…Commends FG for Paying 4 Months withheld Salaries
By Jude Atupulazi
The Owerri Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has told the President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government to consider an upward review of the wages of university lecturers to cushion the effect of the present-day economic hardship in the country.
The Union said its members were still feeding from the salary structure that was adopted over 15 years ago due to the failure of successive governments to arrive at a final closure to the renegotiation of the FGN/ASUU Agreement of 2009.
It said: ‘The most obvious implication of the truncation of the renegotiation of the agreement is that university teachers in Nigeria have been on the same salary regime since 2009 when the value of the Naira to the Dollar was N120 as against N1, 800 today.’
According to them, the signing of the renegotiated draft agreement by the Nimi Briggs-led Committee would be a concrete step towards restoring the dignity of the academia and ensuring industrial harmony and peace on the campuses.
Addressing journalists during a press conference at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, the Owerri Zone of ASUU, which is made up of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam; Federal University of Technology, Owerri; Imo State University, Owerri; Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, commended as a step in the right direction, the decision of Tinubu’s administration to pay four months of the withheld salaries of the academic staff in the universities.
The zone noted that the industrial action was originally instigated by the failure of the government to honour agreements that were in the interest of the nation.
It urged the Federal government to put an end to the agitations surrounding the withheld salaries by clearing the remaining three and a half months’ arrears, emphasizing that meeting such demand was a panacea for industrial peace in universities.
The Coordinator of ASUU Owerri zone, Professor Dennis Aribodor, at the briefing attended by all the chairmen of ASUU in the zone, noted that the Federal Government had, in recent times, been evasive on its commitment to the payment of the backlog of the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), part of which, he said, was captured in the 2023 National Budget for Federal Universities.
‘The Memorandum of Action (MoA) of December 2020 between FGN and ASUU captured the mainstreaming of the Earned Academic Allowances into the salaries of lecturers with effect from 2022 while the arrears were to be cleared before the mainstreaming. The scheduled payment of the arrears was aborted, while the mainstreaming of the Earned Academic Allowances which was supposed to commence in 2022 has remained a mirage in both Federal and most state universities,’ Aribodor said.
Questioning the dissolution of the Governing Councils of federal and some state-owned universities since June 2023, he described the action as an unbridled attack on and the erosion of the autonomy of the universities in violation of the extant laws of the universities.
He said the illegal dissolution had caused a major setback in the administration of universities and called on governments at the national and subnational to reverse the dissolution of Governing Councils where they were dissolved without serving out their tenures and to reconstitute those whose tenures had expired.
On the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), the ASUU Owerri Coordinator urged the government to revert to quarterly releases of university funds to the various universities to enable them to design and implement their salary payment plans. He also urged governments to shun the reckless establishment of universities but focus on adequately funding existing universities to enhance their capacity to admit more students.
Aribodor reaffirmed the Union’s support of NEC’s condemnation of the actions of the FUTO Administration on ASUU members and urged the Vice Chancellor of FUTO to take the path of honour and reverse the ‘illegal appointment of Dr. Isa Ibrahim Ali Pantami’.
He further called on the Minister of Education and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on Prof. Nnenna Oti, the Vice Chancellor of FUTO, to respect the laws of FUTO and stop persecuting ASUU members for insisting that the right thing should be done in the university.
The ASUU boss frowned at moves by members of the National Assembly on heads of tertiary institutions on the pretext of over-sighting resources allocated to their universities by TETFund.
He expressed worry that the practice could expose some Vice Chancellors to become susceptible to corruption and other sharp practices associated with such oversight.
In addition, he called on university senators to resist moves by NUC to impose Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS), which, he said, eroded the powers of senates over academic programmes universities.
