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By Madu Obi
THE Owerri zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has called on the federal government to conclude the abandoned renegotiation of the 2009 agreement to save Nigerian universities from total collapse.
The zone is made up of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Igbariam, Anambra State, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Imo State University, Owerri (IMSU), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
At a press conference in Awka on Monday, ASUU accused the federal and state governments of consistently undermining the existence and integrity of the public universities in Nigeria through their systemic neglect, acute under-funding and bastardization of university autonomy, leading to the inability of Nigerian universities to compete globally.
Coordinator of Owerri zone of ASUU, Professor Dennis Aribodor lamented that the Nigerian university system has continued to face the most crucial existential threats occasioned by governments’ total neglect and abandonment.
According to him, there is concerted effort by governments to annihilate public universities in Nigeria in favour of the commercialization of university education via private universities owned by politically exposed individuals.
Aribodor said: "The FGN - ASUU agreement signed in October, 2009 summed up the four key issues namely, conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom and other matters related to regulations, working environment, etc.
This agreement was meant to arrest brain drain, attract best brains to the Nigerian university system from across the world and to position Nigerian public universities for global competitiveness.
"It is worrisome to note that this agreement that was designed to be renegotiated after three years (2012) did not start until 6th March, 2017 and is yet to be completed till date (fifteen years after the agreement was signed).
"Recall that the federal government employed the collective bargaining agreement principle and inaugurated Prof. Munzali Jubril’s Renegotiation Committee in December 2020.
The same government jettisoned the report of the Prof. Munzali Jubril’s Committee submitted in May, 2021 and reconstituted the Prof. Nimi Brigg’s Renegotiation Committee to renegotiate the renegotiated report with ASUU.
Prof. Brigg’s committee submitted its report to the federal government, but was abandoned by the same federal government through the instrumentality of the thenMinister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige.
"The President Bola Tinubu-led federal government took over about one year ago and it is surprising that it has not addressed this particular issue of renegotiation even when officials in the present government intervened during our last struggle.
"We therefore call for the conclusion of the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement so as to maintain industrial harmony across Nigeria public universities that house over 95% of Nigerian undergraduates.
"Recall also that the non-signing of Prof Nimi Brigg’s committee report of 2022 has left the university lecturers to remain in the same salary structure for the past 15 years. This scenario has pauperized Nigeria university workers with meagre take-home pay that cannot actually take them home.
"The current pay of a Professor at bar is about $500 per month, which is a mockery when compared with countries in West Africa not to talk of the entire African continent and the world.
"Universities are international centres and Nigerian public universities should be seen to be so.
The mass exodus of academics from the Nigerian public universities for greener pasture portends a great danger not only to the universities, but to the development of Nigeria, and should be urgently arrested.
"We invite and urge all stakeholders to play their parts in ensuring that federal and state governments play their expected roles to avert a looming danger.
ASUU struggles are patriotic and are meant to ensure that our public universities are adequately re-positioned to deliver on their mandates by ensuring effective teaching, research and community service; thus contributing to national development."
He was specifically worried that the federal government has refused to pay the backlog of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) in federal universities, just like the Anambra and Imo State governments have also refused to pay the same EAA to their lecturers in COOU and Imo State University (IMSU), respectively as obtainable in state universities in other parts of the country.
"Lecturers in COOU who have given their all to the services of the university retire without pension. They are left to go home and wait for their death.
"In both COOU and IMSU, the current wage award of 25% and 35% to public university workers, consequential minimum wage increase, palliative for fuel subsidy removal and arrears of CONUASS are yet to receive governments’ attention.
Till this moment, the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) of 2020 which provided for mainstreaming of EAA into monthly salaries is yet to be implemented in the state-owned universities in Anambra and Imo States," Arobodor said.
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