ASUU Set for Another Strike……
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| Prof Awuzie |
University teachers are spoiling for another strike over their 2001 agreement with the Federal Government.
They said unless the government implements the agreement next month, they may cripple the university system again.
The teachers urged parents, and especially students to hold the government responsible for whatever happens after the November 22 date agreed for the implentation of the agreement.
After an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, yesterday, the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) resolved to battle government over what the union described as its lack of commitment to reversing the decay in the university system.
ASUU President Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie told reporters that the NEC meeting advised clergies, traditional rulers, labour, Civil Society Organisations and labour to intervene to avert the avoidable crisis.
Awuzie said: “We wish to call on all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians, the operators of our governments, our legislators, the clergy, traditional institutions, gentlemen of the press, labour and Civil Society Organisations, market women, parents and students to intervene and get this avoidable crisis averted. If by November 22, government reneges again, ASUU should not be blamed for whatever action(s) NEC decides to take.”
In 2001, ASUU and government entered into an agreement to resuscitate the university System. The 2001 agreement provides among other things, that there shall be renegotiation every three years in order to review the state of the implementation of the agreement and especially update the document to continue to make it relevant for the development of the system.
Awuzie said going by its provisions, the 2001 agreement was due for renegotiation in 2004. “But between 2003 and 2009, ASUU had to write over 50 letters, held over 200 meetings with different government representatives and agencies, staged over 10 warning strikes and declared a total indefinite strike to get government to set up its renegotiation team, commence the renegotiation, conclude the renegotiation, sign the agreement and commence the implementation.
“The renegotiation that was supposed to have commenced early in 2004, concluded in a couple of months and implemented the same year was delayed by government for five years. That is how what is supposed to be the 2004 agreement is now being called 2009 agreement.”
He expressed disappointment that over two years after signing the agreement, government is still not implementing.
Awuzie called on government to “put its priorities right” adding that It is true that it is not possible for any nation to attain any decent development if its education sector is in tatters and its government is recklessly refusing to take heed and do the right thing. It is even more worrisome if the institutions that have the mandate of producing high-level manpower training and skills are the ones that are being deliberately suffocated”
Prof. Awuzie added: “It is very disheartening to note that, over two years after signing the agreement that is intended to arrest and reverse the rot and decay in the university system, most of our campuses still remain no more than a caricature of what a university is supposed to be.
“The deterioration is continuing unabated largely because government has refused to sincerely implement the 2009 agreement. University infrastructure and facilities are still in shambles: lecture theatres, lecture halls and students’ hostels are not only inadequate but in miserable state of disrepair; laboratories and workshops are shadows of their former selves; counters and shelves in our laboratories that are supposed to be housing chemicals and reagents are now the battlefields of rodents and arachnids; libraries are like storehouses of archaic books and periodicals; level of automation in the university system is scandalously primitive; students are still being packed like sardines in hostels and lecture rooms; instances of students sitting on bare floor or peeping through the windows to listen to lectures are very prevalent; students population is continuously ballooning while infrastructure and facilities development is not only static but in decline.