Lecturing activities were near zero at the University of Benin and Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma both in Edo state in compliance with the work-free day directed by the national leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as a precursor to a planned nationwide strike.
In Ekpoma, some lecturers went to class while in UNIBEN, it was total compliance with the ASUU directive and held a congress where they unanimously agreed with the demands of the Union’s leadership and expressed worry over the daily increase in the cost of basic services and goods in Nigeria, saying University lecturers have been abandoned to grapple with the harsh realities of a poor salary structure following the failure of federal government to honour its agreement with the union.
Speaking at the end of the special congress of ASUU held at the University of Benin main campus, Chairman of ASUU in school, Ray Chikogu and Secretary, Success Abusomwan in a statement criticised the federal government for paying lip service to adequate funding of education and its failure to fulfill its obligations to the Nigeria University system and University lecturers.
They said “As we speak, the federal government is yet to make good on its promise to actualize the review of our dismal conditions, is still unwilling to pay up years of arrears of promotion entitlements, still pays lip service to the duty of adequately funding education and continues to be reluctant to deploy the already widely acclaimed University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) despite the well-publicized fraudulence, inefficiency and ineffectiveness in which the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information Service (IPPIS) is mired.
“It is unimaginable that in the face of the daily exponential increase in the cost of basic services and goods in Nigeria, University lecturers have been abandoned to grapple with the harsh realities of an abysmally poor salary structure that they had to endure for thirteen agonizing years.
“For the records, the renegotiation of the FGN-ASUU 2009 Agreement that took a while of about 4 years was eventually concluded with a draft document in May 2021 having begun in 2017, but the federal government has unscrupulously refused to sign the said document for.
Vanguard