The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged the Federal Government not to force the union to choose strike as an option, in view of the Federal Government’s alleged insensitivity and lackadaisical attitude towards the full implementation of the 2009 ASUU- FGN agreement.
This was the crux of the press conference addressed by the Zonal Coordinator, ASUU Lagos Zone, Comrade Adelaja Odukoya, at the end of the zonal meeting Federal University of Agriculture (FUNAAB), Abeokuta, on Tuesday, that the Federal Government in 2020 forced the union to embark on nine months strike, which affected public universities in the country.
The Zonal Coordinator, Adelaja Odukoya, hinted that the monthly wages of ASUU members can no longer meet their daily demands as a result of the present economic realities in the country.
Odukoya flanked by other union leaders from the zone noted that university lecturers are poorly paid compared to their colleagues in other climes.
The union accused the Federal Government of a deliberate attempt at impoverishing university lecturers by its blunt refusal at implementing the Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed with the union in 2020.
He noted that the last time the salary of lecturers was increased was in 2009, accusing the Federal Government of “weaponising” poverty against lecturers
He said: “The university is meant to produce ideas for solving societal problems and challenges, leading to qualitative growth and development of the country.
“How can Nigerian university teachers play their part in this process if they have to contend with the perennial problem of miserable salaries, especially under conditions of hyperinflation? How can academics working under such conditions of severe stress compete with their counterparts in other climes?
“It is troubling that the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye to the suffering of Nigerian university academics. The situation is even worsened by a series of cruel neoliberal policies that seek to transform public education from a public service into a commodity.”
“One will be at a loss to understand the attitude of the government to education in the country in general and the condition of service of lecturers in Nigerian public university in particular except one comes to the ugly realization that there is an orchestrated, deliberate and systemic grand design for the oppression, dehumanization and impoverishment of Nigerian academics is as old as Nigeria’s post-independence statehood.”
