ASUU’s National President, Dr. Nasir Isa on Monday, said the
industrial action though painful would be total, comprehensive, total
and indefinite and last for as long as the federal government implements
details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) both parties signed in
2011. He said that the decision to have the strike was reached at the
National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of ASUU held at the Olabisi
Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
He said that the action was as a result of the inability of the
federal government to implement some of the issues contained in a 2009
agreement it had with ASUU.
ASUU claimed that the government had also reneged on the MoU it entered into with the union in December 2011. “Before now, there has been this issue of the implementation of the
key issues contained in the 2009 agreement we entered into with the
federal government.”
“We have had several meetings and deliberations to let government
understand why these issues must be resolved but it is like the more we
meet and deliberate, the messier the issue gets.”
“One of the issues that needed to be addressed was basically that of
the Academic earned allowance. This earned allowance, and other issues,
had dragged on until government then agreed to write an MoU with the
union. But as we speak, there has been nothing to show that government
was committed to an MoU it also willingly wrote to better the university
sector. It is in this regard that we are embarking on an indefinite
strike,” he explained.
Dr Isa stated that having waited patiently for the government to
swing into action to no avail, the ASUU’s NEC decided to meet,
deliberate and come up with the action.
Chairman of the University of Lagos chapter of ASUU, Karo
Oghenekaro,, told journalists that government’s penchant for reneging on
agreements was not acceptable.
He said that government entered into the MoU with ASUU after the union suspended its strike two and a half years ago.
Mr. Oghenekaro explained that the government had made essential laws
on some of the burning issues such as the 70 years retirement age of
lecturers as well as the pension commission.
According to him, government, however, is not forthcoming with other pressing demands such as the earned allowance.
He noted that the academic earned allowance was expected to take care
of excess work load carried out by the lecturers such as examination
officers, deans and supervision of post graduate, masters and other
programmes.
“I want to say that not all lecturers are entitled to this allowance,
but as we speak, not a single lecturer under the aforementioned
categories has received any such allowance. What we are demanding as the
earned allowance is not more than N12, 500 per person, yet government
is saying it cannot afford such.”
“Government was actually thinking of the cost implication of
everything but after much deliberation, government agreed to sign the
MoU and said it had set aside N100 billion to take care of all the
burning issues.”
“However, government came back to us and pleaded for a reduction and
we decided to step the cost down to 80 per cent. That not enough, it
also appealed for another reduction to 50 per cent.”
“This 50 per cent, government said, will be a one off payment; that
it was from that 50 per cent that we shall take care of everything,
including the earned allowance.
“This did not go down well with us and so we decided to meet and take the decision we have just taken,” he said. According to him, the Nigerian tertiary education sector is where it
is because of inadequate funding. He said that one of the reasons why
there were no foreign scholars in the system was because of the poor
wages. “When we agitate about earned allowance, we are also using it to as a
means of attracting foreign scholars so it is not all about our
personal interest.
“We are also using it to address the issue of brain drain in the
system. As it were, our best brains are all drifting into industries and
other sectors that will pay them better, rather than ploughing back
into the academic sector.
“To us, it is all about looking at a bigger picture and putting things in the right place,’’ he said.
The union leader said that the decision to embark on the strike was
painful but that there was no going back until government took a
positive step to address their demands.
The ASUU strike is coming two months after polytechnic lecturers,
ASUP, embarked on their own national strike, which is still ongoing.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We really appreciate your daily reading, please kindly drop your comments. Contact dharmonevents@gmail.com, +2348186219581, +2348089201059 for tips, Advert placement, Event Planning & Catering Services. Thank you, *Hugs and Kisses*