On a day the federal government broke the ranks of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) by registering two new university teachers unions, President Muhammadu Buhari has indicted it of corrupt practices.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over demands bordering on allowances and salaries of lecturers.
And in a major attempt to clip the wings of ASUU, the Federal Government on Tuesday approved the registration of Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA), a breakaway faction of ASUU and the Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA).
Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, who presented the certificates to the two unions, said they would operate alongside ASUU.
Speaking while declaring open the Fourth National Summit on Diminishing Corruption organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Office of Secretary to Government of the Federation (OSGF) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Buhari said ASUU is no less complicit in the corruption in tertiary education.
He said corruption in the education sector continues to undermine investments, while critics downplay funding by focusing only on budgetary allocations, urging a more comprehensive re-evaluation of expenditure.
The President said: “This year’s summit will mirror how corruption undermines educational policies, investments and create an unfriendly learning environment for our youths.
“Incessant strikes especially by unions in the tertiary education often imply that government is grossly underfunding education, but I must say that corruption in the education system from basic level to the tertiary level has been undermining our investment in the sector and those who go on prolonged strikes on flimsy reasons are no less complicit.
“The 1999 Constitution places a premium on education by placing it on the Concurrent List, thereby laying the responsibilities of budgeting and underwriting qualitative education on both the Federal and State Governments.
“The total education budget for each year is therefore a reflection of both federal and state budgets and should be viewed as other financial commitments in their totality.
“The allocation to education in the federal budget should not be considered via allocation to the Federal Ministry of Education and also academic institutions alone, but should include allocation to the Universal Basic Education, transfers to TETFUND and refund from the Education Tax Pool Account to TETFUND.
“Corruption in the expenditure of internally generated revenue of tertiary institutions is a matter that has strangely not received the attention of stakeholders in tertiary education, including unions.
“I call on stakeholders to demand accountability in the administration of academic institutions and for unions to interrogate the bloated personnel and recurrent expenditure of their institutions. Let me also implore the Unions to work with the government to put faces and identities to names on the payroll.
“Due to declining resources, the government cannot bear the cost of funding education alone. I task our academics to attract endowments, research and other grants to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education similar to what obtains in other countries.”
The newly registered CONUA, a breakaway faction of ASUU, is led by its National Coordinator, ‘Niyi Sunmonu, a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.
Though the organisation currently enjoys marginal presence in few universities across the country, it is seen as a strategic move by the government to break the ranks of the striking lecturers and woo some of them back to the classrooms.
Attempts to cajole or coerce ASUU to drop the nearly eight-month strike in the public universities, through many measures including intimidation by the government and court action, have not broken the resolve of the members.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14 to press home its demands over the failure of the federal government to renegotiate the agreement it signed with ASUU in 2009 including adequate funding of the system, replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), with the UTAS, as the payment platform in the university sector, among others.
The teachers say that IPPIS has never worked in any university system anywhere, adding that the system shuts the doors against foreign scholars, contract officers and researchers needed to be poached from existing universities to stabilize new ones.
But the Federal Government insists that the payment model is for transparency and neither intended to trample upon university autonomy.
Despite a ruling by the National Industrial Court on September 21, 2022 ordering the university to return to work, the University lecturers have remained adamant.
Last week, ASUU through its lawyers, filed an appeal against the court ruling.
