Gbenro Adesina
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday October 6, 2020, has described a statement by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, urging University lecturers to take up farming as alternative profession, as a reflection of the low premium that the President Muhammadu Buhari government places on education.
Nwajiuba made this comment asking lecturers to take up farming while participating in a television programme, saying that the lecturers cannot dictate to their employers how they should be paid.
He said, “ASUU is within its rights as a union of lecturers. We didn’t start a strike with ASUU on the basis of COVID-19. ASUU was already on strike way before COVID-19. Just before COVID-19 will shut down schools, they gave an indefinite strike. We are not in any contention with them.
“Government is actually not holding anyone to ransom. It says this is how I want to pay and it has to be through IPPIS. You can leave the employment. You can opt out of it and say ‘I no longer want to teach’. You can find other professions. What we need now are probably more farmers.
“You cannot keep forcing your employer and tell him, ‘I will like you to pay me my money through my pillow. Or, I will like you to pay it through this mailbox’. ASUU has a lot of complaints and dissipation around it. That is legitimate but doesn’t mean you should force yourself on the man who has the money.”
In his reaction, University of Ibadan ASUU Chairman, Professor Ayo Akinwole, who could not hide his displeasure, said the Minister of State has “displayed his naivety on educational matters”.
Akinwole, who asked Nwajiuba to resign his appointment and take to farming as a worthy national service, observed that it is sad that Nwajiuba presides over a Ministry where no Nigerian University is in the top one hundred in the world.
He stated that if the Nigerian government is not paying lip service to education, it would not have consistently reduce budgetary allocation and funding to education since President Buhari’s assumption of office.
Akinwole noted that public university lecturers are owed earned academic allowances from 2013 to date, challenging the Minister of State for Education to declare if he has been owed allowances and how much, since he assumed office.
According to the ASUU Chairman, available statistics show that salaries of University lecturers are below what is paid to academics in Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.
“As Scientists, experts in Agriculture faculties continue to conduct research mainly with external funding or personal monies. But Nigerian government, who failed to protect farmers and expose Nigerians to excruciating poverty, is not making use of research findings. If the Minister of State for Education is interested in farming, he should resign his appointment and stop displaying his cluelessness of the problems in the education sector. We are on a just fight to ensure that those in public offices become responsive and responsible to the masses they swore to serve. They must fund public education. We have been on the same salary since 2009. That is no longer sustainable.
“The universities are being run with personal sweats of lecturers while politicians siphon monies for personal aggrandisement. We cannot accept IPPIS that is against the laws of the land and which fails to recognise the uniqueness of the academic profession and culture. We have brought an alternative using our members’ money. People like this Minister of State mirrors the disdain of ruling class for the workers and people of the country”, he said.
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