The Zonal Coordinator, Sokoto Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Abubakar Sabo has decried that lecturers in Nigeria’s universities have been on the same salary regime since 2009.
Professor Abubakar, who disclosed at a press conference held in Sokoto, NUJ Secretariat, also lamented that the highest-paid professor in Nigeria’s public institutions earns a meager 210 dollars per month since the truncation of the 2009 agreement.
“The most obvious implication of the truncation of this agreement is that university teachers in Nigeria have been on the same salary regime since 2009 when the value of Nara to a dollar was N120! Today, it’s above N1750 and counting.
“It is no longer news that the salaries of the highest paid professor, an average, has been reduced to a meager $210/month”.
He stressed that after calling off the recent strike action, the Federal Government has paid only 4 out of their 7 and half months withheld salaries to date.
Also read: ASUU urges FG to honour agreement
Prof Sabo wondered why the government is trying to push lecturers into another round of strike action to get their entitlements that are already captured in the budget made available to ASUU by Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajamiamila?
Expressing disappointment over the Federal Government’s deliberate refusal to fulfill its 2009 Renegotiated Agreement with ASUU, Professor Sabo, further, listed their grouse to include, withheld salary, refusal to pay the backlog of arrears of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), underfunding of universities, and illegal dissolution of University Governing Councils.
Continuing, the erudite scholar listed more of their pains including the non-actualization of the exit from IPPIS to reneging on reverting back to the quarterly release of university funds, as well as the non-release of promotion arrears and payment of salaries to those academics unjustly denied because of their opposition to the obnoxious IPPIS imposition.
The Sokoto Zone of ASUU, further, advised the National University Commission (NUC) to focus its attention on other pressing issues such as the proliferation of universities, poor condition of service, and the mass exodus of academics rather than concentrating on the rejected Core Curriculum and Maximum Academic Standard (CCMAS) that seeks to erode powers of the various universities.
Raising eyebrows on how the National Assembly’s invitation of heads of tertiary institutions in the guise of, “oversight”, could possibly create a leeway to fritter away TETFUND intervention funds, ASUU submitted that, “some of our vice-chancellors could become susceptible to corruption and other sharp practices associated with such, oversights”.
The Sokoto zonal coordinator of ASUU, who oversees 8 universities from both Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara states, was flanked at the press conference by Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto ASUU Chairman, Professor Almustapha Nurudeen, Dr Muhammad Auwal, Dr Shaibu Sadiq among others