… No going back on demands – Asup

Once again, the Federal Government’s refusal to honour an agreement it reached with lecturers of public universities has forced the Academic Staff Union of Universities to embark on industrial action Monday July 1.

When the Academic Staff Union of Universities suspended its two-month strike in February 2012, many had thought that the last had been heard of national strikes in public institutions. This optimism was hinged on the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Federal Government and the lecturers on how to resolve funding challenges, infrastructural decay and welfare problem in the nation’s public universities.

But this is not to be, as the union on Monday stated that it has returned to the trenches to fight government for its alleged refusal to honour an agreement it reached with lecturers. Specifically, ASUU said it has resumed the suspended strike from Monday.  This action, the union’s National President, Dr. Nasir Fagge, said was taken after the Federal Government allegedly failed to implement the agreement.

Fagge said the action, though painful, would be total, comprehensive and last for as long as the government implements the details of the Memorandum of Understanding that both parties signed in 2011. Consequently, the semester examinations going on in some universities would be disrupted, while admission processes would be put on hold. Final year students writing their projects would be hit hard, as their supervisors would not attend to them. By this, academic activities in public tertiary institutions, particularly in universities and polytechnics, which had been on strike in the last three months, would be paralysed.

The decision to embark on the action was taken during the National Executive Council meeting of ASUU at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State between Sunday and Monday last week. All the 53 chapters of ASUU were represented at the meeting, during which 51 chapters of the Union overwhelmingly voted in support of the action.

Briefing the press about the outcome of the NEC meeting at the University of Lagos on Monday, Fagge said the union decided to suspend the action in January 2012 after the Federal Government and ASUU signed the MoU, which contained how all the issues of funding, pension scheme, retirement age and payment of earned allowance for qualified lecturers would be handled.

The Federal Government, the union stated, had only implemented the extension of the retirement age of professors to 70, but had failed to pay the earned allowance for lecturers who are assigned other duties apart from teaching, research and community service. The earned allowance is the money paid to lecturers who are assigned to administrative duties such as heads of department, hall wardens, student project’s supervision and examination duties and pay for extra workload on lecturers.

Under the student projects’ supervision allowance, a professor is expected to be paid N15, 000 per theses. Also, under the extra workload category, the lecturer/student ratio in Arts, Social Sciences and Education faculties is one lecturer to 50 students, one to 35 in Faculty of Sciences and one lecturer to 25 students in Colleges of Medicine. Lecturers are supposed to be paid if they have more than the national lecturer/student ratio.

“When we signed the MoU, it was stated that N100bn had been set aside to pay the earned allowance. But I can tell you that no lecturer has been paid since 2009. Yes, the government has extended the retirement age of professors to 70 as agreed, earned allowances have not been paid while little has been done to raise the level of infrastructure in universities,” he said.

Although he explained that the union had met with government over the matter many times, government has refused to respect the agreement. Rather, he said, ASUU was told that the government forgot to include the earned allowance in the budget.

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