ASUU had on Monday begun protests across the country to press home their demand for full pay after the Federal Government failed to pay them for the eight-month period the lecturers were on strike.
However, Adamu, who spoke with State House correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday, insisted the protesting lecturers would not be paid for work not done in line with the ‘No work no pay’ policy.
The ASUU, which embarked on strike in February, called off the industrial action in October, after a Court of Appeal order them to do so
Following the development, the government paid the lecturers half their salaries for October while insisting that it would not pay for the eight months they were on strike.
In response, ASUU began protests across the country. But the education Minister declared on Wednesday that the lecturers “would not be paid for work not done.”
The Minister also reacted to the allegation made by the President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodoke, that paying the lecturers on a pro-rata basis was a ploy to make them casual workers.
“Nobody can make university lecturers casual workers,” he said. When told that the lecturers were threatening a one-day action to protest the government’s action, Adamu said he was not aware.
However, the effect of the protest by ASUU caught up with Bayero University, Kano, as the management rescheduled all academic activities including its first-semester examination slated for November 7, 2022.
A statement by the Secretary of, the Information and Publication Unit of the university on behalf of the Registrar, Bala Abdullahi, said academic activities had been postponed to a later date.
The Vice-Chairman, of ASUU, BUK branch, Dr. Sagir Saleh, told reporters that the union decided to protest to show their “total rejection” of the “amputated” salary paid to members for October 2022.
Also, the University of Benin chapter of ASUU has carpeted the Federal Government over its alleged attempt to criminalize the union’s strike action.
In a statement titled, “The onslaught against intellectualism,” read by the union chairman of the chapter, Ray Chikogu, at its secretariat in UNIBEN, the lecturers condemned the government’s decision to withhold their salaries.
Also, the ASUU chairman for the University of Ilorin, Professor Moyosore Ajao, called on the Federal Government to pay the backlog of salaries owed to members of ASUU during the strike period.
Speaking in an interview with one of our correspondents, Ajao said, “My question back to them is if the work is going to be done, will the money be paid or not? If they are saying no payment for work not done, ASUU is not asking them to pay us for work not done. We are asking them to pay us because the work is going to be done.”
ASUU accuses parties
Meanwhile, the President, ASUU, Osodeke, on Wednesday alleged that politicians were planning to privatise federal universities across the country.
Speaking at a special congress of the ASUU of the Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, formerly known as Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, in honour of the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Richard Kimbir, Osodeke said the two options were being considered by the presidential candidates of some parties in the forthcoming general elections.
He said, “If you don’t know, they are planning to sell the universities (federal universities) through a public-private partnership, this is being planned by two presidential candidates and the other plan is to initiate student loans at a five percent interest rate.
According to him, contrary to what is obtainable in the USA, where students can easily get jobs and repay the loan, the situation in the country is more difficult due to the lack of jobs for graduates.
“In Nigeria where you have graduates that cannot get a job for several years and by the time you spend 30 years, the loan will run to N40m,” he observed.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson, of ASUU, ATBU, Bauchi Branch, Dr. Ibrahim Inuwa, has alleged that the Federal Government is deliberately underfunding public universities to deny the masses access to education through exorbitant fees.
Ngige’s Actualisation Of Boko Haram’s Anti-Western Education Agenda Exposed- ASUU-FUPRE
In another development, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun (FUPRE) chapter, Delta State accused Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment of alleged actualisation of the anti-western education agenda being propagated by the Boko Haram terrorist group.
This is as ASUU-FUPRE joined their colleagues across the country to carry out a pre-planned protest called on President Mohammadu Buhari to sack Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment.
Comrade Ezekiel Agbalagba, Chairperson, ASUU FUPRE branch said the sacking of the Minister has become necessary due to his alleged actualisation of the Boko Haram anti-western education advocacy.
To this end, ASUU-FUPRE called on President Mohammadu Buhari to save the Nigerian public university education from the looming collapse.
Besides, the union added, “We also call on the Emeritus Prof. Nimi-Briggs renegotiation committee report for signing and immediate implementation, pay all the backlog of salaries arrears and EAA to our members.
“These, we believe, will lead to the reverse of the bad image these elements and agents of government have earned this present administration.
“We also call on all well-meaning Nigerians, Stakeholders in the education industry, parents, students, and youths of Nigeria to lend their voices in this clarion call to save Nigerian Public University System and prevent it from going the way of our public primaries and secondary schools”.
Comrade Agbalagba argued that it is no. longer news that Mallam Adamu Adamu recently declared to the public the reality of his stewardship as Minister for Education and the longest-serving minister of Education since independence in 1960.
“He publicly acknowledged the facts that he failed woefully as a Minister of Education. One thing the Hon. Minister failed to do was to confess and expose other agents of government that he conspired with to destroy the Nigeria Educational system and most importantly the tertiary education in Nigeria, the chief of which is Mr. Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment.
“The plummeting of the standard of Education in Nigeria at all levels in the past seven years of the Buhari administration is io doubt a reason to be worried about.
“This administration enjoyed the support of the masses principally for three major campaign promises to Fight decisively against corruption, tackle insecurity, of which Boko haram was at the front burner, and reposition Nigeria’s Education system to regain its pride of place in the comity of nations, by addressing all the challenges that are bedeviling the university system and that is compelling the Academia to embark on strike actions frequently.
“The University system has been worst hit by the incompetent, unprofessional and ill-prepared posture of the Labour Minister in handling all labour related issues, especially issues that concern the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
“We diligently x-rayed and followed his policies and programmes in the Ministry of labour and productivity and come to a regrettable conclusion that the Minister is doing the bidding of the Boko Haram (Western education is forbidden) for the common masses.
“The deliberate policies to destroy public universities and to make university education out of the reach of Nigeria speak the obvious that the ASUU must rise to the occasion as it has done in the time past to defend and protect the interest of Nigerian populace, especially our youths who are the future of this country and the pride and hope of our nation.
“Christ Ngige’s handling of the just suspended industrial action embarked upon by ASUU speaks volumes of his unhidden hatred for Tertiary education in the University and his passion to fulfil the yearning of his surrogate paymasters.
“The systematic collapse of our university system is steering us all in the face if nothing is done to salvage the current situation. We have a resemblance to the university system to date in Nigeria due to the ASUU struggle.
“Our union has been at the forefront to fight for the autonomy and revitalization of the Nigerian University system to make it work for us all. However, some agents of the third force are hellbent to destroy the remains of our universities, but we pray that God will not allow them.
“Nigerians will recall that our Union went on strike to press home our long-standing demands on the implementation of the 2009 FG/ ASUU agreement, revitalization of our universities, the constitution of the visitation panels and release of public white papers to account for the sums of money disbursed to our universities administration, renegotiation of our overdue collective bargained agreement, payment of the arrears of the Earned Academic Allowances, abolition of the fraudulent IPPIS and adoption of the Unified Tertiary Accountability Solution (UTAS), the proliferation of state universities now becoming constituency projects and increase attention through the ejection of a good percentage of the national budget into education.
“These demands of ASUU have both financial and non-financial components. The union never left the government to guess how to raise funds to meet up the financial components of our demands, the union has gone ahead to suggest ways and where the funding can be gotten without any effect on the government purse or budget. But in all these our Hon. Minister who prides himself as a conciliator and mediator, saw no good and genuineness in the demands of ASUU but rather, tolls the line of destabilizing the University system.
“In the months leading to the suspension of the strike action, Nigerians saw the real and true man of the minister who all along had the voice of Esau and the hand of Jacob.
“He jettisoned all known procedures of conciliations and arbitration to procure a backyard judgment against the genuine agitation of our union and hurriedly made the media his second home to paint ASUU in a bad light as a union that does not obey the law of the land. ASUU is a law-abiding Union.
“Our union has been vindicated today that the Minister was not just fighting to ensure that universities should be open for students to go back to classes to study but pursuing the agenda to superintend the destruction of Nigerian Universities as his body language has ever been.
“Mr. Chris Ngige has finally iced the cake by reducing Nigerian intellectuals to casual workers in Nigeria by introducing pro rata payment of salaries to universities workers.
“There is no doubt in our mind that in the days to come, the Hon. Minister of Labour, Employment and unproductivity who has assumed the position of de facto President of the federal republic of Nigeria will write to the Finance Minister and direct her to deduct from the salaries of ASUU members, days on the weekends when they render “no work” and public holidays in every month of the years” the statement added.
Students, Civil Society Joined ASUU-UNILAG Protest
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Also, the students of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and some civil society groups, on Tuesday, in Lagos, joined the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) to protest the Federal Government’s implementation of ‘No-work, no-pay policy’ for public university lecturers in the country.
They said they could no longer fold their hands and watch the political ruling class kill public university education “just as they had done for primary and secondary education in the country.”
As early as 8.30 am, they had assembled at the Julius Berger Auditorium and moved from there around the campus and then to the main gate chanting solidarity songs.
They carried placards with various inscriptions such as “PMB, please stop Ngige from jeopardising the future of Nigerian students,” “No work, no pay and pro-rated salaries are merely punitive and diversionary and so, on Nimi Briggs Renegotiated agreement we stand,” “Teachers teach the nation, Ngige cheats the teachers” and “Education is life and no education, no development,” among others to show their disaffection to the system.
Among those in attendance were the Lagos zone coordinator of ASUU and lecturer at UNILAG, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya; UNILAG ASUU branch chairman, Dr. Dele Ashiru; his University of Ibadan’s counterpart, Ayodele Akinwole; Secretary General of the Joint Front Action(a coalition of Civil Society and Labour Movement in Nigeria), Abiodun Aremu; Public Relations Officer of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS),
Giwa Yisa Temitope; President, Faculty of Arts Students Association, UNILAG, Victor Odeyemi and the National Coordinator of Education Rights Campaign, Hassan Soweto, and so forth.
They all addressed the crowd in turn with their messages pointing in the same direction condemning the Federal Government and its agents on various decisions and actions being taken in the university education and the educator sector as a whole.
They said almost all the moves and steps by the Federal Government in the education sector are anti-masses and anti-development.
They said if not for the efforts of ASUU in the past through which such organisation like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund(TETFUND) was established and provided developmental projects on campuses, public tertiary education would be grounded for a long time.
They said by now when both the social and economic life of Nigeria as a country have almost close to a zero level with the majority of citizens in abject poverty, the Federal Government ought to have been serious to make the education system work like those of developed countries.
They said the ruling class must know and understand that only quality education from primary to university level can take Nigeria and its people out of hunger and poverty and not by mere promises.
They said it was awkward and insensitive that the Federal Government can treat university teachers who are intellectuals and professionals like casual workers.
They said as it were, the Federal Government must not only immediately drop the policy of no-work no- pay in the university system but must also tender an apology to lecturers for treating them like casual workers.
They said they would all continue to stand together as a united people to ensure Federal Government and its agents give the education sector a rightful place among all sectors of the economy.
The students in particular said their teachers deserve a better living and they should therefore be treated with deserve respect and also be well remunerated.
