As of the time ASUU asked its members to return to their duty posts, Nigerians were unsure of the status of the resolutions on each of the agreements with the government.
When the national leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) announced the suspension of its then eight-month-old industrial action, it was in honour of the order of the National Industrial Court (NIC) having failed in its appeal at the appellate court.
The union also cited the intervention of prominent Nigerians and particularly the leadership of the House of Representatives for its decision.
Before ASUU announced its initial four-week strike on 14 February after the meeting of the union's National Executive Council (NEC) at the University of Lagos, it listed some unmet demands by the Nigerian government.
Demands
Addressing journalists in February, ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, a professor, listed the demands to include the replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for the payment of the union members' emoluments; renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement, the release of revitalisation fund, release of white papers on visitation panels to universities, among others.
As of the time, ASUU asked its members to return to their duty posts, Nigerians were unsure of the status of the resolutions on each of the agreements with the government.
However, Mr Osodeke said the demands have not been satisfactorily addressed by the government. Therefore, in this report, PREMIUM TIMES looks at each of the demands and the position of the government expressed by relevant government officials towards addressing them.
On IPPIS
Since the introduction of IPPIS by the government, ASUU has consistently rejected its implementation, describing it as a violation of the autonomy of academic institutions.
Earlier, the leadership of ASUU said the minimum requirement to suspend the prolonged industrial action was the adoption of UTAS which was developed by its members in replacement of IPPIS.
But as of the time ASUU was compelled to resume work, the government said it would not adopt UTAS but agreed to modify IPPIS to accommodate the peculiarities identified with the university system.
The government said adopting UTAS would open a floodgate of requests from other agencies and departments. Already, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and other Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Union of Universities (SSANU) have jointly developed another platform which it tagged University Peculiar Payroll Payment System (U3Ps) and proposed its adoption to the government.
Proliferation of public universities
ASUU wants the government, especially state governments, to suspend the creation of more universities, claiming the existing ones suffer from inadequate funding.
PREMIUM TIMES once reported how there were over 126 bills for the establishment of universities in the ninth National Assembly.
In 2022, up to 26 new bills for the creation of federal universities were also presented by the parliament, according to the Punch.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives in September rejected the plea to stop bills for the creation of more universities. The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, had pleaded with his colleagues to, as a matter of respect for the striking union, jettison deliberation on the bills but the lawmakers rejected the appeal.
Therefore, there is no categorical position on the matter by the government.
White papers on visitation panels
In August 2021, the presidential visitation panels to universities submitted their reports to the government through the then Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, but the government is yet to release the reports of the whitepaper from the reports.
ASUU, therefore, in declaring the strike, listed the release of the white papers as part of its demands.
A few days after the commencement of the strike, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, constituted a committee to draft White papers from the reports of the panels. The committees submitted the drafted white papers to Mr Adamu in May, but the government is yet to make them public.
As of the time the union suspended the industrial action, there was no categorical position by the government, especially on how soon the white papers will be made public.
Earned Academic Allowances (EAA)
Due to the challenge of the heavy workload of the lecturers which is occasioned by the failure of the government to recruit more workers and the rising figure of admission seekers, the union had an agreement with the government to support its members with the allowance which would be calculated by the amount of "extra work" carried out during an academic calendar year.
The earned academic allowance is, therefore, the allowance lecturers are entitled to for undertaking additional tasks such as the teaching of more than a certain number of students and the supervision of projects, teaching practice and students' industrial training.
The government has, however, promised to release N50 billion for the earned academic allowance, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
Revitalisation fund
The government has included N300 billion for the revitalisation funds of public tertiary institutions, which might include the polytechnics and colleges of education.
2009 agreement renegotiation
Renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-Federal government agreement is one the most important demands of ASUU as it contains lecturers' conditions of services including salary structure, university autonomy and other entitlements such as the earned academic allowances.
In 2017, the Nigerian government appointed the then pro-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Wale Babalakin, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), to renegotiate the agreement with ASUU. After more than three years of unfruitful deliberations, Mr Babalakin resigned in 2020 following the protracted conflicts between him and the outgoing vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe.
However, following Mr Babalakin's resignation, the government appointed the Pro-chancellor of Federal University Lafia, Munzali Jibril, a professor, to head another renegotiation team. The team came up with a draft agreement in May 2021, but it remained unsigned until 14 February.
While the strike was on, the government subsequently constituted another renegotiation committee headed by the Pro-Chancellor of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu- Alike, Ikwo, Nimi Briggs, an Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The committee concluded negotiations and submitted its report to the government in July.
But the government has also set aside the recommendations in the draft proposal by the Briggs-led committee. Instead, the government proposed a 23.5 per cent salary increase for all university workers and 35 per cent for professors, but ASUU has rejected the offer, questioning the rationale behind setting up the committee when its recommendations would not be implemented.
Backstory
Following the failure of both the government and the union to reach a compromise, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, referred the dispute to the Industrial Court requesting the court to order ASUU to suspend the strike before the determination of the substantive matter. The Court agreed and ordered ASUU to suspend the strike.
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Dissatisfied with the ruling, the union approached the Court of Appeal but the higher court stamped the order of the lower court, advising ASUU to obey the order while pursuing the decision of the industrial court before proceeding to appeal.
Meanwhile, having been compelled to return to work based on the court order, the salient question many Nigerians are asking is whether the union would embark on another strike soon as most of its demands have not been met. But the leadership of the union has evaded this question on more than one occasion.
When he was featured on Channels Television on Sunday, ASUU President failed to answer a similar question directly. Instead, Mr Osodeke narrated how the union and its members' sacrifice is impacting Nigerian universities, saying without ASUU's struggles the universities would have been like public primary and secondary schools.
"If you go round Nigerian universities today, including the state universities, what you see are all the capital projects done through TETFund and NEEDs Assessment fund. You can go round, you'll see them," he said.
A similar scenario played out on Wednesday during PREMIUM TIMES' weekly Twitter Space where the Vice President of the union, Chris Piwuna, was a guest.
When asked if the union would embark on another strike, Mr Piwuna simply said he could not speak for the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union.
He only said the union's NEC consists of "wise men and women" who decide on whether to embark on strike or not.
Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe
