NLC Blames ASUU for Students Death

The Vice President of the Nigerian Labour Congress ( NLC), Issa Aremu Aremu has said that the casualties already suffered by the students some of whom had died in the course of the ongoing Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike and the breaking of the ranks of the union resulting in the non-participation of some of its branches in the strike, were enough evidence that the current action of the university lecturers had failed.

He therefore advised that ASUU should consider a change of strategy in its current face-off with the Federal Government as the union had overused the strike option.

He said while delivering a public lecture with the theme “Labour Strikes and the Nigerian Economy” organized by the Department of Economics and the Nigerian Economics Students Association of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, that ASUU should change its strategy their because in its over two-month old unresolved industrial dispute with the government, ASUU had continued to record serious casualties.

“These factors therefore necessitated the suspension of the ongoing industrial action by ASUU to enable the union give room for a renewed negotiation with the Federal Government,” he said.

He appealed to the government to review its new strategy of “not talking to ASUU” and warned that collective bargaining and the education of Nigerian children should not be politicized.

“The two parties should consider the fact that the current crises in the nation’s education sector were beyond selfish personal issues.ASUU should also revisit its own strategy. It is bad enough that ASUU has overused the strike option.”
“ With a two-week warning strike and indefinite strikes of eight weeks, ASUU is recording serious casualties. The first casualties are the students. Some have died through road accidents. Some are now engaged in criminal activities.”
“ Also within ASUU, their ranks have been broken. Some of the universities refused to join the strike and some have even called off the strike. The most dangerous thing for a union is for strikes to collapse on its hands. This means ASUU must think of suspending the strike to create environment for a renewed negotiation.”

“On the part of the government, the strategy of not talking to ASUU is unhelpful. Collective bargaining is a problem-solving technique, not a problem-compounding device. We should not politicize collective bargaining or education of our children. Even when government said they don’t want to talk they still talk at each other through the media rather than talking to ASUU directly.”

“All the parties must look at the remaining issues as challenges not problems. If we see them as problems, they will look insurmountable but when we see it as challenges, we try to find solutions to them.”

“According to Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela, “If you are not prepared to compromise, then you must not enter into or think about the process of negotiation at all.” He also went further to say that, “it is the nature of compromising: you can compromise on fundamental issues.”

“ Even at this hour, both government and ASUU can compromise even on fundamental issues, namely negotiating structure, is it between the federal government and the negotiating council or with the states. Even on the details, they came out with 209%, government is offering 40%. There could be a compromise in between. Compromise is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength as Mandela has shown,” he added.

He explained further that there was a link between strikes and the economy because such actions had become inevitable in the world of work while labour laws legalized strike actions in line with the principle of freedom of association and collective bargaining by ILO.

“Strikes in the education sector are the current major development in the critical sector of the nation’s labour market. There should be the application of the same measures recently applied to the 5 troubled commercial banks to the nation’s universities by sacking and prosecuting non-performing vice-chancellors while financially bailing out such institutions of learning.”

“None of the universities CEOs or vice chancellors has been fired for presiding over Non-Performing Universities (NPUs) just as the bank executives who presided over non-performing loans (NPLs) have been rightly retrenched and promptly handed over to EFCC. This explains the fact that the values we attach to the labour market are not weighty compared to the premium we place on capital or money markets.”
“ CBN in line with its regulatory function feverishly coughed out bail-out sum of N420billion for five banks which was good and commendable because by doing so it has saved poor depositors and investors from loss of their investment in the event of total banks’ collapse as it happened in the recent past.”

“But the Federal Government and all the state governments are (for whatever reason) unable to get just additional funding of N75billion to bail out 30 public and state universities and in the process save the students the agony of idleness and restlessness. And life seems to go on as the universities are closed,” he added.