REBECCA AJANI
MEMBERS of the Academic Staff Union of Universities have insisted that the Federal Government must pay their withheld salaries and complete the negotiations of what led to the ASUU strike before they return to the classroom.
The lecturers said this just as they noted that despite the fact that students were tired of sitting at home, they could not work on “empty stomachs while politicians’ homes and warehouses are filled with palliative materials that they don’t even need.”
Zonal Coordinator, ASUU, Prof Ade Adejumo, made these positions known while speaking with journalists at the University of Ibadan on Wednesday.
ASUU members from the University of Ibadan and other universities were present at the press conference.
“We are ready to suspend the strike if the government pays our withheld salaries and completes the negotiations that led to the strike. Our children too are tired of staying at home but we cannot work on empty stomachs while politicians’ homes and warehouses are filled with palliative materials that they don’t even need,” Adejumo said.
The union also accused the Federal Government of employing hunger as a weapon to suppress its members.
It said, “Rather than for Government to utilise the opportunity of the lockdown to address our grievances, it was during that lockdown that our salaries were stopped so that our members could die of hunger in their various homes
“It took a high level of intervention before our members were paid amputated salaries for three months after which Government resorted to blackmail by whipping sentiments against us while taking our members as enemies deserving of starvation.
“The intellectuals are citizens, not enemies but Government appears to have declared war on us using the weapon used during the war against adversaries – hunger.”
While noting that some people had been wondering why ASUU was still on strike, the zonal coordinator said, “The simple answer is that ASUU is on strike because of the survival of the university system where many of us still have our children as students, since we cannot afford sponsoring our children abroad with our measly salaries as politicians do.
“ASUU is on strike in order to restore the past glory of public universities and address the infrastructural decay and deficit in our institutions. ASUU is on strike for the legitimate dues of its members who are the least paid in the tertiary education sub-sector.
“For the sake of emphasis, the truth that will shock many Nigerians, which is available for verification, is that Chief Lecturers in some tertiary institutions, who are not required to supervise postgraduate students or conduct research, earn more than professors in our lopsided education system.”
The union revealed that it was actually tired of having a circus show of talks, adding, however, that in the interest of the students and Nigerians at large, it had continued to hold unending meetings while the Federal Government continued to shift the goal post and dribble the union.
For instance, it said, “The government agreed to do its own obligation of constituting visitation panels to the universities to check their records between April and May 2019, but it has failed to do so.
“The issue of our Earned Academic Allowances which the Government agreed to pay in two tranches in November 2019 and July 2020 is still there.
“We are still waiting for the renegotiation of our 2009 agreement that comprehensively addresses all the issues at stake. All that we have before us are words without actions, and as our people say, ordinary words do not fill the basket.”
ASUU reiterated its stance that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) was a distraction to its members, saying, “Apart from IPPIS being a cesspool of corruption as many Nigerians who are at its receiving end have attested to, there is no serious-minded country in the world where university lecturers and intellectual assets of the country are lumped together in payment with the civil service.
“We raised this point of order when the system was introduced and there was a joint team constituted to work things out.”
It said, “The alternative University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) that we developed, and which has been successfully demonstrated at least three times to the satisfaction of government, is still being subjected to an unending process of integrity tests. We are being played around like ping pong as Government keeps approbating and reprobating at the same time.
“By all intents and purposes, IPPIS is a violation of the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2003 (also known as the Universities Autonomy Act No 1 2007 (as amended)) which the National Assembly signed into law on July 30, 2003, and subsequently gazetted by the Federal Republic of Nigeria Official Gazette Number 10, Volume 94 of January 12, 2007.
“Why would the government violate its own law of vesting the power of hiring, paying and firing university staff in the Governing Councils without repealing the law? It is high time we joined hands to end government impunity. Without impunity on the part of the government, there will be no brutality in the rank and file of SARS.”
The union also alleged that the Federal Government “callously” withheld the check-off dues of some of its members, who were selectively paid amputated salaries, in order to starve the union of the energy needed to sustain the negotiations.
It called on Nigerians to prevail on Government to release the withheld salaries of its members and remit the check-off dues of the union to the rightful owner, The Point reports.
According to ASUU, they should be paid the same way Government had allegedly “arbitrarily handpicked members without subjecting them to IPPIS registration and speed up the process of testing the integrity of UTAS so that it may be deployed for payment beginning from January 2021.”
Some of those who attended the briefing were Prof. Moyo Ajao, Prof. Ayo Akinwole (Ibadan), Dr Femi Abanikannda (University of Osun), Dr Dauda Adesola (Kwara State), and Prof Olusiji Showande (Lagos State).
