2 months ago
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In this interview with GRACE EDEMA, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Lagos chapter, Prof Kayode Adebayo, tells Nigerians to prevail on the Federal Government to meet the union’s demands. Excerpts
Has any committee been set up by ASUU to negotiate its demands with the Federal Government?
ASUU has a standing negotiating committee. I don’t know what the government wants to negotiate again with ASUU. To make it clear, what we are saying is that there was already a committee set up by the last government and we had reached a proposal with the government. That same government set up two committees for the same reason of renegotiating the 2009 agreement. It was three, starting from Babalakin. The committee again was set up by the same Federal Government and there was a proposal before the government. They also threw it away and put it under the table. What we are saying is ‘Go and excavate that’. Let’s look at the report again. Let’s dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s that are pending and append the signature. Let us have what would be another agreement. So, which committee should be set up again? Are they coming to start from the beginning? We’re not morons.
What is the situation of things with the government on your demand?
We’re seeing motion without movement. Our demand remains. We are demanding that the 2009 agreement should be endorsed. At least, that should be a starting point. They just kept quiet. That is a fundamental basis for the government to start discussing. But it will be another beginning of insanity for anyone to think there will be another committee to begin again. That is unacceptable.
What was the outcome of the meeting with Federal Government representatives last week?
The issue has not been discussed within the hierarchy of the National Executive Council. ASUU is not dictatorial, we move from the bottom to up. The details are not known to ASUU per se. Yes, there was a meeting with the leadership of ASUU but they didn’t call us to deliberate on it. Therefore, I cannot talk about it.
What’s the idea behind ongoing protests all over the country?
There is no idea behind it. It is still the same, that enough is enough. We have had enough. We’re not slaves in our own country, we are academics. Academics in other climes are revered personalities. In Nigeria, politicians cannot make academics a caricature of citizens. We are saying that the property called a university, a public university for Nigerians, cannot be entrusted to reckless, not-thinking politicians, who only have an agenda of how to make their own lives better. We are still on the same issue. We have about nine demands, even more than nine demands. The UNILAG-ASUU is circulating our leaflet of what we’re asking for. The government has to come on board and do the needful.
We have the right to say no. We did not go to elections to elect dictators. We did not go to an election to elect janitors or captains. We went to the election to elect people who promised us what they wanted to do. This government promised a lot of things in the education sector. We’re demanding that it is right to start doing it now. We’ve been trying to meet with the government. The President will not like to meet with ASUU but will like to meet with students. I mean, we are not demanding anything extraordinary. All the things in our demands, if you go back to the records, are items that have been signed as memorandum of understanding, and memorandum of action, with timelines in the past.
Let me give an example. Do you remember Gbajabiamila on the 2023 budget? He was even saying if ASUU problems were not captured in the budget, he would not sign it. There is what we referred to as Earned Academic Allowance in that 2023 budget, there was revitalisation of university funds put into the budget too. Where is the money? That budget has been spent. We did not receive anything. What is going on? So those are the things we are asking the government to revisit and do the needful.
ASUU is not interested in any strike. ASUU is not interested in becoming the clog in the wheel of progress of the university system. ASUU members are also not going to be perpetual servants who will be sacrificing their blood all the time for people who don’t even understand and they’re just laughing at the bank all the time.
Are you saying there will be a strike after all these national protests?
We are appealing to the good people of Nigeria, people who are passionate about the progress of education in Nigeria, genuine citizens of the country, wherever they may be, to please prevail on this government to spare Nigerian universities, public universities, from frustration.
We don’t want to go on strike but, of course, with a career, everything is as usual. There’s nothing that can be done. We’re afraid. Even though we seriously hate it, we might be compelled to embark on another strike if nothing happens. People in this country are hearing us and seeing the movement. People should not sit down and later start blaming ASUU. We’re shouting now. We don’t want a strike, please.
Nigerian citizens should rise and tell this government that the university also belongs to Nigerians. Children of the common people are the ones who are in these institutions. Please, let everybody agree to the fact that this is our property, this is one of the only things that we can even say we can share. Please, prevail over the government. I am saying education, especially tertiary education in the public sector, is too crucial to be trusted in the hands of reckless politicians who know nothing other than to enjoy themselves.
From your observation, how will you describe the body language of the government to your protests?
The body language does not bother me. What bothers me is for them to do the needful. Is ASUU asking for any set of new things? These are all the same demands that have been postponed and put under the carpet since 2009. Please tell them to act as a government. Let them do governance. We don’t need all these trickier things. Nobody asked the Nigerian citizens when they budgeted N100 million for their vehicles. Do they ask Nigerian citizens about that? Do they show any body language? Look, let us demand that we need governance. Education is our right. Education is the right of Nigerian citizens, from generation to generation. The government should stop passing the talk to the citizens, while they’re rolling and cruising in affluence, and the Nigerian people just be miserably living, trying to survive. Let them hold their body language, we’re not interested in the body language. We are interested in action.
For clarity, can you list the 10 demands of ASUU?
We’re demanding that the Nimi-Briggs report before the government should be revisited immediately, and let us cross the t’s and dot the i’s, then sign that document into action. We are saying that the third-party deductions from our salaries and cooperatives should be paid immediately. It is illegal and fraudulent to have deducted money from members and then keep the money with you without sending the money to where it is supposed to go. It is a fraudulent act. We are demanding that it should be released.
We are demanding that people who have been promoted since 2018, but that promotion has not been reflected should be paid in arrears. The IPPIS, a fraudulent and disgraceful payment platform, should be removed from our institutions. The President has announced that he will remove us, but we are still there. We are demanding that everything should be cleaned, and give us a reasonable platform.
We say that we have developed a robust system, UTAS, put us there. In the result of testing all the payment platforms, UTAS came first. Those are some of the things we demand. Nigerian citizens should please help us ask the government if it is right to treat the academics the way they’ve been treating us.
What do you want Nigerians to do?
The good citizens of this country and concerned citizens, this is not just ASUU calling. We are demanding the betterment of the Nigerian public university system. We want Nigerians to use their connections. Anyone connected to the government should let them know that Nigerian citizens are involved in this challenge. We cannot perpetually keep our university system in the darkness. Enough is enough. We are asking good citizens of the nation to appeal to the Federal Government to do something different and take us from the backwardness we have experienced. It is time to make progress. As a union, ASUU is not interested in strikes, but we hope they won’t force us to go on strike. If the government force us to embark on strike, it is not ASUU that is on strike, it is the government of Nigeria that is on strike with the people.
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