The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was founded in 1978. ASUU is an offshoot of the Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT), which was established in 1965. At that time, NAUT consisted of only five universities, namely, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Ife and University of Lagos.
The union has burgeoned to about 100 in 44 years.
As of September 2021, there are 170 universities in Nigeria. 79 were private, 43 and 48 states. Almost all with the exception of private and few public universities are members of ASUU. Federal University Nsukka Enugu state, Federal University of Ilorin and Delta State University are the only public universities not ASUU members, according to Wikipedia.
It was formed during the decline in oil boom, when the country faced the consequences of the failure by its rulers to use the oil wealth to generate production and a social welfare system. Military dictatorship had eroded the basic freedoms in the society including academic freedom and university autonomy. The funding of education, and so of universities, became poorer. The factors required a changed orientation of the union of academics from 1980.
The union’s orientation became radical, more concerned with broad national issues, and stood firmly against oppressive, undemocratic policies of government. They stood against broad national issues such as anti-military struggles, struggles against military rule, struggle against privatisation, against Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), and the World Bank’s attempt to take over the universities, for example, the World Bank $120 million loan under Babangida’s military rule and the Nigerian Universities Innovation Project (NUSIP) during Obasanjo’s regime; the struggle against the re-colonisation of Nigeria and debt peonage.
In 1985, the Buhari-Idiagbon regime began a programme of retrenchment of workers and wage freeze. It clamped down on the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) when the doctors went on strike to protest the deterioration of health services in Nigeria; ASUU supported the doctors union. The government sacked doctors, arrested and detained NMA and NARD leaders, as well as ASUU leaders. ASUU was central to the resistance to Buhari-Idiagbon regime’s termination of the cafeteria system and the withdrawal of subsidies on accommodation.
It had also struggled with several governments both the military and civilian and its concerns were funding, salaries, autonomy and academic freedom, brain drain and the survival of the university system. ASUU also worked with separate industrial unions and NLC state chapters. It took on debates on the direction and context of national economy, education and other policies.Throughout the military period, ASUU waged its struggles on return to civilian rule in 1999.
Since the return of the fourth republic in 1999, ASUU has gone on strikes 16 times. The records are worth scrutinising for the purpose of history and research. In 1999, ASUU went on strike for five months, three months in 2001, two weeks in 2002, six months in 2003, 2005 two weeks, 2006 three days, 2007 three months, 2008 one week, 2009 four months, 2010 five months, 2011 59 days, 2013 five months, 2017 one month, 2018 three months, 2020 nine months and now from February 14, 2022, to date. These unending strikes endangered the future of millions of young Nigerians. Although ASUU continues to claim that it is involved in a struggle for Nigerian tertiary education and Nigerian students by extension, many Nigerians perceive the supposed struggle, marked by incessant strike actions, to be malicious and self-serving.
At the dawn of the 21st century, the university funding situation was so acute that government could not bear the strain of funding higher learning institutions. This was due to the rise in enrolment numbers in higher education during the 1990s, with global enrolments rising from 68.6 million in 1990-91 to 110.7 million in 2001-02, which included growth in developing nations, from 29.3 million to 58.3 million over the same period in Africa (UNESCO, 2004).Nigeria is not an exception to these projections as our population is heading towards with our population heading towards world records of 400 million in 2030 with increase number of out of school children.
A number of Nigerian universities have faced challenges like failure to pay lecturers on time, underfunding of research, high turnover of experienced professors, crumbling infrastructure, strikes by lecturers and students, poor international ratings and lack of teaching materials, among others.There are also challenges of government’s interference that influenced university governance and lack of free internal participation. The inconsistency of the authorities concerned to honour and implement the 2008 ASUU/FG agreement has caused the students, parents and the education system as a whole a century damage.
Transforming Nigeria from developing to a developed country, the Nigerian government must do its utmost to increase and sustain funding of the universities with priority on courses that are problem solving. The truth is that no nation can rise above its education. It is crucial for the government to gravitate towards the recommended UN benchmark of 20 to 26 per cent of nations’ annual budgets to education. Allocating less than 10 per cent, a far cry from the benchmark, will not enable Nigeria to facilitate sustained access to quality education for the benefit of all Nigerian children of school age. It is incontrovertible that the more the commitment of the Nigerian government towards the increased funding of its universities, the more the chances of taking Nigeria to the First World nations.
Quite a number of Nigerians keep asking, “What changed the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu’s position on ASUU?” He dedicated a whole column in the Daily Trust newspaper of November 15, 2013, to explain the reasons ASUU was always on avoidable but necessary strike, which was due to government lackadaisical and unwarranted attitude. This explains government’s inconsistency and unsustainable policies and programmes that should have written off the unending ASUU strikes. The suggestion that the union be split will end up consuming the university system, especially state owned universities, given the autocratic tendencies of many governors.
The federal government agreed to renegotiate the 2009 agreement to review university’s conditions of service. The key areas to be addressed are funding for revitalisation of tertiary institutions, payment of outstanding earned academic allowances (EAA), renegotiation of 2009 agreements, review of NUC 2004 Act to tackle the proliferation of universities, 26 percent budgetary allocation to education sector, implementation of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), constitution of visitation panels, withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues of unions and salary shortfall. ASUU must shift grounds beyond the perfection phobia to give room for a roundtable discussion while the federal government should deal with this national problem without playing to the gallery of politics.
Government must emphaside and encourage the growth of university education on the basis that higher education is a transformational area of investment. This is because higher education has far reaching social and political impacts in terms of creating policies and implementing projects that will drive the nation’s development. This is only attainable if universities produce intellectuals and the research findings of the highest calibre, which is why public universities need adequate financing. The notion that Nigeria cannot afford N1 trillion to meet ASUU’s demands is unfortunate in a country where education receives less attention while office holders representing few of the over 200 million population are paid higher.
Finally, the Nigerian university system cannot be isolated from the prevailing social and economic influences, and university financing has to take this into account. The ASUU despite its success in pressing its demands which led to the establishment of key funding agencies like TETFUND and other legacies must come to terms with the federal government and return to class. The federal government on its part must see the strike from economic development perspective. Higher education is the motivator of economic growth. This is the way Nigeria can develop as the giant of Africa and as a pride of the black race. Education is key.
Danaudi, National President of Arewa Youths Advocate for Peace and Unity Initiative, writes from Bauchi via [email protected].
