From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will resist the alleged grand plan of the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government of Nigeria to turn intellectuals to slaves over his purported refusal to sign the renegotiated agreements with the union.
The union’s chairman in the University of Ibadan, Prof Ayo Akinwole, made the disclosure on Tuesday when he briefed journalists shortly after the congress of the union.
According to him, the congress threw its weight behind the decision of the national leadership of the union in fighting for her members, whose welfare has been purportedly neglected for 13 years.
Akinwole, who was flanked by union’s executive in UI, stated that the union has been pushed to the wall and would now fight back. He added that the Federal Government has employed all formal and informal tactics to delay the renegotiation of 2009 agreements for four years and the new agreements was supposed to have been effective if the government had signed it in 2021.
“The Federal Government now said the agreement will now be tabled before another tripartite committee to consider it. We know this is a strategy of the Buhari administration to continue to impoverish the intellectual community,” he said.
The union, according to Akinwole, has explored all possible avenues to make government do the needful but the government has been adamant, saying the government “is still owing universities about N880billion on revitalization of universities and also refused to mainstream earned academic allowances in the 2022 budget as promised.”
He added that Nigerian politicians are among the highest paid in the world, but Nigerian lecturers are among the poorly paid in the world, with professors earning less than $1,000 dollars in a month.
Speaking on the University Transparency and Accountability Software (UTAS), initiated by ASUJ as alternative to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), Akinwole said the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) examined thr UTAS, and scored it over 87per cent.
He added that the agency asked ASUU “to adjust the areas noted and resubmit for re-evaluation and start a new long process. We asked them what process did the fraudulent IPPIS go through by the NITDA before it was forced down with the monumental fraud discovered in it? The IPPIS, which is foreign imposed, was bot subjected to NITDA evaluation.
“But a homegrown solution that was developed will be perpetually delayed so that the welfare of our members will be sacrificed to ensure that IPPIS continue to enrich their paymasters. We would not allow this. It is our destiny and we will fight for our own welfare.”