In its effort to pacify the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and make it call off the ongoing industrial action, the federal government has approved a 23.5 per cent salary increase for lecturers and 35 per cent increment for professors.
The minister of education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, who announced this yesterday at a meeting with vice chancellors and other stakeholders in the university system in Abuja, said President Muhammadu Buhari had warned against signing agreements which the government will not be able to meet.
“That the federal government can only afford a 23.5% salary increase for all categories of the workforce in federal universities, except for the professorial cadre which will enjoy a 35% upward review.
“Henceforth, allowances that pertain to ad-hoc duties of the academic and non-academic staff (members) shall be paid as and when due by the governing councils of universities to which such services are rendered and to the staff members who perform them.
“That a sum of N150 billion shall be provided for in the 2023 Budget as funds for the revitalisation of Federal Universities to be disbursed to the institutions in the first quarter of the year, and that N 50bn shall be provided for in the 2023 Budget for the payment of outstanding areas of earned academic allowances, to be paid in the first quarter of the year,” he said.
Adamu said the government had made every effort to resolve the concerns ASUU is clinging on to for the protracted strike.
“We have done the best we can in the circumstance. After inter-ministerial consultations and rounds of hard negotiations with all government agencies, we interacted with the unions. I personally, gave it all it required to resolve the current challenges.
“I met the unions anywhere and everywhere possible with facts, figures and with absolute sincerity. For example, I directly met with ASUU leadership in my house, in my office and at the ASUU Secretariat on several different occasions, in addition to other formal engagements going on.
“To be frank with all the unions, especially with ASUU, one major issue over which government and the unions could not reach amicable agreement was the issue of the law on ‘No work, No pay.’ In the spirit of sincerity, government made it clear that it would not break the law and lecturers would not be paid for the period they stayed away from work,” he said.
At the meeting, the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) urged the government to pay university professors N800, 000 as against the N1.2 million negotiated by the Nimi Briggs committee.
The recommendation will represent a 50 per cent salary increase offer, as against the 23 per cent increase being proposed by the federal government.
While making efforts to end the strike, the committee further set up a sustainable peace team of elders to resolve the lingering disagreement.
The Guardian quoted the secretary general of CVCNU and co-coordinator of the team, Prof. Michael Faborode as saying their goal was not to allow the current impasse in the ASUU strike continue, as its toll on all stakeholders and the nation had become colossal.
Faborode said to arrive at the final list, no serving vice chancellor or pro-chancellor is included and membership was based on the record of service as recorded by the CVCNU.
Speaking at the end of the meeting, the pro-chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria, Prof Peter Okebukola, said the government was ready to go all out to ensure that university lecturers resume work.
124, 000 under-fives die of diarrhoea annually – Minister
The minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Sadiya Farouk has said that at least 124,000 children under the age of five die annually in Nigeria due to diarrhoea and other toilet infection associated diseases.
She stated this in her remarks during a visit to Bakassi Internally Displaced Persons’ camp in Cross River State.
The minister, who was represented by the director of social development in the ministry, Mr. Taiwo Bashorun, spoke shortly after distributing toiletries and disinfectant worth millions of naira to the internally displaced persons, and called for good toilet and environmental hygiene if the IDPs wanted to have a healthy living.
During the visit, which was for sensitisation/awareness campaign on Clean Nigeria-Use the Toilet organised for IDPs in Bakassi Camp, the minister charged them to shun open defecation so that they would not invite diseases associated with open defecation to the camp.
According to the minister, the economic impact of unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene depletes the Nigerian economy by almost the equivalent of 1.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
Farouk also stated that an estimated “47 million people in Nigeria still indulge in open defecation,” adding that Nigeria tops the league of countries where open defecation was prevalent.
She said available World Health Organisation records have it that “One in every four Nigerians defecate openly, creating a medium for potential transmission of the wild polio virus, cholera and hepatitis among other infectious diseases because they have no access to adequate toilet facilities.”
The minister further said additional data presented by UNICEF shows that an estimated 120 million in the country lacked access to improved sanitation facilities, or facilities that hygienically separate human waste from human contact.
The supervisor for environment, Mrs. Nkoyo Effiong, who spoke earlier on effective hygiene, advised the IDPs not to discard baby pampers in open places but instead drop the pampers into toilets to prevent passers-by from getting in contact with already used pampers which constitute an eyesore and capable of transmitting diseases.
Responding, the chairman of Bakassi local government area, Mr. Iyadim Iyadim, thanked the minister for taking the campaign against open defecation to his domain and promised to do everything to end the practice.
