulges in attending to his lectures a week or two before the commencement of an examination.”(Emphasis supplied)

Prof Ogunsanwo went further, “The … strike actions which have done more damage to the public image of ASUU as a union of academics who are never contended but rather are ready to sacrifice the future of their students for the improvement of their personal emoluments.”

Another alternative to end the menace of ASUU is for government to turn all public universities into private institutions. Government will then place a ceiling or subsidize school fees payable. You’ll be shocked that the current government’s investment in universities with the Internally Generated Revenues may just be adequate! With this, sanity will automatically be restored. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. And if you’re caught demanding sexual or monetary gratification from students, you’re shown the way out. And our students will get the best of education. There will be no room for lecturers to receive double, triple salaries from the same government purse, as ICPC investigation revealed.

• Dr. Akpenvwe writes in from Kubwa, Abuja.