ASUU vows to resist attempt by FG to turn intellectuals to slaves……Nigerian politicians among highest paid in the world ​

JOSEPH OKWUOFU, Ibadan

University lecturers under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have cried out over the disparity in the salaries of lecturers and politicians who they alleged were among the highest paid in the world.

ASUU, University of Ibadan chapter on Tuesday vowed to resist the grand plan of the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to refuse to sign the renegotiated agreements.

Rising from their Congress at the University of Ibadan presided over by the Chairman Professor Ayo Akinwole, the congress of the University of Ibadan ASUU said it was fully supporting the decision of the leadership of the Union to fight for the welfare of her members whose welfare has been neglected for over 13 years.

While briefing newsmen shortly after the congress, Professor Ayo Akinwole who was flanked by the Secretary, Dr Chris Omoregie, Dr Dapo Adewole, Dr. Sarah Akintola (Treasurer), and Dr. Dapo Okareh (Internal Auditor) disclosed that the Union has been pushed to the wall and will now fight back.

According to Ayo Akinwole, the federal government has employed all formal and informal tactics to delay the renegotiation of 2009 agreements for four years and the new agreements were supposed to have been effective if the government had signed them in 2021.

He hinted that rather than signing the agreement which took four years to be reached, “the federal government now said the agreement will now be tabled before another tripartite committee to consider it. We know this is a strategy of the Buhari administration to continue to impoverish the intellectual community.”

Akinwole also said that the Union has explored all possible avenues to make government do the needful and allowed many stakeholders who approached the Union to mediate to prevent another strike but “they all reported back to us that they were not able to convince government and that government was adamant”.

According to him, Federal Government is still owing varsities about N880billion on revitalization of universities and also refused to mainstream earned academic allowances in the 2022 budget as promised.

The ASUU boss also lamented that while Nigerian politicians are among the highest paid in the world; Nigerian lecturers are among the poorly paid in the world with professors earning less than $1,000 dollars in a month.

On UTAS Akinwole said: “The NITDA examination rated the UTAS over 87percent and asked us to adjust the areas noted and resubmit for re-evaluation and start a new long process and we asked them what process did the fraudulent IPPIS go through by the NITDA before it was forced down with the monumental fraud discovered in it? The IPPIS which is foreign-imposed was not subjected to NITDA evaluation but a homegrown solution that was developed will be perpetually delayed so that the welfare of our members will be sacrificed to ensure that IPPIS continues to enrich their paymasters. We would not allow this. It is our destiny and we will fight for our own welfare”

For a better society