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| Prof Awuzie |
University
teachers are spoiling for another strike over their 2001 agreement with the
Federal Government.
They
said unless the government implements the agreement next month, they may
cripple the university system again.
The
teachers urged parents, and especially students to hold the government
responsible for whatever happens after the November 22 date agreed for the
implentation of the agreement.
After
an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, yesterday, the
Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) resolved to battle government over
what the union described as its lack of commitment to reversing the decay in
the university system.
ASUU
President Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie told reporters that the NEC meeting advised
clergies, traditional rulers, labour, Civil Society Organisations and labour to
intervene to avert the avoidable crisis.
Awuzie
said: “We wish to call on all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians, the
operators of our governments, our legislators, the clergy, traditional
institutions, gentlemen of the press, labour and Civil Society Organisations,
market women, parents and students to intervene and get this avoidable crisis
averted. If by November 22, government reneges again, ASUU should not be blamed
for whatever action(s) NEC decides to take.”
In
2001, ASUU and government entered into an agreement to resuscitate the
university System. The 2001 agreement provides among other things, that there
shall be renegotiation every three years in order to review the state of the
implementation of the agreement and especially update the document to continue
to make it relevant for the development of the system.
Awuzie
said going by its provisions, the 2001 agreement was due for renegotiation in
2004. “But between 2003 and 2009, ASUU had to write over 50 letters, held over
200 meetings with different government representatives and agencies, staged
over 10 warning strikes and declared a total indefinite strike to get
government to set up its renegotiation team, commence the renegotiation,
conclude the renegotiation, sign the agreement and commence the implementation.
“The
renegotiation that was supposed to have commenced early in 2004, concluded in a
couple of months and implemented the same year was delayed by government for
five years. That is how what is supposed to be the 2004 agreement is now being
called 2009 agreement.”
He
expressed disappointment that over two years after signing the agreement,
government is still not implementing.
Awuzie
called on government to “put its priorities right” adding that It is true that
it is not possible for any nation to attain any decent development if its
education sector is in tatters and its government is recklessly refusing to
take heed and do the right thing. It is even more worrisome if the institutions
that have the mandate of producing high-level manpower training and skills are
the ones that are being deliberately suffocated”
Prof.
Awuzie added: “It is very disheartening to note that, over two years after
signing the agreement that is intended to arrest and reverse the rot and decay
in the university system, most of our campuses still remain no more than a
caricature of what a university is supposed to be.
“The
deterioration is continuing unabated largely because government has refused to
sincerely implement the 2009 agreement. University infrastructure and
facilities are still in shambles: lecture theatres, lecture halls and students’
hostels are not only inadequate but in miserable state of disrepair;
laboratories and workshops are shadows of their former selves; counters and
shelves in our laboratories that are supposed to be housing chemicals and
reagents are now the battlefields of rodents and arachnids; libraries are like
storehouses of archaic books and periodicals; level of automation in the
university system is scandalously primitive; students are still being packed
like sardines in hostels and lecture rooms; instances of students sitting on
bare floor or peeping through the windows to listen to lectures are very
prevalent; students population is continuously ballooning while infrastructure
and facilities development is not only static but in decline.
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