The fragile peace in the nation’s universities may be disrupted if the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) makes good its threat to down tools any moment from now.
Addressing journalists on the looming strike, the Coordinator of ASUU Lagos Zone, Prof Adelaja Odukoya, accused the Federal Government of insensitivity to their plight over the years.
The Lagos Zone of ASUU comprises University of Lagos (UNILAG); Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo; Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijebu Ode; Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye; Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUST) Ikorodu; Lagos State University of Education (LASUED), Otto-Ijanikin, and Federal University of Agriculture (FUNAAB), Abeokuta.
Odukoya, who is also the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at UNILAG, lamented that successive governments had paid lip service to education.
He, particularly, accused the President Bola Tinubu’s administration of failing to live up to expectations in respect of meeting the union’s demands.
The don highlighted some of those unresolved issues as non-injection of revitalisation funds as agreed and also appropriated for in the 2023 budget and in line with the needs assessment report into the system; the proliferation of both federal and state universities without financial support, the prolonged delay in renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, and the continuous use of ‘deceptive’ Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) payment platform.
Others are the continuous delay in payment of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), the continuous use of Treasury Single Account (TSA) for university operations, the non-payment of outstanding withheld salaries, the non-recall of sacked ASUU officials at LASU, and non-release of the university’s white paper on the 2021 visitation panel.
He explained that ASUU had grown tired of dwelling on the same number of issues year in and year out, negotiating and renegotiating, and with mutual agreements reached and signed on each occasion, but with the government consistently reneging on its own terms.
He said: “In spite of its promises ahead of assuming office, the President Tinubu’s administration has failed to live up to expectations in respect of the issues that have been at the forefront of ASUU’s actions.
Odukoya noted that between then and now, there had been no tangible intervention to inspire hope.
He stressed that all the issues that have been putting ASUU at loggerheads with the government have been in the best interest of Nigeria and its people, not ASUU members alone.
He said, unfortunately, the government would make their differences look to the public as if ASUU is fighting for its own cause alone.
Odukoya lamented the frequent loss of members to avoidable deaths in public university campuses nationwide.
He, however, appealed again to the Federal Government and President Tinubu, in particular, to take the issues raised very seriously and address them, saying the union had been pushed to the wall and might shut down academic activities in the nation’s universities.
