Victoria Mbangwa
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has called on labor unions within the educational sector to shift their focus from industrial actions to the welfare of Nigerian students.
The union include the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU),
The Minister made this appeal during the opening of SSANU’s 359th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
Alausa acknowledged the unions’ frustration over the government’s historical failure to honor agreements, particularly those that had been repeatedly breached.
He emphasized that the focus should be on the long-term well-being and educational progress of students, urging the unions to engage in constructive dialogue rather than resorting to industrial action.
He said, “l know you as an association, ASUU, NASU, everybody collectively, your psyche has been affected, because the government has gone into agreement with you, and most of the time, the government has not fulfilled its part of the agreement.
“But let me promise you this, President Bola Tinubu is a democrat, he will work to meet his obligation and agreement that he enters with you.
“When the President was campaigning around the country, he told Nigeria, ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’ll take the difficult decision.”
He also noted that President Tinubu had already demonstrated a willingness to make difficult decisions for the nation’s future, decisions he wished had been taken earlier to prevent the current crisis.
“And I wish today that these difficult decisions were made 10, 20, 30 years ago. If those decisions were taken, we wouldn’t be here today. But now, this President came in and he is meeting, and he will continue to meet his obligations, his promises to Nigerians”. He added.
SSANU National President, Mohammed Ibrahim, also called for a shift in the public perception of unions. He pointed out that unions are often branded as “strike-happy,” but argued that strikes are not their first choice.
“The experiences in the last year for the Nigerian worker, especially members of SSANU, have been particularly nasty and brutish.
“The greatest challenge besetting the Nigerian educational system and more particularly the tertiary education has been the spate of industrial actions occasioned by breaches of agreements entered between the unions and their employers.
“Since the advent of the civilian or if you like, democratic government in 1999, we have witnessed increased accusations of failure of collective bargaining, at both federal and state government levels.
“As a result, industrial tensions in our tertiary institutions, protests and strikes have become the order of the day.
“Unfortunately, the trend has created a situation where unions and their leaders are being perceived as being too belligerent or strike-happy.
“It becomes imperative, therefore, for us to hold conversations on this trend with a view to changing the narrative and causing a paradigm shift to the benefit of not only the union, but even the governments, the stakeholders, students and the entire nation.” He said.
