recent strike threat.

Politics Nigeria reports that ASUU had issued a two-week ultimatum to the government to reconstitute the governing councils of public universities.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, acting Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Chris Maiyaki, said that the federal government was working to reconstitute the governing councils of universities.


Mayaki noted that the minister of education, Prof Tahir Mamman, had put in place a panel to work on the list.

He maintained that the councils would be inaugurated once the list was consummated.

Mayaki said: “To reconstitute the councils of 61 universities is not a small feat. The government is working to ensure that people who are qualified and with the right pedigree are put in those councils so that they can deliver on Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda. We know ASUU is a body of academics and are concerned about the welfare of their members and the activities in universities but we want them to be patient with the government during this period.”

Speaking on the number of universities in the country, the NUC boss said the commission was committed to expanding access to higher education.

“And for this, the current 272 universities in the NUS are not sufficient to accommodate the ever-growing demand for university education by Nigerian youths.


“Each year, Nigerian universities receive close to two million applications, only a small fraction of them are admitted. That is why there is a need for Nigeria to continue to increase access by establishing more universities to meet the demand for quality education in the country,” Maiyaki said

On the initiatives put in place by NUC to boost the nation’s university system, he said the NUC had identified strategic priorities that encompass curriculum development, quality assurance, research and innovation, infrastructure development, and internationalisation, among others.

“To encourage partnerships with industry and promote blended learning, the NUC carried out an extensive review of university curricula from the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard to the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards, which reflect the aspirations of Nigeria to attain a knowledge economy, driven by the 4 Industrial Revolution, known as 4IR, and the 21-century skills.

“The CCMAS features an expansion of academic disciplines from 14 to 17. The implementation of the new curricula came into effect in September 2023 for the 2023/2024 academic session.

“The implementation framework of the CCMAS makes provision for the training of staff in student-centred tuition-delivery capabilities and development of textual materials to enhance teaching and learning.

“Open and Distance Learning Guidelines In a bid to assure quality in the regulation of the NUS, the Commission developed guidelines to provide a framework for the orderly adoption, integration and mainstreaming of e-learning into the conventional face-to-face modes of teaching and learning in Nigerian Universities, among other objectives.

“This initiative was needed to assure quality in the delivery of university education, via the Open and Distance Education mode, and keep pace with contemporary global best practices. The Commission produced the following guidelines, as part of the efforts to broaden open and distance learning in the Nigerian University System,“ he said.

Source : https://politicsnigeria.com/fg-reacts-as-ASUU-threatens-nationwide-strike/

ASUU are lecturers who never ready to work but want to be collecting salary

I doubt if there is any union across the world who go on strike the way ASUU do in Nigeria

The unserious lecturers

Wondering why the person below me deliberately ignored the ASUU striking attitude

the person above me is bereft of information. your govt is not straight forward. go and read the memo why ASUU wants to go on strike girst

ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES (ASUU)
TEXT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF
UNIVERSITIES (ASUU) HELD AT THE END OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE
COUNCIL (NEC) MEETING HELD AT THE OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILEIFE, OSUN STATE, 11TH-12TH MAY, 2024
I.
PROTOCOLS
II.
INTRODUCTION
Comrades and compatriots of the Press,
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held its National Executive Council
(NEC) meeting at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, between Saturday 11th and
Sunday 12th May, 2024. At the meeting, the union undertook a dispassionate and
comprehensive review of the status of its engagements with Federal and State
Governments on how to reposition Nigeria’s public universities for global reckoning
and competitiveness. The meeting also took a critical look at the worsening living and
working conditions in our universities and the nation at large. The meeting received
alarming reports on the failed promises of the Federal and State governments towards
addressing the lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike
action of February–October 2022. NEC sadly noted that there are no serious efforts to
redress the ugly situation. Reports available to NEC indicate that an increasing number
of Nigerian academics died while thousands of others are nursing life-threatening
ailments occasioned by work-related stress, absolute pauperization, and
multidimensional insecurity. ASUU calls this press conference to intimate members of
the fourth estate of the realm and indeed all Nigerians of the grim situation our
universities have been grappling with since Dr. Chris Ngige and his collaborators
truncated over five years of government’s engagements with ASUU at the point of
signing a negotiated agreement in 2021.
III.
Renegotiation of FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement
As our union has consistently stated, salary awards are no substitutes to a negotiated
Agreement. Each negotiated Agreement between the Federal Government of Nigeria
(FGN) and ASUU is a comprehensive package that captures not the just salary
component but also the requirements for benchmarking a competitive university
system designed for addressing the developmental challenges of Nigeria. ASUU’s
demand for negotiated salaries and other conditions of service is anchored on the
International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention No. 98 which underscores the
principle of collective bargaining. The last FGN/ASUU Agreement was in 2009.
Consequent upon the union’s advocacy spanning almost one decade, our union went
into the renegotiation with the FGN in 2017. We started with the Wale Babalakin-led
Joint Renegotiation Committee. Emeritus Prof Munzali Jibril took over when
negotiation broke down owing to Dr. Babalakin’s highhandedness and fixation to
unworkable anti-worker ideas as terms of agreement. Also, at some point, the Federal
Government dropped Prof. Jibril and directed Late Emeritus Prof. Nimi Biggs to take
over the negotiation. A draft Agreement was reached with the Professor Briggs-led
Committee in 2021. Unfortunately, agents of the Buhari government refused to approve
of the draft Agreement for reasons best known to them!
Compatriots of the Press would recall the infamous role played by the then Minister of
Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, in truncating the successful conclusion of
the FGN-ASUU renegotiation process that had lasted for more than four years. The
reviewed agreement with the Briggs-led government team has remained in its draft
form from 2021 till date. One consequence of this anti-labour stance is the preventable
loss of tested Nigerian scholars to universities elsewhere in Africa and all over the
world where their expertise is better appreciated. Even with the paltry salary award, the
current take-home pay of a professor at bar is about $500/month! In the face of a
heightened tax regime, the what a professor at bar earns is about $400 per month which
is a scandalous under-valuation of the scholars It is therefore not surprising that the Nigerian University System is continuing to sink
deeper and deeper into crisis of underdevelopment. The symptoms of this festering
crisis are there for all to see: low academic staff morale, widespread discontent among
staff and students, fast diminishing sense of patriotism manifesting in the Japa
syndrome, and many more! For the umpteenth time, ASUU calls on the President Tinubuled administration to immediately set in motion the process leading to the review and signing of
the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for
Nigeria’s public universities. Nigerian academics are tired of platitudes laced with disdain for
intellectuals; only concrete steps to restore their eroded dignity and degraded lives can guarantee
lasting peace on our campuses.
IV. Governing Councils in Public Universities
NEC observed with dismay the continued erosion of autonomy of public universities,
contrary to the provisions of the Universities Miscellaneous Act (1993, 2012). The illegal
dissolution of Governing Councils by the Tinubu Government and many State
Governments has paved way for all manner of illegalities in the Nigerian University
System. University administrations now place advertisements for the appointment of
Vice-Chancellor without authorization from the appropriate quarters – the Governing
Councils. Outgoing Vice-Chancellors, working in cahoots with the Federal and State
Ministries of Education, are illegally running the universities on a daily basis. They
routinely usurp the powers of Governing Councils to recruit and discipline staff as well
as manage university finances in manners bereft of transparency and accountability.
It is therefore stating the obvious to say that these and sundry activities that run
contrary to the extant laws are compounding cases of corruption in our universities.
ASUU condemns these anomalies in strong terms and calls on the Federal Government
and the equally affected State Governments to respect the Laws establishing their
universities. Universities are supposed to be the bastion of democratic ethos and
practices. We cannot entrench sustainable democratic culture in Nigeria if universities
are run by the whims and caprices of individuals no matter how knowledgeable or
powerful. We therefore restate our demand for reinstating Governing Councils whose tenures are yet to lapse and reconstitute those whose tenures had lapsed so that our
universities can run in accordance with their Laws. ASUU shall do all within its powers
to ensure that the dignity of the academia is fully restored in line with practices
obtainable in forward-looking climes. So, Nigerians should hold the Federal and State
Governments responsible if the matter of governing councils is allowed to snowball into
an avoidable industrial crisis.
V.
Unending Grip of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System
Compatriots of the Press, it is now public knowledge that IPPIS is a fraudulent platform
that inflicted unprecedented hardship on Nigerian academics and corruptly distorted
university operations with respect to the payroll management. More importantly,
ASUU has consistently rejected IPPIS because it grossly violates the autonomy of our
universities. Unfortunately, we are worried that the grip of IPPIS on the universities is
far from being eased more than four months after the government mooted the idea of
exiting universities and other tertiary institutions from the discredited payment
platform. As at today, the salaries of our members are still whimsically withheld just as
third-party deductions such as cooperative contributions, pension deductions and
union check-off dues are not released. The platform, with all its encumbrances, is used
to pay our members under the disguise of the “New IPPIS” contrary to the
understanding reached at the 11th January, 2024 stakeholders’ meeting held at the
National Universities Commission (NUC).
ASUU’s position remains unchanged: Government should revert to quarterly releases
of university funds to enable the institutions design and implement their salary
payment plans under the supervision of their Governing Councils. This is the
touchstone of a truly autonomous university system as experienced in Nigerian
universities of the 1960s and 1970s. In the interest of industrial harmony, government
should direct the immediate release of all outstanding deductions, unpaid promotion
arrears and salaries of university academics which were unjustly withheld by the
corruption-ridden IPPIS regime.VI.
Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard
NEC received reports that, despite its earlier rejection of the NUC-imposed Core
Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS), the Commission is unrelenting in
enforcing its implementation with effect from current academic session. Almost all
universities are being burdened with funding resource verification for migrating from
the erstwhile Basic Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) to the new academic
benchmark. ASUU considers these developments as infractions that are unhealthy for
the Nigerian University System. University senates are the authorities recognized by
university laws to initiate academic programmes and award degrees, diplomas and
certificates in same. The regulatory function of the NUC is mainly to ensure that
universities operate according to their laws, rules and regulations, not to breath down
the necks of universities. Once again, ASUU calls on the NUC to join forces with the
union to address the challenges of underfunding, understaffing, academic staff
turnover, and other pressing problems affecting quality teaching, learning, research and
community service in our universities.
VII. Proliferation of Universities
Our dear compatriots, as you are possibly aware, the matter of proliferation of
universities was one of the issues that led to the series of strike actions between 2020
and 2022.The union demanded and still demands that the 2020 ASUU-FGN
Memorandum of Action (MoA) which stressed the need to review the NUC Act to make
it more potent in arresting the reckless and excessive establishment of universities be
fully implemented. During the lifetime of the last legislative session, a joint committee
of ASUU and NUC submitted a draft bill to the National Assembly on this matter.
However, that bill did not see the light of the day. The fallout from that is the reckless
manner by which both the Federal and State governments have continued to create
universities without preparations for their funding. This recently came to a worrisome
height when a sitting Governor boastfully declared that he would establish ten
universities in his State before the end of his tenure!
Nigeria boasts of over 170 universities comprising 79 that are owned by individuals and
private organizations while 43 and 48 belong to the Federal and State governments
respectively. However, about 95% of the students are still found in public universities
which underscores the imperative of prioritizing the federal and state universities in
Nigeria. Rather than supporting our advocacy for adequate funding of public
universities, each Senator is surreptitiously pushing for the establishment of a
university as part of their constituency projects while Visitors to State Universities who
could not fund existing universities are creating two or more purely for electoral gains.
This trend has put much stress on the intervention funds of the Tertiary Education
Trust Fund (TETFund) which are diverted to establish new universities contrary to the
Fund’s Act. ASUU shall explore all legal means to resist the pervasive moves by
politicians to keep proliferating crisis centres for the children of the poor in the name of
universities. We urge the President Tinubu-led administration to refrain from further
proliferation of universities and refocus the system. What we need are universities that
are adequately empowered to address the challenges confronting Nigeria and stand
should-to-shoulder with their peers elsewhere in the world and mushroom glorified
high schools.
VIII. Funding of Universities
Over the years, ASUU’s engagements with successive governments on funding of
public universities have been predicated on scientifically established benchmark of
annual budgetary requirements for education. Lately, the United Nations Fund for
Population Activities’ (UNFPA) specification of 15%-20% educational budget for
underdeveloped countries like Nigeria has been advocated by our union. However,
there was no year in the last 10 years when allocation to education in the national
budget was more above 10%. The average has hovered between 5% and 6%. ASUU
decries the deliberate and continued underfunding of State and Federal universities
because it degrades the capacity of the institutions and further under-develops Nigeria.

helinues:
ASUU are lecturers who never ready to work but want to be collecting salary

I doubt if there is any union across the world who go on strike the way ASUU do in Nigeria

The unserious lecturers

Wondering why the person below me deliberately ignored the ASUU striking attitude

Always on the side of your wicked and heartless government.

Jostoman:
Always on the side of your wicked and heartless government.

you think everyone is as reasonable as you are?

Jostoman:
Always on the side of your wicked and heartless government.

Would something terrible happen to you if you make your comments and Waka?

FG should do the needful enough of promise and fail