Re: SSANU’s wrong call

Had the editorial not carried your masthead, we would have dismissed it as an All Fools’ Day prank. We suspect that somebody in your organization is trying to do a hatchet man’s job for reasons we are yet to fathom out. Otherwise how can your editorial imply conclusively that our agreement is not implementable because […]

Had the editorial not carried your masthead, we would have dismissed it as an All Fools’ Day prank. We suspect that somebody in your organization is trying to do a hatchet man’s job for reasons we are yet to fathom out. Otherwise how can your editorial imply conclusively that our agreement is not implementable because SSANU is appropriating academic allowances?
We would like to remind you that what SSANU is seeking is the implementation of the product of a negotiation that spanned over several years before perfection. And under the labour principle of pacta sunt servanda, that agreement deserves to be respected and implemented as it was a product of a voluntary social dialogue under the doctrine of collective bargaining as enshrined in the ILO Convention 98 of 1949. If your editorial board had not decided to descend into the arena to take sides with impunity, had it tarried a while to peruse the SSANU agreement, it would have discovered that the agreed allowances were in no way “academic allowances”!   Since the signing of the 2009 agreements, at least there has been a modicum of stability in the academic calendar of the university system in Nigeria.
It would be trite to conclude that anyone who is preaching a return to the pre-2009 era is not only a sadist but an anarchist.  For the records, you may want to know that it is not only SSANU’s “earned allowances” alone that have not been implemented. Therefore your reasoned postulations on its unimplementability can only be warped. Part of the impunity that has corrupted the Nigerian system is governments’ signing agreements voluntarily and turning around not to implement, leading to avoidable work stoppages. This is the issue every patriotic and right thinking Nigerian should work hard to discourage in the emerging dispensation and not supporting impunity and executive rascality.
That the infamous circular from a heavily partisan NUC is busy erasing hundreds of jobs of Nigerians in the universities’ demonstration schools against the spirit and letter of the SSANU/FGN Agreement, 2009, does not add for much to your Man Friday! SSANU, as a result of the NUC satanic circular, is continually losing members in those schools as has happened in the University of Nigeria (UNN), Usman Danfodio University (UDUS), Abia State University (UDUS) etc. And this is in spite of SSANU being in court over the issue and even President Jonathan’s admonition that the NUC should respect the Demonstration Schools Agreement until a renegotiation. And you expect us to fold our hands and watch the illegal sacking of hundreds of our members? What has the violation of this aspect of our Agreement got to do with “academic allowances and unimplementability”?
 As to the timing of the warning, if the editorial had not been so biased in the haste and approach to condemn SSANU, it would have recognized that SSANU merely said that if nothing was done to address the issues raised by the 28th of March 2015, it would consider other options. This did not in any way suggest an immediate embarkation of strike.     
 
Barr Promise Adewusi, mni, NPOM, General Secretary, SSANU