Funding: Buhari jettisoned Jonathan agreement, released only N50bn revitalisation fund to universities —ASUU

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has insisted that only N50 billion has so far been released by the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to the public universities as part of the N1.3 trillion revitalisation fund agreement signed between the union and Federal Government in 2013.

President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodoke, while explaining why the union had to embark on the prolonged strike, accused President Buhari’s administration of jettisoning the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the then Jonathan administration for which an initial tranche of N200 billion was released to the universities.

Although the Federal Government has allocated N470 billion in the 2023 budget to address some of the demands of ASUU and other staff unions in tertiary institutions, ASUU had since said that the amount was inadequate to address the challenges in the system.

President Buhari has also allegedly informed the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, and other government officials not to sign any further agreement with the staff unions that government cannot implement.

A document signed by the ASUU president,highlighting events and demands of ASUU in the just suspended strike, obtained by the Nigerian Tribune indicated that the union had met over six times with government officials between October 22 and June 6, 2022 without  any clear commitment by the Federal Government to the terms of agreement.

Osodoke said: “The Goodluck Jonathan government was initially hesitant to implement the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement about revitalisation of government-owned universities.

“However, the Federal Government eventually set up a committee on the needs assessment of public universities in 2012.

“The committee recommended an immediate and massive injection of N1.3 trillion to arrest and address the rot and decay in the institutions.

“This gave rise to the FGN-ASUU’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of November 6, 2013. The MoU has since been jettisoned as could be seen: for 2013, N200 billion was released; in 2014, N220 billion, not released; in 2015, N220 billion, not released; 2016, N220 billion, not released; 2017 N220, not released; 2018 N220 billion, not released.

“Sadly, apart from the first tranche ofN200bn released and ring-fenced in 2013, only a paltry sum of N50bn has been released to date by the government.

“ASUU’s consistent efforts to make the government to fully implement the 2009 Agreement as well as the 2013 MoU are at the roots of the union’s agitations and strikes in the last 10 years.

“More specifically, FGN’s failures to work with the understandings reached at meetings and faithfully implement the terms of agreement of the various memoranda led to the nationwide strike declared by the union in March 2020. The strike was suspended with an FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) of December 23, 2020.”

ASUU declared a roll-over strike on February 14, 2022  which lasted for eight months, principally because critical components of the December 2020 MoA were not satisfactorily implemented.

Osodoke said ASUU rejected the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as payment platform in federal universities way back in 2013 because it was prone to corruption, and its imposition was an erosion of university autonomy guaranteed by Law.

Describing IPPIS as a cesspool of corruption, ASUU president said that the government officials had challenged the union to produce an alternative that could address the problems of IPPIS.