17th December, 2013
Nigerian university lecturers on Tuesday formally called off a long-running strike that paralysed higher education in the country, after they reached a temporary truce with the government.
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) walked out in July over claims that the government had failed to implement a 2009 agreement to improve their welfare and upgrade facilities on state-run campuses.
Union leaders said they had received proof that the government had deposited money in a campus development fund and were therefore ready to return to work.
“We implore our members to go back to class and the government to keep to every part of the agreement,” Karo Ogbinaka of the ASUU national executive committee told the private news station Channels.
Ogbinaka spoke after the executive committee met in the central city of Minna.
ASUU chairman Nasir Fagge Isa was expected to address a news conference later on Tuesday.
The dispute in part centred on a government pledge to refurbish Nigeria’s decaying public universities with 220 billion naira ($1.3 billion, 940 million euros) of investment over the next five years.
The government has reportedly deposited N200 billion at the central bank and provided ASUU evidence of the bank transfer, a key move in a nation where trust in federal authorities is justifiably low.
Education minister Ezenwo Nyeso had tried to break the strike through an ultimatum, vowing to sack any lecturer who did not return to work by December 4.
But the union defied the demand and the government backed down.
ASUU’s position was bolstered by mounting public anger over corruption in Nigeria, where several billion dollars is lost each year due to government graft and negligence, notably in the oil sector.
Nigeria has about 1.2 million students in public and private universities, according to the National Universities Commission. Hundreds of thousands of students have been left in limbo because of the walk-out.
Meanwhile, Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called for the convening of an education summit to chart the way forward for the nation’s failing education sector.
Atiku made the suggestion in response to the call-off of the five months old strike by ASUU.
The former Vice President, however, hailed the decision of ASUU to call-off the strike and hoped that it would afford all parties a needed opportunity for a reset of the nation’s education sector.
He noted that though the call-off the strike is coming late, he appreciated the willingness of both ASUU and government to find a common ground in the interest of Nigerian university students in particular and the nation’s education sector in general.
He urged ASUU and FG to put in a place strong mechanism for resolving crisis of this nature to ensure that it does not fester and disrupt academic studies in future.
“It has become imperative for ASUU, the Federal Government and other stakeholders to put in a place a mechanism for addressing crisis of this nature so that our students and their parents will not be visited with prolonged closure of our universities in future with its concomitant effects,” Atiku said.
The former Vice President who had initiated an online petition to end the strike, regretted the extended loss of time arising from the closure and its adverse effect, which he said will be borne in the main by the unlucky students and their fee-paying parents.
He noted that education remains the game changer in our quest for scientific and socio-economic development and called on the Federal Government, ASUU and other stakeholders to convoke an Education Summit to chart a way forward for our failing education sector.
Please download the agreement between ASUU and the Federal Government here: FGN_ASUU_Resolutions_December_11_2013_three_pages