FGN-ASUU Imbroglio: Deceitful Silence and Rapid Brewing of Avoidable Crisis

 FGN-ASUU Imbroglio: Deceitful Silence and Rapid Brewing of Avoidable Crisis

By MK Othman

With head high, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) continues to celebrate its judicial but false victory over the FGN-ASUU case, which the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) judged in September 2022 and May 2023. Part of the Court's overall judgment is "Call off the strike; the government is legally right to implement the no-work-no-pay policy." This phrase has made FGN celebrate the clipping of the ASUU’s wing, the bunch of "trouble makers" who have become "clogs" in the wheel of university progress as they always demanded more funding for university education in Nigeria. They were defeated, their ego was shattered, and some of them paid supreme price, and the rest are leaking and still nursing their wounds. They dare not go on industrial action again and are coerced to "teach" their students for the peanuts they get as salary. Any striking worker will face the wrath of the "no-work-no-pay" policy, and the union will be "legally" dealt with. This victory made the FGN refuse to implement the 23% salary increase the government offered the workers during its industrial action. Even the so-called 40% salary increment across the salaries of Federal workers paid at the beginning of this year, the university workers were excluded. The society nodded its agreement with government action by remaining silent and thinking that the ASUU agitation for more funding was unnecessary. When ASUU suspended its strike action, FGN stayed quiet and pretended to have resolved all contending issues. Coincidently, the "victory" came at the period of changing government officials at various levels, which provided a perfect alibi for pretentious behavior as time passed, thereby creating restiveness. According to the opinion of government officials, FGN cannot fund university education, and the parents must shoulder significant responsibility to support the education of their wards. ASUU has consistently opposed this opinion and argued that demanding more parental funds will exclude multitudes from university education. The reason is that several parents need help to afford additional costs to educate their children. For this reason and staff welfare, ASUU negotiated and renegotiated with FGN signed and resigned the agreements willingly from 2009 to 2020 before going on strike. The strike was due to the FGN's failure to implement the signed agreements after strenuous, time-consuming, brain-storming, and rock-breaking negotiations. 

During the strike, ASUU was open to renegotiation and renegotiated with Professor Nimi Briggs-led Committee on behalf of FGN. FGN jettisoned the recommendations of its committee, dragged ASUU to Court and gained "victory," thereby shirking its commitments and responsibilities. Since then, FGN has maintained deceitful silence over the agitations of ASUU and other university-based unions. Muscling ASUU into defeat is a nation's failure, and the repercussions will be catastrophic to society. As mentioned in this column, ASUU is demanding a change from rots to prosperity, from decay to progress, the kind of progress the country needs to become a great nation and a well-deserved position we all crave. If we fail to meet ASUU's demands of stopping the rots in the university system, the country may be doomed sooner or later. 

The university education, the bedrock supporting pillars of societal development, is the brooding house for leaders of tomorrow. University is the epicenter of integrating hypothesis and empirical concepts, meeting points of theory and practical reality, and a home for creativity and innovations. Therefore, all deserving citizens should have access to university education for the nation's progress. While FGN has kept mum enjoying the "victory", ASUU is keenly watching, strategizing, and restiveness among the university workers is building, thereby breeding an avoidable crisis. FGN ducks away all commitments, including the promise to release N50 billion for payment of outstanding earned allowances to universities and inter-university centers. What of all the funds included in the 2023 budget to address the demands of the university-based unions? So far, nothing has been released. The new session for 2023/2024 is around the corner, and parents will be made to pay charges for services to the universities in multiple of three or four higher than they paid previously. This is the crux of the matter.

Now, the chickens have come home to roost. How much should parents pay for educating their wards in Nigerian public universities? In the last two months, public university management in Nigeria has been busy determining appropriate charges for the parents to enable universities leave their gates open for the new academic session. Considering all variables, the cost of educating an undergraduate student per year ranged from about a million Naira for an art student to nearly three million for a medical student. The government contributes 40% of the cost, and the remaining 60% must be generated internally if the university gates must remain open. How much can a student be charged? 

Hitherto, the students were charged less than 10% of the cost for their training, which amounts to about N50,000, and now there is a need to increase this charge to between three and four times. FGN is introducing students' loans to care for the indigent students, but more than 60% of the students are under this category. Can the government cater to all of them? This is a story for another time. 

With the "defeat" of ASUU, the hike in university fees is inevitable. The implication will be having many students dropping out and becoming jobless and unemployable young men and women on the street. The Kaduna State University fee hike under the immediate past governor, Mallam El-Rufai, is a good example. El' Rufai, in his elitist madness, did the opposite to his campaign slogan, "Dole dan talaka yaje makaranta- children of the poor must attend school", hiked the fees of Kaduna state higher institutions of learning. For example, the state university tuition increased from N24,000 and N26,000 to N150,000 and N500,000 for indigenes and non-indigenes respectively. In the end, more than 50% of the students transferred to other universities or dropped out and joined the overpopulated labor market. Currently, there are about two million, five hundred thousand undergraduate students nationwide, and with a hike in fees, one-quarter of the number might have to drop out. Can Nigeria handle massive, energetic, jobless youth roaming our streets? The youth constitute 60% of the Nigerian population, and they are inexperienced and highly vulnerable to involvement in social delinquencies and violent crimes. The security situation is already messier and should not go beyond the current situation. However, the problems in the university system are not unsolvable. With good intentions and clarity of purpose, government can address the issues in no time.    

The university system in Nigeria is decaying exponentially due to several years of gross negligence, and reversing the decay requires the injection of necessary funds and care. Thus, ASUU has identified all the problems responsible for the decay and proffer solutions, including "how and means" of sourcing the funds with negligible financial pressure on the government. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) needs to give listening ears to ASUU with the genuine intention to address the problems. Before then, however, PBAT should direct the immediate release of the withheld salaries of the university workers to soothe them for the harm they were subjected to during their industrial action. The gesture will pave the way for genuine reconciliation and boost their morale. The nation must arrest and reverse the decay of the university system to secure a glorious future for the country. The ball is in the court of PBAT, please, Mr. President, do the needful to bring permanent and sustainable peace on our campuses.