ASUU to Tinubu: Vibrant Nigerians running away from lecturing

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu

ASUU to Tinubu: Vibrant Nigerians running away from lecturing

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has raised the alarm that poor welfare conditions of public universities’ lecturers is discouraging qualified hands from taking up jobs in the university system.

Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter of the union, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, in a new year message noted that the situation also affects primary and secondary schools where teachers are not well-paid, leading to the reluctance of qualified teachers to take up employment in public primary and secondary schools, paving way for untrained and unqualified teachers hold sway. The result is the proliferation of private schools, most of which are out of the reach of the poor due to the exorbitant fees they charge.

According to Professor Akinwole, the university system witnessed stagnation in 2024 stating that but for the sacrifices of the lecturers, the university system would have been thrown into another industrial crisis because of the lacklustre attitude of the Federal Government to the plights of lecturers.

He noted that Nigeria’s education is likely to remain the same because it has been allocated about 7 percent (N3.52 trillion) in the 2025 budget (47.90 trillion) “which falls far below the benchmark of 15-20 percent educational budget for underdeveloped countries like Nigeria, specified by both UNESCO and United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which has been advocated by our Union.”

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While commending the Federal Government for setting up a committee to renegotiate the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, Akinwole warned against delayed tactics as characterised in previous administrations.

“To be sure, since 2017, various committees have been put in place by the government to renegotiate the agreement with ASUU. For instance, the Babalakin-led Joint Renegotiation Committee was set up, followed by Emeritus Professor Munzali Jubril-led Committee, and followed by the late Prof. Nimi Briggs-led Committee, which yielded a draft agreement between the committee and ASUU in 2021. Unfortunately, the Buhari administration refused to sign the Agreement reached by a Committee set up by it. It is, therefore, our opinion that instead of a fresh renegotiation of the Agreement, the Tinubu-led administration should rather set in motion a process that will lead to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria’s public universities.”

The ASUU boss also criticised President Bola Tinubu’s agenda to eliminate TETFund under the tax administration bill stating that this would kill the little infrastructural funding which TETFund has been executing.

“This misbegotten policy will have huge and adverse implications for the university system in Nigeria. This is, no doubt, an attempt to destroy the major source of infrastructural funding for already struggling public tertiary institutions.. It is also an attempt to commodify university education in Nigeria.

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“A part of the tax administration bill proposes eliminating the education tax, to be replaced by a development levy. This would effectively disrupt the revenue stream of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), an agency set up as a product of the ingenuity and struggles of ASUU that has been the major source of funding for infrastructure development in many public tertiary institutions over the last decade. Since its establishment in 2011, TETFund has monitored the disbursement of education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. However, with this new bill, only 50 percent of the monies accruing to the levy would go to TETFund in 2025 and 2026. TETFund’s share will be upped to 66 percent in 2027, 2028, and 2029. Then, the agency would cease to get any revenue from 2030. From 2030, the development levy will be solely meant to fund the federal government’s student loan scheme. What this means is that the agency that funds infrastructural development in the Nigerian tertiary institutions is under the threat of extinction by 2030.

“It is a public hazard to conscript academics into an endless struggle for survival. There is a low level of motivation and an increasing rate of flight from the present condition at the slightest opportunity.”

Setting agenda for 2025 Professor Akinwole asked President Tinubu to pay attention to the “welfare of workers in the education sector and Nigerian workers is paramount, considering the state of the national economy and high cost of living, which has deepened the erosion of the conditions of service of our members”

The ASUU boss stated that it is expected that “the withheld three-and-a-half-month salaries and third party deductions owed our members should be paid forthwith. We also expect that the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) should be released, just as we expect that the funding for the revitalisation of the universities should be released in accordance with the FGN-ASUU MoU of 2012, 2013, and the MoA of 2017”

“In the absence of visible and concrete efforts at addressing the pending issues and meeting our expectations, there is likely to be a long-drawn confrontation between our Union and the Federal Government, which will probably lead to another round of untold avoidable crisis in the university system in Nigeria.”