ASUU/FGN agreements and Nigerian universities

Once again, as has been the case on an average of ten years since 1992, the academic peace, stability and standard has come under severe strain due to disagreements between  the signatories to another agreement – the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement on state of implementation.  The normal academic calendar for the 2012/2013 academic session has been […]

Once again, as has been the case on an average of ten years since 1992, the academic peace, stability and standard has come under severe strain due to disagreements between  the signatories to another agreement – the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement on state of implementation.  The normal academic calendar for the 2012/2013 academic session has been truncated by about eight weeks as at this date on the basis of this disagreement.  This is ludicrous.
 An agreement is in jurisprudence binding and, therefore, subject to judicial interpretation should any of the parties to the agreement have reason to believe that the terms are not followed.  The ASUU/FGN Agreements shouldn’t have been a different exemption from this universal jurisprudential principle especially in a democracy like Nigeria.   
Unfortunately, the parties to the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement, though strong advocates,  believers  and supposed adherents of democratic principles, believed otherwise as strikes,  blackmail  and threats appear to be the accepted modus operandi  by signatories to the ASUU/FGN Agreements.  
The immediate victims are not the signatories but the Nigerian society who must trail behind others in Africa and elsewhere on the international scene in this regard.  For one, ASUU has nothing to lose from the truncation of academic programmes and the abridgment  of academic  syllabuses that turns out unemployable graduates as a result of the adoption of the strike option in favour of judicial resolution.
 In a similar way, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) also has nothing to lose but much to gain politically by adopting dialogue and resorting to political solutions to an otherwise simple and much more cost effective judicial solution.  
  It is not clear what happened after the FGN/ASUU Resolution was signed on April 9, 2013 that prompted ASUU to declare a strike action on July 1, 2013 but the Government has released the sum of thirty billion naira (30 billion Naira) representing 37 percent of ASUU demand of N81 billion and has directed Federal Universities Councils to work out the modalities for paying entitled staff.
Certain salient issues can be discerned from the FGN/ASUU tango.  One is the abandonment of the Nigeria national University policy to a trade union, ASUU, creating  conflicts and rivalries between  ASUU and the National University Commission (NUC), the official regulatory agency and vehicle for  implementation of Government policies on Federal Universities on one hand and the Governing Councils of the Universities on the other.   This has brought about great confusion to Vice-Chancellors, students and other stake holders of Federal Universities.
 For example, while Federal policy favoured integrated payroll and payment system (IPPS) and directed Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to embrace it, ASUU directed Vice-Chancellors to steer clear.   Recently, and shortly before the declaration of the current ASUU strike, the Federal University Councils directed a staff audit to be carried out by Federal University administrations.  A contrary directive from ASUU to Vice-Chancellors has so far put that action on hold.    Who then do Vice-Chancellors, Federal University Councils, staff and students look up to in the running of Universities?
A second issue concerns the ambivalence of Federal University Vice-Chancellors, whom the various laws of Federal Universities gave “general function, in addition to any other functions or otherwise to direct the activities, to the exclusion of any other person or authority,  the affairs of the University”.    Vice-Chancellors are therefore not responsible to anybody,  be he the Visitor, Council or Senate whose functions did not stipulate any oversight over the actions and decisions of
Vice-Chancellors.   A Vice-Chancellor is free to choose whose directive to obey!  
Malcolm X once said “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”. With this in mind, Nigeria must be rescued from the FGN/ASUU Agreements syndrome as a basis of managing the affairs of Government owned Universities and therefore, evolve a progressive policy for moving University education in Nigeria forward.    
Dr Akor is of Department of Political Science, University of Jos.