President Muhammadu Buhari opted to invoke the no work, no pay policy against striking university lecturers on Thursday after receiving the status report on the negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) from Education Minister Adamu Adamu.
The President was shocked that the lecturers have reduced their demands to only the payment of their six months’ salary arrears, The Nation learnt yesterday.
Buhari was also said to have been angry that the lecturers were still grumbling after the government accepted to increase the salary of professors by 35 per cent and other lecturers by 27 per cent.
Government itself drew the ire of some Nigerians yesterday for its inability to resolve the dispute with ASUU while the President of the union,Professor Emmanuel Osodeke told the Federal Government to forget getting his colleagues back to the classrooms to conclude the unfinished academic sessions it their salary backlog of six months is not settled.
“If government says no work, no pay, ASUU members will also begin lectures from the 2022/2023 session and forgo unfinished academic sessions lost during the strike,” Osodeke said on Channels Television in response to Thursday’s statement by Adamu that government would not pay the lecturers for work not done during their strike.
Sources said yesterday that ASUU also rejected the increase of the pay of Chief Lecturers in Polytechnic and Colleges of Education by 35 per cent.
It was said to have queried the alleged unilateral increase by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission instead of allowing the principle of collective bargaining between the Federal Government and the union.
Investigation revealed that when the Minister of Education went to brief the President on the status of negotiation with ASUU, he had the impression that the striking lecturers were only after their salary arrears without caring about other demands.
A top source said: “Immediately Adamu presented a request for the payment of the salary arrears of the lecturers, the President said no. He couldn’t understand that the lecturers wasted the career of a young generation for six months.
“He didn’t believe that all the lecturers wanted was salary arrears and not much of other demands, including the revitalisation of universities.
“He was disturbed that the lecturers were not comfortable with 35% salary increase for professors and 27% pay increase for other lecturers.”
Another source said: “The President was asking how students would get justice if the lecturers were paid their salary arrears for doing nothing.
“He also got to know that four out of the five striking unions in the tertiary institutions have agreed to call off their strike except ASUU. He has evidence to show that his administration has released huge funds to the universities among other reforms. He was not happy that ASUU was not reciprocating the positive strides.
“He directed the minister to invoke the no work, no pay law to enable the lecturers appreciate the enormity of the setback they have caused for the university system.”
Responding to a question, the source added: “Only God saved Adamu, the President would have removed him as minister.
“There had been intelligence report on Adamu that he has been indulging the ASUU leadership. In fact, varsity lecturers have always wanted to negotiate with him than the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige.”
Sources said once the minister read the mood of the President on Thursday, he wasted no time in obeying his directive .
“That was why Adamu chose the Presidential Villa to address the press on Thursday to announce the government’s position,” one source said.
ASUU to FG: Forget unfinished academic sessions if you won’t settle our salary backlog
Responding yesterday to government’s insistence on the no work, no pay policy, ASUU president, Osodeke said the lecturers too should not be expected to complete the unfinished academic sessions.
He said: “If we agree on that, therefore, the lectures we should have given [to students] for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 [sessions], should be allowed to go so we start a new session, 2022/2023, in September,” Professor Osodeke added.
“Therefore, by July next year, I would go on my leave as we used to have in those days so that the backlog is gone. All the lectures that remain; all the two sets of admissions that JAMB has given that are waiting should become irrelevant.
“When other unions go on strike and come back, all those periods for which you are on strike, you don’t need to do the backlog of work.
“But for ASUU, when we go back today, we are going to start from the 2020/2021 session. For these two sets of students that have been admitted by JAMB, we have to teach them over these periods to ensure that we meet up with the system.
“So, we are going to do the backlog of the work we have left behind. We are not going to start today and say ‘This session is 2022/2023, therefore, all these two sets of people that have been admitted by JAMB are cancelled. We have to take another admission for the 2023/2024 session.’”
On another statement by Adamu that students affected by the ASUU strike should take the union to court for the harm done them,Osodeke said the students knew that the problem was with the government and not the union.
His words: ”You need to read the response by the president of NANS, Comrade Asefon. He said ASUU is not their problem, that their problem is the government and if they must sue anybody, they are actually doing that, they are consulting lawyers, they are going to sue the minister of education and the Federal Government for forcing ASUU who is an employee of the system and fighting for their (students) interest.”
Academics advocate liberalisation of university unions
A group of academics – Congress of University Academics (CONUA)- yesterday called for the liberalisation of academic staff unions in universities across the country.
This, it said , would give lecturers and other stakeholders the freedom to choose which body they want to belong to and also put an end to the endless strikes embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU).
The congress said the current ASUU strike might not yield a positive result.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, the National Coordinator of CONUA, Dr. Niyi Sunmonu urged the Federal Government to approve its registration which has been pending since 2018.
Sunmonu said CONUA was “saddened by our recent experiences in Nigerian universities… unprecedented disruptions in academic calendars in our universities.”
He said: ”Between 1999 and 2021, Nigerian public universities experienced strikes for 1,417 days which translates to over five years.
“The ongoing strike is in its sixth month now. This has caused damage in no small measure to teaching and research.”
On the way forward, he said: “CONUA is determined to proffer solutions to these endemic problems so that our universities once again will have a breath of life.
“As a first step, we call on the federal government, as a matter of urgency to convoke a stakeholders’ meeting to include parents, students, all unions and relevant government agencies to brainstorm and find lasting solutions to these perennial problems.
“We cannot be doing the same thing the same way for many years and expect different results. As a union, we are committed to the entrenchment of quality ideas that will stand the test of time in Nigerian universities.”
Stakeholders: Enough of this dispute
Some Nigerians are not in agreement with the Federal Government on its decision to invoke the no work, no pay law against the striking lecturers.
They are of the view that the university system and the students have suffered enough over the strike and government should just pay the lecturers so that academic work can resume immediately.
Former lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th National Assembly, asked the Federal Government to set aside the extant law of ‘no work, no pay’ and pay the striking universities lecturers their six months’ salary areas.
Sani said both the federal government and ASUU should not be talking about law, but negotiations and compromises now, especially that students who he said are at the receiving end have lost one academic session.
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