THE Benin Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said that salaries of university lecturers have not been reviewed by their employers for the past 15 years when it was last reviewed and the last agreement was signed.
Besides, they said that the agreement reached with the federal government in 2022 has remained a draft and nothing has been done about it.
Speaking at a press briefing in Benin City, the Coordinator of the Zone which is made up of the University of Benin, Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE), Effurun in Delta State, Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka and others, Prof. Monday Igbafen said government at all levels are busy reviewing other workers salary while leaving the lecturers salaries the same way it was since when the value of naira to a dollar was N120. He said such ill treatments were calls for strike.
He also lashed out at some state governors who were running their universities at variance with all laid down rules, a situation was the order of the AAU
According to him, "It is better imagined to note that what a professor at bar earns in today's Nigeria is about $400 per month which is scandalous under-valuation of scholars.To continue to remain on the same salary regime for 15 years without review is not only wicked and inhuman but also an invitation to resistance and industrial disharmony.
Igbafen, while listing the union's demands which the federal government has refused to meet, said they have been push to the wall, and may likely embark on industrial action.
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"This disposition of government is certainly not a good recipe to the impending paralysis in Nigeria's public universities.
"For the avoidance of doubt, the issues include the stalled renegotiation of 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement; funding for the revitalization of public universities based on the FGN-ASUU MoU of 2021, 2013, and the MoA of 2017; the illegal dissolution of Governing Councils in federal and state universities; withheld salaries in federal and state universities; unpaid salaries of staff on sabbatical, adjunct, etc. due to IPPIS; the non-release of third-party deductions; non-payment of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA); proliferation of public universities; non-implementation of the reports of Visitation Panels and the refusal to adopt UTAS in place of IPPIS.
"By its action to ignore the union on these contending issues, the government is begging our union to proceed on strike", Igbafen added.
