STAR INFORMATION: History of ASUU - From 1978 to 1993 {| Re: - Iwu Was Never Deputy to Jega
Mobolaji ALUKO
The Early Years of ASUU
Assault on academic freedom was the subject of resistance by ASUU throughout the 1980s. In 1978, the Uthman Mohammed Commission Report had an instrument for the Federal Governments usurpation of the disciplinary functions of Governing Councils. The Federal Government directed some Councils to dismiss certain members of staff from their posts without the right of hearing. This practice carried over into the military regimes through Babangida and Abacha. In 1980, ASUU declared a Trade Dispute and made the issue of autonomy an issue in dispute. In December 1980, President Shehu Shagari directed the Council of the University of Lagos to remove six senior members of the academic staff from their jobs, following Justice Belonwus Visitation Panel Report. ASUU protested and continued to press for their reinstatement. In 1986, the Supreme Courts judgement was given in favour of the UNILAG academics, vindicating ASUUs position.
In 1980-1981, ASUU had a struggle with the Shagari Government. Its concerns were funding, salaries, autonomy and academic freedom, the brain drain, and the survival of the university system. ASUU also worked with separate industrial unions and NLC State Chapters. It took on debates on the direction and context of national economic, educational and other policies.
Throughout the military period, ASUU waged its struggles around:
ASUU organized the State of the National Conference in 1984 and in 2002. ASUUs struggles during the Buhari-Idiagbon regime were based on the unions principled opposition to military dictatorship and ASUUs position on then unions path of development. In its publication How to Save Nigeria, which emerged out of its conference on the State of the Economy in 1984, ASUU diagnosed the ills of the Nigerian Economy and proffered solutions to them. ASUU saw then that a process had begun in 1984 - the process of disengagement of government from the economy and predicted that this would generate crises in all sectors of national life. The document rejected privatization, and offered solutions on Economic Development and Planning, Industrialization, Agriculture, Debt Servicing, Taxation, Labour etc.
In 1985, the Buhari-Idiagbon regime began a programme of retrenchment of workers and wages freeze. It clamped down on the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) when the doctors went on strike to protest the sharp deteriotation of the health services in Nigeria; ASUU supported the doctors union. The government sacked doctors, arrested and detained NMA and NARD leaders, as well as ASUU leaders.
ASUU was central to the resistance to Buhari-Idiagbon regimes termination of the cafeteria system and the withdrawal of subsidies on accommodation. It also struggled against the regimes authoritarian Decree 16 of 1985 which transferred to the National Universities Commission the power of Senate to determine, regulate and monitor academic programmes. It took accreditation of academic programmes from professionals and transferred it to the NUC. It established uniform standards and called them, minimum standards, etc.
Babangidas regime imposed the Structural Adjustment Programme and the harsh conditionalities of the IMF loan. The result was an introduction of measures which caused crises in the economy, education, health and all aspects of life. ASUUs opposition to SAP made it a target for destruction by the Babangida regime. The Union took a principled position against the regimes economic and socio-political policies. Following the murder of ABU students in 1986 by Mobile Police (Kill and Go), ASUU joined the NLC and NANS in protes. Babangidas regime accused the NLC, NANS and ASUU of attempting to topple the regime.
The Abisoye Panel recommended the flushing out of some lecturers in ABU who were teaching what they were not supposed to teach. The Mustapha Akanbi Panel was set up to, among other things, determine the role of lecturers in promoting the crisis. The Akanbi Panels regime never saw the light of day. The Military Government did not get what it wanted.
In 1988, the Babangida government disaffiliated ASUU from the NLC and to weaken ASUU, made check-off voluntary.
In 1987, the Minister of Education, Prof. Jibril Aminu, dismissed Dr. Festus Iyayi, President of ASUU and Dr. B. Agbonfoh, a branch Executive member, on a charge from which they had been previously absolved. The dismissal was a result of the Branchs opposition to the imposition of Professor Grace Alele Williams on UNIBEN as Vice-Chancellor and a plan to generate a crisis that would rid ASUU of the influences of radical leadership and thereby weaken the unions opposition to the Banbaginda regime.
The 1988 Strike
ii. Setting up of a Joint Negotiation Committee between the Federal Government and the University Staff Union; and,
iii. University Autonomy.
The strike led to the proscription of ASUU on August 7, 1988. With Professor Jibril Aminu as Minister of Education, the Federal Government banned ASUU, seized all its properties, made announcements directing all universities to immediately pay the EUSS, backdated to January. ASUU responded by forming a new UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION (ULA). But the proscription broke the back of the strike. Members returned to work. The President, Dr. Attahiru Jega and the Immediate Past President, Dr. Festus Iyayi, were detained and tortured. Passports of ASUU officials were seized. Dr. F. Dimowo (late) and Mr. F. Amade (Ag. Chairman and Secretary of the University of Benin, respectively) were also detained.
The role of SSAUTURIAIA and NASU during the 1988 strike laid the ground for the disunity that emerged among the university staff unions since the 1990s. NASU had dissociated itself from the strike. And SSAUTURIAIA, which was working in alliance with ASUU on the strike, unilaterally withdrew when the Minister of Education made his announcement proscribing ASUU and threatening to sack all those who had not returned to work by Monday August 11, 1988.
The period following the 1988 proscription was a period of deep demoralization among academic staff. But the leadership continued to organize the ULA on the campuses. In 1990, the ULA organized an anti-World Bank Conference as part of the resistance to Babangidas regime plan to take a $120 million loan from the World Bank. With the participation of Civil Society Organisations such as CDHR, CLO, and NLC, the Conference took place at Obafemi Awolowo University. As the Conference was winding up, on Sunday April 22, the Gideon Orka Coup took place. The Military government arrested Professor Olorode and Dr. Awopetu and failed in its bid to arrest others. They were detained for three months, subjected to trial by a military tribunal but found innocent. After their release, they were retired in public interest by the Federal Government. A Federal High Court later reinstated them.
By 1992, the situation of academic staff on the university campuses had become more intolerable. The drive to leave the universities for foreign countries and the private sector had become, for many, the solution to the decay in the universities and the demoralization of university teachers.
In 1990, ASUU was de-proscribed. In 1991, following the Delegates Conference in Badagry, ASUU asked the Babangida regime for negotiation. There were two rounds of negotiation: The first, under the chairmanship of Mr. Senas Ukpanah, broke down when, following a disagreement on Governments offer on salary, the chairman unilaterally suspended negotiation (May 30, 1991). This was followed by governments announcement of a unilateral package.
The failure by the Federal Government to negotiate seriously on the conditions in the universities led to the 1992 strike declared by NEC on May 14, 1992 and suspended after one week because of an IAP order for immediate suspension of the strike. Although the IAP ordered both sides to the negotiating table, Government did not resume negotiation. ASUU resume its strike immediately on July 20, 1993. ASUU was banned for a second time on August 23, 1992. ASUU had the support of the public, the professional organizations, NANS, etc. When all the tactics to break the strike failed the Government had to devise a way of negotiating with a banned union. This took place between the Federal Governments Team led by Owelle Chikelu, the Minister of Establishment and Management Services, and “representatives of ASNU (Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities).
The September 3, 1992 Agreement was a product of these negotiations.
The Agreement was significant for the following reasons:
a. It showed that a determined, principled and organized citizenry can defeat a military dictatorship. ASUUs success showed the civilian resistance organizations that they could defeat the military.
b. The agreement showed that there could be a rational approach to the development of universities. The Agreement, by providing a periodic view of the funding needs of the universities, allowed universities to plan, based on expected funds.
c. The Agreement re-affirmed the right of workers to collective bargaining.
d. The Agreement enabled a more scientific approach to funding.
e. The Agreement kept the democratic aspiration of the people for democratic rights alive.
f. It formed the basis for further struggles by the union for the defence of the university system and for education.
But the 1992 Agreement also led to some problems for the future:
First, the Agreement led to what came to be known as the problem of parity. ASUU had argued for and convinced the Governments Negotiating Team that creating a special salary scale would be necessary for resolving the Brain Drain Problem. After the 1992 Agreement, Government encouraged other unions to return to one single salary structure for the universities. This took its toll on workers unity in the university system. ASUUs position was that each union ought to be able to articulate and defend its demands.
Second, the success of the Agreement in improving the material well-being of academic staff, and the renewed struggles to defend material-economic gains, paved the way for a misconception in some section of ASUU membership about the essence of ASUU as a union.
Third, the doggedness with which the union pursued the defence of the Agreement was to lead a politically unsuspecting public to misunderstand the goals of ASUUs struggles.
Fourth, the parity problem drove a wedge between ASUU and other unions in the university, carrying with it a cost in solidarity among unions and workers.
The period of Abacha dictatorship presented a great challenge to ASUU. In view of the constant assault on our union by Buhari-Idiagbon, and then by Babangida, could the union survive another brutal dictatorship? ASUU chose the path of struggles and principle. ASUU NEC decided to join the democratic, anti-military movement to end military rule, abandoning its struggle for the university system through the defence of the 1992 Agreement. ASUU in fact believed that the struggle for the Agreement was a defence of industrial democracy, for fulfilling the right to education and national development. ASUU knew that if it compromised on its anti-miltiary positions, Abachas regime would grant the union considerable concessions. ASUU demonstrated its unwillingness to trade principle for concessions when it took an open, very strong and unambiguous condemnation of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa. This was to draw a letter “from the Minister of Education, Dr. Ibrahim T. Liman, to Dr. H.A. Asobie, then President of ASUU, that ASUU was jeopardizing its relationship with Government.
ASUU did not change its position and instead, began to strengthen its relationship with the civil society organizations. That Dr. Iyorcha Ayu and Dr. T. Liman were former members of ASUU ¢â¬â€œ Dr. Ayu, UNIJOS Chairman before he left the university, did not help ASUUs struggles. (It was then Dr. Abraham Imogie who, later, as the Minister of Education in Ernest Shonekans Government, that showed, without apology, understanding of ASUUs positions.)
In 1994, ASUU went on strike demanding from Abachas government (1) re-negotiation of the Agreement (2) the re-instatement of the over eighty lecturers whose appointments were terminated at the University of Abuja by Prof. Isa Mohammed (3) the de-annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections.
The strike did not succeed for three reasons. First, the political demand ¢â¬â€œ the first directly political demand in ASUUs struggles, caused a disagreement within ASUU itself. While some saw the June 12 issue as a broad democratic issue, some saw it as broad democratic issues hijacked by ethnic interests. Given these readings, ASUU had to drop the political demand.
The struggle for the reinstatement of the UNIABUJA colleagues and the renegotiation of the Agreement continued throughout Abachas regime.
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