End This Strike Now

Instead of a negotiated end to the strike action, we are now faced with the possibility of a total showdown between the recalcitrant union and the Federal Government. The grass, in this case students and their parents, has already suffered while the two elephants were fighting and matters now threaten to get even worse. After […]

Instead of a negotiated end to the strike action, we are now faced with the possibility of a total showdown between the recalcitrant union and the Federal Government. The grass, in this case students and their parents, has already suffered while the two elephants were fighting and matters now threaten to get even worse.
After President Jonathan’s marathon meeting with ASUU leaders, the union leaders left to go and consult with their constituents. ASUU chapters in 120 Federal and state universities debated on the agreement reached with the government and voted on it. From reports we received, 60% of ASUU chapters voted to accept the agreement and end the strike while 40% held out for a longer strike. The public therefore expected that an ASUU national executive council meeting scheduled to take place in Kano nearly three weeks ago would bend to the wishes of the majority and call off the strike. Unfortunately, former ASUU president Professor Festus Iyayi was killed in a car crash a day before that meeting when the vehicle he was travelling in was hit by a speeding security car in Kogi State Governor Idris Wada’s convoy. This necessitated a postponement of the ASUU NEC meeting, though many parents and other concerned stakeholders felt that the “indefinite” postponement was dragged on for too long. It could have been held much sooner and the strike called off in honour of Iyayi.
When ASUU finally held its NEC meeting, which it shrouded in secrecy, it did not call off the strike as expected nor did it make any announcement for the benefit of eagerly awaiting students and their parents. Instead, the public learnt from Supervising Minister of Education Mr. Nyesom Wike that ASUU submitted a letter to him for onward transmission to President Jonathan and were requesting for another meeting. Wike described ASUU’s latest stance as “outrageous” and said it was making fresh demands on the government. Some ASUU spokesmen subsequently denied that they made fresh demands and said they sought clarifications over certain issues settled in the meeting with Jonathan which were later omitted from the government’s official letters.
According to reports, ASUU’s November 22 letter included the re-inclusion of an agreement to renegotiate the 2009 agreement whose implementation was the crux of the current dispute; to begin releasing funds promised for the rehabilitation of universities sooner than the president promised; and to have the Federal Attorney General and Justice Minister to sign the current agreement in order to prevent the government from sliding away from it in the future. The fourth demand was what ASUU called “non-victimisation” clause. This included a demand for the payment of the lecturers’ wages that were withheld during this strike.
This is not a demand that anyone in Nigeria should support. Paying salaries to striking workers is illegal under this country’s laws because salaries are rewards for work done. Nor is it the practice in most parts of the world, including the entire developed world. However justified a union’s grievances are, if it orders its members to stop working then it must pay them their salaries from its strike funds. To compel the government to pay salaries for the period when students were forced to sit at home is immoral and would only encourage protracted strike actions like this one which most Nigerians believe was overdone.
Last Thursday, things finally threatened to get out of hand when the Federal Government handed down a week’s ultimatum for the lecturers to return to work or face the sack. It ordered vice chancellors all over the country to reopen the campuses, sack any lecturers who refuse to go back to work and recruit new ones to fill any vacancies thus created. Already in anticipation of trouble, Inspector-General Mohammed Abubakar has ordered all Police Commissioners to provide adequate security in and around university campuses nationwide. He said the measure was designed to secure life and property and provides an enabling environment for lecturers and students “to go about their lawful businesses without hindrance.”
While we share the government’s and parents’ frustration with the protracted nature of this strike and with ASUU’s highly objectionable tactics, we urge the government to step back from this course of action. It was attempted twice before in the history of this country, first during the Gowon era and also during the Abacha era when lecturers were sacked from their jobs and were given a few hours to quit their official quarters. It is an ignominious path that we should not follow again despite our frustrations.
In the same breath we plead once more with the leadership of ASUU to call off this protracted strike action immediately in line with the wish of a majority of its own members. To prolong the strike which majority of its chapters had voted to call off under the pretext of clarifying certain issues is to prolong the plight of students and their parents. ASUU may or may not know this but the flight of thousands of Nigerian students to foreign universities is attributed not to the poor quality of our own universities but to frequent ASUU strike actions. The culture of going on prolonged strike actions almost every year in the last two decades has done more harm than good to our universities and we urge the union to explore other alternative strategies that are available in the liberal democratic order, imperfect thought it is. Meanwhile, it should end this strike action immediately.