A leader of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, Prof. Fred Esumeh, has lamented that the wage system in the academia in the country is so bad that the highest-ranked professor earns less than a thousand dollars per month.
He said this as ASUU threatens another strike which, it says, is going to be indefinite and emphatic.
Asumeh, who is the Zonal Coordinator of the Benin Zone ASUU, said strike was the only language the Nigerian government understood.
He said, “Strike is less frequent in the western world because their governments act. But here in Nigeria, you have to go on strike frequently before government can act.
“The Nigerian universities are no longer attractive to foreign lecturers, including those from neighbouring countries.
“This is due to the prevailing slave wage where the highest ranked professor earns less than a thousand dollars monthly.”
At a press conference in Anambra, attended by ASUU leaders from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State University, Owerri, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, the union said the magnanimity of ASUU that resulted in various MOUs and MOAs arising from the 2009 agreement has been spurned by the Federal Government.
ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Mr Uzo Onyebinama, who also disclosed that some lecturers were being owed as much as 10 months’ salary, stated that the “consequences of the Federal Government’s refusal to implement the 2009 agreement is that the union has resolved to go on an indefinite strike.”
Onyebinama said, “As we speak now, the Federal Government is in arrears of major components of the agreement, and that includes funding for the revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, and the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.
“The consequences of the Federal Government’s refusal to implement the 2009 agreement is that the union has resolved to go on an indefinite strike any moment and once it begins, it will not stop until all agreements are fulfilled.”
