| Chibuzo Asomugha |
Chibuzo Asomugha is the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP). Asomugha explains reasons for the current strike by the union, what government has so far done and what it needs to do before ASUP calls off the strike.
Weekly Trust: Your union began strike since October 4th, 2013. What led to the strike?
Chibuzo Asomugha:We initially had 13 demands we tabled before the government, even before the strike commenced, And after waiting for a long time, those demands were not addressed. The issues included the non release of the white paper on the Visitation Panel to Federal Polytechnics; the continued discrimination against polytechnic graduates in public service and in the labor market in Nigeria; the refusal of government to fund the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration for lower cadres and its arrears from 2009 and the non establishment of a National Polytechnics Commission (NPC) and the continued recognition of the National Board for Technical Education(NBTE) as regulatory body for polytechnics.
The other grievances were the snail pace of the review of the Polytechnics Act by the National Assembly; the gross under funding of the polytechnics sub-sector and the continued lopsidedness in the disbursements of TETfund grants and other interventions clearly designed to the disadvantage of the polytechnic sector; the non-commencement of the re-negotiation of the FGN/ASUP agreement as contained in the signed agreement; the insistence of the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to single out the polytechnic sub-sector within the tertiary sector for the implementation of the IPPIS module against the union’s position; the worrisome state of most state-owned polytechnics and the failure of some state governments to implement policies that would ensure standardization of programmes and welfare of workers in the sector; the continued appointments of unqualified persons as rectors and provosts of polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of technology by some state governments and the refusal of most state governments to implement the approved salary package (CONPCASS) and 65-year retirement age for their polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of technology, among others.
We also asked the government to do the NEEDS assessment of polytechnics and structure portfolio for the funding of polytechnics.
What do you mean by discrimination against polytechnic graduates?
You know that in public and private sectors in Nigeria, if a student graduates from a polytechnic with HND, he is placed lower than his counterpart from the university who has read the same course, doing the same job. So, we are saying let us have parity. In 2005, under former President Obasanjo, there was a presidential directive to remove this discrimination and let there be parity, but it was overturned by bureaucracy especially by the civil service. They said it was a fake directive and we want them now to implement that fake directive.
What about your demand on adjustment of salary structure?
In 2009, we entered into a lot of agreements with government and the agreements brought in some new salary structure. So, government approved a new salary structure for the polytechnics, essentially, a one step elongation and it was implemented in 2010 for the upper echelon of academic staff of polytechnics. The lower echelon did not benefit from it. And since 2010, we have been asking government that since you have started it, complete it for the rest. And recently after the resumption of the strike on October 4th, 2013 government approved through a circular that this will be done. Since then, government has not gone ahead to provide funding for the implementation.
You were on strike between April and July 2013 and suddenly you decided to suspend the strike, what led to its suspension and resumption now?
It wasn’t suddenly suspended, what happened was that we started the strike on April 29 and we had series of meetings with government and there were series of interventions. So, with the intervention of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and that of Senate, we decided to give government the benefit of doubt, because they made promises and they actually took a time limit of two weeks, within which to meet these demands. And we said let us give them a month. It was on that basis we suspended the strike and from the strength of their assurances because we didn’t have any reason to doubt the integrity of people who were involved in the committees. We suspended on July 7 and from that time to October 4, government did not even return to those issues to begin to address any of them.
Eventually the Senate Committee intervened and we had to reduce the demands because of the interest we had in getting our system back to work. We said the government should choose the demands they can attend to, in the short term without complications and they chose four. We said if government will solve the four problems, we shall back out and discuss the others over structured period. Government has completed only one which is the completion of the constitution of the governing council of the polytechnics that were omitted in the first schedule. The other three were not brought to a reasonable conclusion.
Do you listen to the complaints of the parents whose children are at home?
If our parents are talking about the strike, I should think that Nigerians should muster the courage to actually demand from the government what is good. We are asking the parent to come to the polytechnic to see where their children go to school and to compare the quality of education their children acquire with what children in other countries acquire.
Some polytechnics are not on strike, is your association united?
There is not strike that you will have 100 per cent compliance from members for various reasons be it political, external conflict and there are different kinds of institutions under our Union some under state proprietorship, under private proprietorship, federal proprietorship, polytechnics, monotechnics and these have different ways of operation but constitutionally within our Union. The compliance of ASUP strike nationwide is encouraging and we will continue to pursue these matters.
There is an allegation that the opposition is using your Union against the government
They said that about university teachers when they were on strike and when they came to terms with the universities, did the universities continue with the strike? If we had any contact with the opposition, government would have exposed us, this is just propaganda.
Chibuzo Asomugha:We initially had 13 demands we tabled before the government, even before the strike commenced, And after waiting for a long time, those demands were not addressed. The issues included the non release of the white paper on the Visitation Panel to Federal Polytechnics; the continued discrimination against polytechnic graduates in public service and in the labor market in Nigeria; the refusal of government to fund the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration for lower cadres and its arrears from 2009 and the non establishment of a National Polytechnics Commission (NPC) and the continued recognition of the National Board for Technical Education(NBTE) as regulatory body for polytechnics.
The other grievances were the snail pace of the review of the Polytechnics Act by the National Assembly; the gross under funding of the polytechnics sub-sector and the continued lopsidedness in the disbursements of TETfund grants and other interventions clearly designed to the disadvantage of the polytechnic sector; the non-commencement of the re-negotiation of the FGN/ASUP agreement as contained in the signed agreement; the insistence of the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to single out the polytechnic sub-sector within the tertiary sector for the implementation of the IPPIS module against the union’s position; the worrisome state of most state-owned polytechnics and the failure of some state governments to implement policies that would ensure standardization of programmes and welfare of workers in the sector; the continued appointments of unqualified persons as rectors and provosts of polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of technology by some state governments and the refusal of most state governments to implement the approved salary package (CONPCASS) and 65-year retirement age for their polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of technology, among others.
We also asked the government to do the NEEDS assessment of polytechnics and structure portfolio for the funding of polytechnics.
What do you mean by discrimination against polytechnic graduates?
You know that in public and private sectors in Nigeria, if a student graduates from a polytechnic with HND, he is placed lower than his counterpart from the university who has read the same course, doing the same job. So, we are saying let us have parity. In 2005, under former President Obasanjo, there was a presidential directive to remove this discrimination and let there be parity, but it was overturned by bureaucracy especially by the civil service. They said it was a fake directive and we want them now to implement that fake directive.
What about your demand on adjustment of salary structure?
In 2009, we entered into a lot of agreements with government and the agreements brought in some new salary structure. So, government approved a new salary structure for the polytechnics, essentially, a one step elongation and it was implemented in 2010 for the upper echelon of academic staff of polytechnics. The lower echelon did not benefit from it. And since 2010, we have been asking government that since you have started it, complete it for the rest. And recently after the resumption of the strike on October 4th, 2013 government approved through a circular that this will be done. Since then, government has not gone ahead to provide funding for the implementation.
You were on strike between April and July 2013 and suddenly you decided to suspend the strike, what led to its suspension and resumption now?
It wasn’t suddenly suspended, what happened was that we started the strike on April 29 and we had series of meetings with government and there were series of interventions. So, with the intervention of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and that of Senate, we decided to give government the benefit of doubt, because they made promises and they actually took a time limit of two weeks, within which to meet these demands. And we said let us give them a month. It was on that basis we suspended the strike and from the strength of their assurances because we didn’t have any reason to doubt the integrity of people who were involved in the committees. We suspended on July 7 and from that time to October 4, government did not even return to those issues to begin to address any of them.
Eventually the Senate Committee intervened and we had to reduce the demands because of the interest we had in getting our system back to work. We said the government should choose the demands they can attend to, in the short term without complications and they chose four. We said if government will solve the four problems, we shall back out and discuss the others over structured period. Government has completed only one which is the completion of the constitution of the governing council of the polytechnics that were omitted in the first schedule. The other three were not brought to a reasonable conclusion.
Do you listen to the complaints of the parents whose children are at home?
If our parents are talking about the strike, I should think that Nigerians should muster the courage to actually demand from the government what is good. We are asking the parent to come to the polytechnic to see where their children go to school and to compare the quality of education their children acquire with what children in other countries acquire.
Some polytechnics are not on strike, is your association united?
There is not strike that you will have 100 per cent compliance from members for various reasons be it political, external conflict and there are different kinds of institutions under our Union some under state proprietorship, under private proprietorship, federal proprietorship, polytechnics, monotechnics and these have different ways of operation but constitutionally within our Union. The compliance of ASUP strike nationwide is encouraging and we will continue to pursue these matters.
There is an allegation that the opposition is using your Union against the government
They said that about university teachers when they were on strike and when they came to terms with the universities, did the universities continue with the strike? If we had any contact with the opposition, government would have exposed us, this is just propaganda.
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