A Response to Akin Omole’s Arrogant Ignorance About The History of ASUU’s Collective Bargaining Principle and the University System

Date:

Our attention has been drawn to the reaction of Honourable Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Ekiti State, Akin Omole, that the State was not part of the ongoing negotiation between the Federal Government and ASUU, hence it is not binding on it as far as ASUU members in Ekiti State University is concerned. The Commissioner was said to have claimed that “if Ekiti State must have any dialogue at all, it can only be with ASUU in EKSU”. He was also quoted to have said that “the negotiation with the Federal Minister of Labour and its Education counterpart is not done in concurrence of Ekiti State Government….”.

We wish to educate the learned Commissioner about the modus operandi of ASUU and remind him of the history of collective bargaining between the ASUU and its Federal Government. We are not sure where the Commissioner was when State Governments adopted the past agreements emanating from the negotiations between ASUU and Federal Government.

  1. The University is a single entity: There was no disparity between State and Federal Universities. One is not superior to the other. Happily enough, the Honourable Commissioner graduated from University of Ife, now OAU, but now an employee of the State Government. Graduates of State Universities are also employed by Federal Government, its agencies and Parastatals.
  2. It is strange that the Honourable Commissioner feigns ignorance of the fact that all what form the crux of the current ASUU struggle bedeviled EKSU as a University. Talk of infrastructural decay, inappropriate funding, insufficient subvention and lack of will to make University education attractive to prospective students. Unless Mr. Omole wants to claim that Ekiti State does not pride University education and care less of developments therein, his argument towards separating State from Federal Universities does not hold water.
  3. But for the joint actions of State and Federal Universities that produced such results as “TETFUND” and NEED Assessment Grants, and other funds, EKSU would by now not be different from a glorified village secondary school as 90% of physical structures in the EKSU as at today are proceeds of joint Universities’ struggles. No thanks to State Government’s lackadaisical attitude towards releasing capital grants to EKSU for decades.
  4. Any time there was a review of wages and salaries in the past, it has always been adopted and executed by the two levels of government. TETFUND funds are disbursed to both State and Federal Universities. Both State and Federal Universities are regulated by the NUC. Do States have their own NUC? So, why should there be any disparity?
  5. Whenever ASUU is on industrial action, it is not about State or Federal. There is only one indivisible ASUU representing all Universities in the Country.
  6. The re-negotiation team is made up of Pro-Chancellors of State and Federal Universities, so how can anyone who is not bereft of ideas say the agreement would not be binding on State Universities?

The statement credited to Mr. Omole is unfortunate and regrettable. Meanwhile, we have solace in the fact that the incoming Governor of Ekiti State is a highly cerebral intellectual, a prominent scholar and a member of Ekiti State intelligentsia. He was a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science in the University before joining the politics. We know that unlike some people, he would not dump “science” on the campus and take politics to town. Apart from being an academic, he is a foremost alumnus of the University who we believe would not allow the University to collapse under his visitorship.  The incoming first lady, Professor Yemi Oyebanji cut her intellectual teeth in EKSU before she joined the University of Ibadan.

Mr. Biodun Oyebanji, being a true intellectual is in the right position to appreciate scholarship and the essence of University education in a State prided to be a fountain of knowledge and the home of “Professors”.

It is important to state here categorically that successive Ekiti State Governments had always domesticated ALL past agreements signed with the Federal Government and we are sure the government of Mr. Biodun Oyebanji will not depart from the noble and civilized tradition.

Comrade K. K. Arogundade

Chairperson, ASUU-EKSU

5th August, 2022

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