With public universities in the country still closed for activities, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has told the Federal Government to respect the Collective Bargaining Agreements it signed with unions in tertiary institutions and other sectors.
It also lamented that majority of the affected students in the ongoing strike embarked upon by the four university-based unions are children from poor homes whose parents cannot afford to pay the outrageous fees charged by private universities.
On the continuous closure of universities as a result of the alleged failure of government to keep to the terms of Memorandum of Understanding, MoU and Memorandum of Action, MoA, NLC said: “We demand respect for Collective Bargaining Agreements signed with unions in our tertiary institutions and other sectors. States yet to fully implement the national minimum wage should do so immediately.”
Recall that, since 1973, when a coalition of university lecturers, under the aegis of the National Association of University Teachers (NAUT), carried out its first notable industrial action over the excessive inflation, through 1992 to 2009, and up until this moment, the Federal Government has always put itself in a moral quagmire over dispute with university lecturers. It has always been encumbered by unwarranted vacillation over honouring agreements it freely entered into with the former. This is as embarrassing as it is blatant expression of lack of integrity.
A government that values integrity as one of the hallmarks of good governance would honour promises it makes to its citizens and unions. On the contrary, it undermines itself as a government when it does not or cannot honour such agreements. With regards to ASUU, the government must attract the confidence and trust of this union through constant dialogue.
Even if circumstances cause the government to renege on an earlier agreement, it still has to express that through periodic dialogue. The government should meet ASUU periodically to reschedule its indebtedness to that body. Refusal to constantly engage may result in unionists exploiting the defiance to their advantage.
Furthermore, there is need to re-emphasize the value of university autonomy to intellectual excellence and social progress. Although misconstrued as government dissociation from university administration and criticised for its cutting-edge accountability and developmental strategies, university autonomy is a tested administrative approach to achieving world-class university education system.
A well-managed system of university autonomy as this newspaper once stated will entrench the inexorable symbiosis between the quality of universities and the intellectual capital of a country. It would dismantle the old order that views university education as a ‘social rite of passage’ or ‘a dividend of democracy’ for an ethnic group or locality, and re-introduce the value of scholarship to personal refinement, positive transformation of the immediate environment and contribution to global culture and civilisation.
Notwithstanding the above recommendations, ASUU needs to examine its approach to conflict resolution and settling disputes. Although most of the salary reviews in this country have come about as the cascading effect of successful ASUU strikes, the activism mentality drawn from the Marxist-Leninist ideology which ASUU often seems to adopt is now moribund.
It is basically reactionary and not developmental. ASUU should deploy the finesse of abundant intellectual resources at its disposal to come up with pro-active developmental agenda for the country. It should not only react to situations and ultimatums, but also map out development plans and articulate modalities for achieving them.
The government should not violate its own integrity by being tardy, insensitive, somewhat insincere and misguided about the place of education in the country. It should therefore place high premium on education. On the other hand, ASUU should also endeavour to legally declare a dispute within the ambience of the laws of the land. This way, it would be seen to be leading by example in promoting the rule of law. Both sides, indeed, should be seen to place the appropriate premium on the wellbeing of Nigeria.
