There is no end in sight to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU) as President Muhammadu Buhari has objected to the union’s insistence on the payment of the backlog of salaries withheld during the period of the ongoing strike.
The minister of education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, disclosed this while appearing at the weekly press briefing organised by the presidential communication team on at Aso Villa on Thursday.
He said the president had rejected the lecturers’ demand stressing that the no-work-no-pay rule would be enforced to serve as a deterrent for their (lecturers’) needless actions.
“All contentious issues between the government and ASUU had been settled except the quest for members’ salaries for the period of strike should be paid, a demand that Buhari has flatly rejected,” he said.
The minister said the president’s position had been communicated to the lecturers who are being awaited to call off the strike.
He said three of the striking university workers’ unions except ASUU may resume within the next one week.
The three unions that may likely call off their industrial action are the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and other Associated Institutions (NASU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists.
Adamu said only ASUU was yet to indicate a willingness to call off the strike as a result of two conditions, one of which is its demand for the payment of salaries for the month spent on strike.
He stated that the government’s rejection was to curb the excesses of trade unions that want to be paid for work not done.
Adamu lamented that despite trillions of naira already expended by the Federal government on the education sector directly as well as several interventions by agencies such as TEFFUND and UBEC, the university-based unions continued to maintain a stoical position.
“The Buhari administration has invested in infrastructure development of the education sector more than any other administration in the history of this nation. It is on record that the tertiary education trust fund has invested an estimated N2.5 trillion in tertiary education in the last ten years, thereby, exceeding the sum total of N1.2 trillion contained in the 2009 agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and we are still counting,” he added.
The minister stated that the government rejected ASUU’s demand to be paid the salary backlog because it believes that there has to be penalties for their action, in apparent reference to the no-work-no-pay policy of the federal government pertaining to strikes.
However, he noted that ASUU had begun consultations with their members to determine whether to call off their strike as well.
Adamu informed that the University Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System (U3PS) and the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) outscored the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS) during the integrity tests.
He said ASUU’s peculiarities will be accommodated in whatever platform that may be adopted.
UTAS
On the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) payment system proposed by ASUU, the minister said the payment platform outscored the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) already in use by government.
He said the IPPIS had been updated to now accommodate payment of those on sabbatical.
“Just one thing that I was reminded even the current IPPIS has been made to accommodate sabbatical. I didn’t know this. Somebody just told me.”
The minister also debunked the report that UTAS had not been approved by the government as the payment platform for University lecturers.
He explained that the government proposed a new salary to the unions which he said the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian University (SSANU), the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities and Allied Institutions (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists, (NAAT) accepted in principle and are now consulting with their members with a view to call off the strike in the next one month.
Why we reject FG’s offer – ASUU
Meanwhile, the president of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, said in a statement on Thursday that his union rejected the government’s offer because it did not follow the collective bargaining agreement.
At Tuesday’s meeting, ASUU said the government team presented a Recommended Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS) prepared by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC).
It said the government did not follow the existing platform for resolving issues such as special salaries and conditions of service of university staff, insisting that the document presented did not acknowledge the existing university salary structure (USS).
“Government’s surreptitious move to set aside the principle of collective bargaining, which is globally in practice, has the potential of damaging lecturers’ psyche and destroying commitment to the university system. This is, no doubt, injurious to Nigeria’s aspiration to become an active player in the global knowledge industry.
“FGN’s repudiation of collective bargaining is in bad faith. It is a retrogressive step for a democratic government to abrogate the collective bargaining principle after more than 40 years of its introduction into the Nigerian University System,” he said.
ASUU recalled that the government had since 2017, agreed to be guided by certain principles in the course of the negotiations.
“Rejecting a salary package arrived at through collective bargaining is a repudiation of the government’s pronouncements on reversing “brain drain”.
“It is common knowledge that more now than in the 1980s and 1990s, Nigerian scholars, especially in scarce areas like science and medicine, are migrating in droves to Europe, America and many parts of Africa such as South Africa, Rwanda, and Ghana with supportive environment to ply their trades as well as competitive reward systems for intellectual efforts,” Osodeke added.
Again, ASUU dismissed the government’s claim of paucity of funds, saying it is unacceptable. “This is because of several reasons, chief of which is poor management of the economy. This has given rise to leakages in the revenue of governments at all levels. There is wasteful spending, misappropriation of funds and outright stealing of our collective patrimony.”
ASUU also accused the government of using its idea of taxing cell phones and communication without acknowledging the union or using the funds for ASUU’s demands.
“One of such recommendations is the tax on cell phones and communication lines. Ironically, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning recently announced its readiness to implement ASUU’s recommendation, as a revenue source, but not for education, without acknowledging the Union”
“The federal government, through the ministry of education, should return to the new draft agreement of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Renegotiation Committee whose work spanned a total of five and half years as a demonstration of good faith.”
