By Editor
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has called on the federal government to save the Nigerian universities from the state of comatose by honouring its long outstanding agreements with the union.
The Benin Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Monday Igbafen, made the appeal in Benin while speaking on what he titled ‘Hold government responsible for the impending paralysis in Nigerian public universities”
He said that, the Union (ASUU) has been confronting the Federal Government of Nigeria on a number of issues for a very long period.
Dr. Igbafen said that the issues included the stalled renegotiation of 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement; the absence of Governing Councils in all Federal and some State Universities, the Earned Academic Allowance (EAA); the withheld salaries/promotion arrears/third-party deductions; illegal recruitments; proliferation of public universities/abuse of universities’ rules/processes, and TSA/New IPPIS.
Igbafen added that the government had been foot dragging on the need to conclude and sign the renegotiated 2009 Agreement which commenced in 2017 and after a tortuous exercise, a draft agreement was reached with the Professor Briggs-led Committee in 2021.
Igbafen said, unfortunately, agents of the Buhari government refused to approve of the draft agreement for reasons best known to them.
He alleged that the then Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, played the leading role in truncating the successful conclusion of the FGN-ASUU renegotiation process that had lasted for more than four years.
The Benin Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, while frowning at the lingering problem of withheld salaries in federal and some state universities, called on the federal government and visitors to state universities to as a matter of urgency, pay up all withheld salaries of members without further delay.
The zonal coordinator said that the Union is further disturbed by reports of victimization and persecution of its members in some universities.
According to him “We particularly condemn the unending crises at the Kogi State University (KSU), Anyingba; Ebonyi State University (EBSU), Abakaliki; Lagos State University (LASU), Ojoo; Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma; Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Igbariam; and other universities where our members have been illegally sacked and their salaries are withheld for unjustifiable reasons.
“We call on the federal government and visitors to state universities where our members are being persecuted to, as a matter of urgency, take steps to resolve all lingering matters and give their universities a new breathe of life”.
