By Victor AhiumaYoung

ONE of the drawbacks of the public tertiary institutions in the country is frequent industrial unrest fueled essentially by breach of agreement among others  by  the government.

The General Secretary of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, Prince Peters Adeyemi, in a chat warned that this trend may not end soon unless the government attends to workers’ grievances.

In the chat with Vanguard on the sideline of NASU’s 8th Quadrennial National Delegates’ Conference, NDC, in Abuja,  Adeyemi who is also the Vice President of Public Service International, PSI, gave insight into why NASU delegates’ conferences were rancour-free.

According to him, “It is not only NASU that does rancour-free election. There is another union in the education sector whose transition is also rancour-free. What we do in NASU is that we are conscious of the fact that in most unions, elections naturally create rancour and divide the rank and file because when you are doing elections, there will be caucuses and camps.

“Also, when people lose elections, the wounds do not heal easily. It has the potential of destroying the union. What we do is, we consciously try from the branch to the state. You know in NASU, there is a renewal of mandate from the various organs, branches go to for their elections and have a new mandate. State councils go for their elections, have new mandates and at the level of trade groups which is where we elect our Deputy President, seven of them. 

“When we come to the delegates’ conference, we elect the National President and the National Treasurer seamlessly.  Our national guidelines approved by our National Executive Council, NEC, had made it extremely difficult for us to have a retinue of contestants because you hardly can become a president without first serving as a deputy president or as a national treasurer or a state chairman who has served for two tenures. Those qualifications are rare to get. It is only very few people that probably will be able to cross those hurdles. It is to ensure that there is sanity in the place and to allow for peace in the union. There is nothing you can achieve in any union if there is no peace. So, it is a deliberate effort.”

On the withheld salaries of university workers, he said “Government said it would pay the withheld salaries, but it has not been paid. But I know it would be paid because it is a carryover. The immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari was insensitive. I have no apologies for that. It was one of the worst  governments we have ever had.

“Everything in the education sector was destroyed. When you refused to respond to the yearnings and aspirations of the workers legitimately, you signed  agreements with them and those agreements were not implemented, there would be a problem. Most of those agreements that resulted in the strike were signed by the Minister of Labour on behalf of the government and they refused to honour them.

“How could you have beaten a child and asked that child not to cry?  That is why it makes sense for President Bola Tinubu’s administration to revisit the matter and pay those salaries. I am convinced that they will pay. They must pay. They are not going to pay four just months; they must also pay those they owe eight months. They have to pay because there is no mad person in the trade union in our tertiary institutions. No trade unionist in the tertiary institution is mad and wants to put workers on strike. 

“There are fundamental issues which the government has not addressed and it is even incumbent on the present government to address those fundamental issues because it will amount to postponing the evil day. If this government wants continuity of the academic calendar, they must attend to workers’ grievances.

“That is the only way Nigerians will say there is a difference between this government and Buhari’s government. For us, we have not seen the money they said they would pay. We are waiting for it and everything must be paid in full.”

Inadequate fund

Earlier, the President of NASU, Dr Makolo Hassan, decried the issue of inadequate funding of the nation’s tertiary institutions, saying the poor funding of our Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education by Federal and State Governments has reached a critical juncture, leading to infrastructural decay, poor service delivery and low staff morale. This is evident in the quality of products from these institutions. A country faced with this situation cannot be talking about quality manpower and development. This is at the heart of the reoccurring disputes between the Federal Government and Unions in the educational sector.

“We, however, acknowledge the effort of the Federal Government towards addressing the lack and decay of infrastructure in the education sector over the years through the establishment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, and other interventions of the Federal Government such as the revitalization fund that came in through Needs Assessment.

“Notwithstanding these efforts, funding of education falls short of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO’s recommendation of 26 per cent allocation to the education sector in National budgets. It is, therefore, hearing from Government officials that the current administration will strive towards meeting UNESCO’s recommended benchmark for funding of education.

“The inadequate funding of existing tertiary institutions is further compounded by the indiscriminate establishment of tertiary institutions in every hamlet in the country by both the Federal and the State Governments. We call on the governments to put a stop to this practice and adequately fund the existing ones.” 

The NASU President lamented that “The situation in Teaching/Specialist Hospitals is not different from what obtains in the Federal tertiary education sector. We at NASU believe that healthcare disparities between citizens with different socio-economic statuses are compounded by gaps in the funding of public healthcare institutions. We are convinced that adequate funding of public healthcare institutions will lead to universal health coverage in the country, thereby producing equitable and sustainable health outcomes. 

“We are also concerned that all the demands of NASU, made in conjunction with other Unions under the auspices of the Joint Health Sector Unions, JOHESU, have not been met by the Federal Government despite all Agreements the Government entered with JOHESU.”