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Civil organizations blame NUC for incessant industrial action by ASUU
With the ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) clocking two months old today, civic organizations in the country have blamed the National Universities Commission, NUC, for the state of comatose in the country’s higher institutions of learning.
The ASUU on July 2nd this year embarked on another strike over the refusal of the Federal Government to honour the 2009 agreement on the funding of universities and a subsequent January 2012 Memorandum Of Understanding she freely entered into with the lecturers.
The group, which are 20 in number, did not only blame the NUC for the incessant agitation by ASUU, but added that “it is a direct fall out of the embarrassing abdication of its (NUC) responsibility”.
The groups include: Zero Corruption Coalition (ZCC); Women Organisation for Gender Issue (WOGI); CiviI Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC); West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF); Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Nigeria; National Procurement Watch Platform (NPWP) and Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group (ISDMG).
Others are Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN); Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL); United Action for Democracy (UAD); Community Action for Popular Participation (CAPP); Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights (CCIDESOR); Community Outreach for Development and Welfare Advocacy (CODWA); Say No Campaign Nigeria (SNCN); International Press Centre (IPC); Coalition to Save Education in Nigeria (COSEG); Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI); Greater Nigeria Movement (GNM); Ethical Computing and Cyber Research Centre (ECCRC) and Centre for Responsible Engagement and Patriotism (CREAP).
According to the civic groups, NUC was lagging behind in its primary duty to the Nigerian university system. They queried the continuous existence of the body.
The National Universities Commission has a duty as part of its functions as stated in its enabling act to ‘… prepare periodic master plans for the balanced and coordinated development of all universities in Nigeria; lay down minimum academic standards in the federal republic of Nigeria and accredit degrees and other academic awards; ensure that quality is maintained within the academic programmes of the Nigerian university system; advise the Federal Government on the financial needs, both recurrent and capital of university education in Nigeria; undertake periodic review of the terms and conditions of service of personnel engaged in the universities and make recommendations thereon to the Federal Government as appropriate’.
On the basis of the aforementioned responsibilities, the organizations declared a vote of no confidence on the NUC stating that over the years, it had failed woefully in the discharge of its primary function of ensuring standards and advising governments on the needs of the universities.
They emphasized that the NUC’s abandonment of its primary duty of regulation, ensuring standards and calling the attention of the government to the worsening decay in tertiary education in the country triggered the incessant ASUU strike.
Recall that the NUC got recently enmeshed in contract awards, management of scholarship funds and directly managing the affairs of universities in clear violation and breach of extant laws.
These, the group pointed out, were among the reasons the NUC had failed woefully in saving the nation’s universities from its current challenges.
Unfortunately, the incessant strikes, according to the aggrieved civic organizations, constitute a grave tragedy to the immediate and long term economic and social well-being of the nation.
Consequently, they called on the federal government to, with immediate effect, demonstrate the requisite political will to respect the terms of the agreement which it (FG) freely entered into with ASUU in 2009. This, they described as the hallmark and minimum requirement for a responsible and credible government.
They also called for the re-opening of the collapsed negotiations with ASUU as quickly as possible, while also setting in motion all mechanisms necessary for meeting the funding requirements of the FGN/ASUU agreement of 2009.
They further demanded that all efforts at derailing interventions in stabilizing the Nigerian tertiary education system be stopped, while the extant laws regulating the operations of the TET Fund are respected by all and sundry including but not limited to the NUC.
They called on the government to ensure that the NUC and other regulatory agencies within the tertiary education sector operate within the ambit of their primary functions of regulating and setting standards for the university and tertiary education system and desist from getting enmeshed in functions that are best left to the universities/tertiary institutions/other relevant agencies and outside their core mandates
Also, they highlighted the need for the FG to ensure the full implementation of the report of the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities (CNANU).
The report of CNANU, set up by the Federal government, the groups said, vividly capture the country’s tertiary education system as having fallen beyond imagination, a position similar to ASUU’s.
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