The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is threatening to resume its suspended strike following the expiration of a one-month window given to the federal government to address outstanding issues from the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
The Benin Zone of the union has vowed to comply with the directive of the National Executive Council (NEC) to resume the strike if the government fails to conclude the renegotiation within the stipulated time.
Benin Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Monday Igbafen, expressed the union’s readiness to resume the suspended strike, emphasizing that the one-month window should be sufficient for the government to resolve the long-standing issues.
He lamented the federal government’s apparent unwillingness to comprehensively address the outstanding issues and restore industrial harmony in public universities, which he said is to the detriment of students.
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Prof. Igbafen noted that ASUU believes that a swift resolution of these issues is crucial for the overall interest of students and the stability of the Nigerian university system.
The union is urging the government to prioritize the renegotiation and fulfill its commitments to avoid further disruption to academic activities.
“While some gaps may have been closed, non-monetary aspects of the agreement, the salary and conditions of service components remain a sore point that needs a radical approach to stem the impending crisis in the system.
“We have rejected the proposed salary increment by the government because it is a mere drop in the ocean that is incapable of achieving the desired reversal of the brain drain syndrome currently bedeviling university education in the country.
“We are saying enough is enough to the back-and-forth approach of the federal government to the negotiation. This half-hearted approach must stop now. This we are talking with ASUU without results must stop.
“The most obvious implication of the refusal of the government to conclude this negotiation is that university teachers in Nigeria have continued with the same salary regime of 2009 when the value of the naira to a dollar was N120, and this is even added to the fact that salaries in other sectors have since been reviewed upward twice or more.
“It is sad to note that what a professor at the bar earns in today’s Nigeria is less than $400 per month, which is a scandalous under-valuation of Nigerian scholars,” Prof. Igbafen said.
He added that more worrisome is the fact that the actions and pronouncements of government functionaries, including the minister of education are antithetical to a genuine and speedy resolution of the issues.
Prof. Igbafen called on the government to accept the immutable reality that nothing is too much to invest in the education of its citizenry because it is the bedrock of any society that desires development.
