ASUU STRIKE UPDATE: How to break the deadlock

NOW that the indefinite strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has entered its fourth month (one full semester is lost), the two parties involved in the debacle – government and the ASUU – appear to have reached a point of no return. No party appears to be in the mood to shift ground. There is total deadlock. It has become a do-or-die battle while the students languish at home.

The parties appear to have exhausted their options and or compromises and have nothing else to offer. There is uneasy calm everywhere over this matter as if nothing is happening. But that cannot be the end of the story. The universities cannot remain under lock and key. Something must be done to get the students back to classes. How to break the deadlock and get the universities reopened without further delay is my immediate concern here.

The strike has entered the critical stage of ego massaging. No party wants to lose face. Who blinks first is now the issue. Backing out at this stage without achieving the objective may be most depressing with long-term consequences. This applies to government on the one hand and ASUU on the other hand. The strike has been mismanaged from the outset. That is why there appears to be no further room to shift ground.

That has created the unintended logjam.

The strike has been mismanaged. When ASUU threatened to embark on indefinite strike, government appeared not to have taken it serious even with ASUU’s history of long strikes. The Nigerian system has become immune to strikes such that threats of strike by any group no longer agitate government. If the strike had been nipped in the bud as in other climes, we wouldn’t have been in this impasse with its colossal waste. Government should imbibe the culture of nipping strikes in the bud to save the country from the devastating effects. On its part, ASUU appears to have been pushed to the wall by the indiscretion of some government functionaries who made irritating pronouncements about government’s inability to honour the agreement it reached with ASUU in 2009.

For instance, the statement credited to the Minister of Labour, Chukwuemeka Wogu, that the agreement government consciously reached with ASUU using experts in its fold is impossible to implement is a serious aberration. It helped to fuel the strike. By saying that the Jonathan administration inherited the agreement, Wogu gave the impression that the 2009 agreement, which is the bone of contention is, after all, not binding on the present government. That was a serious gaffe.

While the dust raised by Wogu was yet to settle, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala threw the final bombshell by saying that government cannot afford to pay the N92 billion wage request by ASUU, which partly is the bone of contention. She said categorically that “there is no money to meet ASUU’s demands”. These statements by the two ministers portended a sort of hard line position by government. It is like someone owing a debt who tells his creditor that he can’t pay because there is no money. The creditor won’t just go like that. The debtor must find a way to pay or defer the payment if there is no money at the time. Once the debtor sincerely promises to pay, the creditor has a moral obligation to accept for peace to reign. This is the option I would like government to explore instead of saying there is no money to pay.

An agreement is a binding contract between the concerned parties. There can be no breach of it from any of the parties without legal implication. ASUU has the option to drag government to court but has chosen not to do so because of the lack of confidence in the judiciary. Again, government may decide not to obey court orders, should it rule in favour of ASUU. That is why ASUU uses strike as the last resort.

ASUU’s mistake on the other hand arose from the fact that it seems to believe that government must pay all it owes at once. This again, is a hard line position that cannot help in resolving the crisis. There should be give and take if this strike must end. If government says it is impossible for it to dole out N92 billion at once to ASUU given the precarious state of the economy, ASUU should give government benefit of the doubt by believing it. But it should not end there. Government should make concrete commitment on how it intends to pay the outstanding debt. This is still necessary despite the fact that government has proved to be unreliable in abiding by its commitments in the past.

The truth is that there is no limit to negotiation. Negotiation should not be stopped until the objective is achieved. The alternative is a system shut down like we have in the public universities. Nigerians are aware that the 2009 agreement was a compromise made by ASUU to renegotiate with government after it failed to honour the previous 2001 agreement and subsequent ones. But ASUU should not take the 2009 agreement as the end of the road. The future of millions of students is at stake. Even though ASUU has good ground to remain adamant, it should allow some space to shift ground in the interest of millions of youths going through intense psychological trauma as a result of the strike. I know some students who died in road accident as a result of the strike. The country cannot continue to lose on both ends.

Since the debt in question accumulated over a period of time and not just in one year, the way out is for the two parties to reconvene (on a serious note) to get this matter resolved. How to get the universities reopened is the critical issue at hand. And whatever should be done to achieve that should be done forthwith. There is no need to remain obdurate by any of the parties any more. Witch hunting, blackmailing, buck passing and all that cannot resolve this matter. Only a sincere, positive and patriotic spirit can do.

So far, government has yielded some ground with regard to the money being demanded by ASUU. It has agreed to release N100 billion to be shared by all the federal universities for infrastructure development. Government has also agreed to release another N30 billion as part of the contentious academic earned allowance. While these may serve as starting point, ASUU has rejected these offers on the ground that they are farfetched from what is on demand. Elsewhere, in a situation like this, it is government that yields to the demand of the people being the custodian of economic capital in trust for the people. For instance, when a nationwide demonstration broke out in Brazil last June over high inflation rate and huge spending by government in preparation for the 2014 World Cup tournament, the government quickly cut bus fares and made other concessions to placate the demonstrators. The Federal Government should act in the same manner when such situations arise.

The way out of the current ASUU impasse is to apply the conventional method of debt repayment when there is no money to pay in one tranche, as highlighted above. Assuming that the debt in question (academic earned allowance) is N92 billion as stated by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (even though ASUU said the amount is lesser), rather than insisting that there is no money to pay, government should accept to pay the amount over a period. The payment should begin immediately but sprayed over a convenient period. That way it wouldn’t be heavy for government to pay. If government accepts to do this, ASUU will be morally persuaded to accept in the national interest. The people will also appreciate that government has yielded enough ground. Without losing face, ASUU will call off the strike and the universities will be reopened.

When the strike is called off, what will be the fate of state universities that have been part of this imbroglio?

Are the state governments bound by whatever agreement the Federal Government reaches with ASUU? Otherwise, why are the state universities involved in this strike and others? The long-term solution to incessant strikes is to grant full autonomy to the universities to decide what they do at their own pace. No two universities in Nigeria have exactly the same goals and objectives talk less of having common problems. The time to do this is now to save the country the embarrassment of incessant strikes.