ASUU Strike: Osodeke States Union’s Demands, Way Forward

Gbenro Adesina

As the strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) enters the seventh month, the President of the union has reiterated the grievances of the union, holding the Federal Government responsible for the prolonged strike.

It would be recalled that the union embarked on strike action on February 14, 2022.

In statement titled “Highlights of Events and Demands in the Current Strike Action” dated August 31, 2022 and signed by ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, the union noted that the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement, which was to be renegotiated after three (3) years (i.e., 2012), and which the renegotiation eventually commenced on 6th March 2017, is yet to be completed as at 31st August, 2022.

The statement read in part:

“In 1981, ASUU reached an Agreement with the Administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. The Agreement established the principle of collective bargaining. The practice of Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is supported by ILO Conventions 49 (1948), 91(1950), 154 (1988) and recommendation 163 (1981), Udoji Commission Report of 1974, and Cookey Commission’s Report of 1981. The 1981 Agreement also provided a mechanism for resolving such important issues as special Salaries and Conditions of Service of University Staff, University Funding, roles of Pro-Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, and the National Universities Commission (NUC).

In the 1992 FGN-ASUU Agreement, a separate salary scale, known as the University Academic Salary Structure (UASS), was created for academics in Nigerian universities. This was meant to arrest brain drain and attract best brains to the Nigerian University System (NUS) from across the world. Other negotiations and/or agreements in 1996, 1999, 2001, and 2006-2009 were meant to improve on the gains of the previous efforts to position Nigeria’s public universities for global competitiveness. The Agreement signed in October 2009 summed the four key issues in negotiations between FGN and ASUU over time as follows:

• Conditions of Service,
• Funding,
• University Autonomy and Academic Freedom, and
• Other Matters related to regulations, working environment, etc.

It is clearly state in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement that these issues would be renegotiated after three (3) years (i.e., 2012). The renegotiation eventually commenced on 6th March 2017. And it is yet to be completed as at 31st August, 2022 – clearly ten years after its first review was due!

Government’s Failure to Implement the 2009 Agreement

The Goodluck Jonathan Government was initially hesitant to implement the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement about revitalization of government-owned universities. However, the Federal Government eventually set up a Committee on the Needs Assessment of Public Universities in 2012. The Committee recommended an immediate and massive injection of a total of N1.3 trillion to arrest and address the rot and decay in the institutions. This gave rise to the FGN-ASUU’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of 6th November 2013. The MoU has since been jettisoned as shown in the Table below:

Sadly, apart from the first tranche of N200bn released and ringfenced in 2013, only a paltry sum of N5Obn has been released to date by the government. ASUU’s consistent efforts to make government fully implement the 2009 Agreement as well as the 2013 MoU are at the roots of the Union’s agitations and strike actions in the last ten years.

More specifically, FGN’s failures to work with the understandings reached at meetings, and faithfully implement the terms of agreement of the various memoranda, especially in 2017 and 2019, resulted in the nationwide strike action declared by the Union in March 2020. The strike was suspended with an FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) of 23rd December 2020.

Non-Implementation of the 2020 FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action

ASUU declared a roll-over strike which has lingered to date on 14th February, 2022 principally because critical components of the December 2020 MoA were not satisfactorily implemented. These include the following:

1. Funding for Revitalisation of Public Universities.
2. Earned Academic Allowances – payment for excess workloads and responsibilities due to gross shortage of qualified academic staff.
3. Proliferation of universities – especially by State Governors.
4. Release of Visitation Panels’ reports
5. Conclusion of the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement which began in 2017.
6. Testing and adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS)
7. Withheld salaries and non-remittance of third-party deductions.

ASUU rejected the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as payment platform in Federal Universities way back in 2013 because it is prone to corruption, and its imposition was an erosion of university autonomy guaranteed by Law. Government officials challenged our Union to produce an alternative that could address the problems of IPPIS. The Union developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) which has been subjected to several integrity tests by National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). From the available reports LITAS has been shown to be a far better alternative to IPPIS, which has now been widely acknowledged as a cesspool of corruption. However, for reasons best known to them concerned government officials have been foot-dragging on the matter.

In the Table below, we present some highlights of ASUU’s engagements on the need to take appropriate steps on the full implementation of the 2020 MoA:

The long and tedious process leading to the production of May 19, 2021, and June 6, 2022 draft agreements lasted more than five years. Both draft Agreements which were guided by the Collective Bargaining principle have now been rubbished.

Our Prayers for the quick resolution of the ongoing strike action:

• Immediate signing of the June 2022 Draft Agreement
• Adoption and deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as salary payment platform for university staff in place of IPPIS.
• Immediate release of N170bn to complete one tranche of Needs Assessment Revitalisation Fund in line with the 2020 MoA to put a closure to the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.
• Immediate release of N5Obn to complete the payment of arears of Earned Academic Allowances in line with the 2020 MoA to put a closure to the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.
• Release of Government’s White Papers on the 2021 Visitation Panels’ reports to Federal Universities.
• Intervention on the Draft Bill for empowering NUC to curb proliferation of universities, especially by State Governors.

Payment of withheld salaries of university academics since March 2022.