ASUU: Those who signed pact for FG didn’t know their right from their left - Mark THE Senate has disclosed that the Federal Government negotiation team that signed the 2009 agreement with ASUU, ignorantly signed the pact that has now become a bone of contention between the government and the union. Senate President, David Mark, made this known on Wednesday as the upper legislative body waded into the prolonged impasse. Mark said he had thought that details of the agreement, as revealed by the Senate Committee on Education, were mere proposals in view of the degree of trivialities involved. According to him, the nature of the agreement showed that those who represented the Federal Government at the negotiation table where it was signed, were people who did not know their right from their left. The Senate, however, appealed to the university lecturers to suspend the strike to prevent further worsening of the country’s education sector. The upper legislative body, in a motion moved by Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba and supported by 106 senators, noted that the development was already a national embarrassment. According to the senators, both the leadership of ASUU and the executive should shift grounds on the strike because the 2009 agreement was defective. The lawmakers, however, mandated the Senate Committee on Education to continue to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), ASUU and other relevant stakeholders to stem further strikes in the education sector. The Senate President was also mandated to engage President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of ASUU in a meaningful dialogue with a view to bringing the strike to an end. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, disclosed that ASUU, in the agreement, was demanding N1.5trillion, comprising varsity funding and Earned Allowance for lecturers. Acccording to him, the lecturers demanded that the government should spread the implementation of the pact for a period of three years at N500bn per year. Admitting that some clauses in the agreement were ambiguous, Chukwumerije said ASUU had been fruastrating efforts by the government to raise funds to meet the lecturers’ demands. He cited an instance that the ASUU rejected the N130billion offered by the government, comprising of N100bn for funding and N30billion as Earned Allowances. Senators who contributed to the debate agreed that varsity education had been under-funded in the country but also noted that the some demands of ASUU were outrageous. Senator Sola Adeyeye, a Professor of Molecular Biology, who said he had been in the university system since 1968 before venturing into politics, noted that there was no where in the world where such agreement could be implementable. He specifically said that most of the demands of ASUU, including Injury Allowances, Excess Workload, Examination Allowance and Supervision of Project Allowances, Maternity Allowance, Injury Allowance and Sick Allowance, among others, were outrageous. “I asked ASUU during one of our meetings: is there any nation where any of such allowances are paid according to international standard? “A typical teacher teaches two courses in a semester for three hours a week. You are paid salaries, why should you be paid again for these other things? Where in the world are lecturers paid examination allowances? “Where is a professor paid allowances for supervising post graduate students? Why is he a professor in the first place? What you cannot ask for in other spheres ought not be asked for here. “The standard practice in the United States is that if you go on sabbatical, you’ll be paid for six months; if you spend more than that, you have to fund it yourself. Where in the world do you say the Federal Government should be involved in the funding of state universities?”, Adeyeye queried. Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, revealed that despite the release of N100 billion for infrastructural development to the universities, as well as additional N30 billion as accumulated allowances by the government, the lecturers have refused to be pacified. Also speaking, Senator Ita Enang, said ASUU needed to understand that the money it was demanding for was not appropriated for in the 2013 budget and therefore would be unlawful for the Federal Government to make such a release. He queried the source of the N100 billion released by the Federal Government to the universities so far, saying such appropriation is not contained in the current budget. He added that most of the demands of ASUU are at variance with their terms of employment, saying, they were political. Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, suggested full autonomy for varsities so that they could charge fees and reduce their heavy reliance on government funding. Senator Mark specifically took a swipe at those who signed the agreement on behalf of the government and noted that the negotiators were ignorant of the document they appended their signatures on. Listening to the agreement that was signed by the Federal Government as Comrade Uche Chukwumerije read out, I was really wondering whether this was signed or it was just a proposal. “But when he concluded, he said it was signed. It only shows the level of people the executive sent to go and negotiate on their behalf because, ab initio, people must be told the truth, what can be accomplished and what cannot be accomplished. “If a leader says I am going to accomplish this, he is morally duty bound to honour it. But even if you decided immediately after that you cannot accomplish it, I think it is only proper for you to go back and start renegotiating. “But if you prolong it on the basis that you are still going to honour it and you don’t honour it, then it doesn’t portray us in good light. “This is where the Federal Government ought to call those who were party to this agreement. “On the other hand, I think ASUU simply took advantage of the ignorance of those who were sent and simply just allowed this agreement to go on because it is obvious that this is going to be very difficult piece of paper to implement. “They found that those who were sent there simply didn’t know their right from their left and they just went ahead. “I think that also is not fair because ASUU is an organisation in Nigeria and we are not going to go to another country to implement this piece of paper. “It was obvious to me as soon as Uche (Chukwumerije) concluded that this was a difficult thing for them to implement. e said both parties should shift grounds because not doing so will worsen the social, economic and political crisis in the country. He pleaded with ASUU to suspend the strike while further negotiations continue while the Federal Government should call those who negotiated on its behalf, back to the negotiation table. He noted that ASUU had made a point and challenged the government to learn how to respect agreement but noted that the contentious ones may be difficult to implement. Meanwhile, the Federal Government has again appealed to the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members to allow reason to prevail by calling off the over three-month-old strike action, saying, “ clearly, strike actions are detrimental to the growth and development of our educational system.” Speaking during the 29th convocation ceremony of the University of Ilorin, President Goodluck Jonathan, represented by the Supervising Minister for Education, Chief Nyesome Wike, said the Federal Government recently released the sum of N130 billion to the nation’s universities for infrastructural development and payment of earned allowances to staff. He also said that government had increased the budget of education progressively from N234.8 billion in 2010 to N426.5 billion in 2013 with N55.74 billion allocated to the university sub-sector alone. In a related development lecturers at the Delta State University, Abraka, on Wednesday, staged a peaceful rally against the recalcitrant posture of the Federal Government towards the implementation of the 2009 agreement reached with it. This is just as the union handed down the warning to both the Federal Government and Delta State government to stop their threat not to pay the striking lecturers on the basis of “no work, no pay,” saying they should also prepare for their own policy of “no pay, no work.”
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:46:58 +0000
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