By Nicholas Ojo
Lecturers at the University of Port Harcourt and Niger Delta University, under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have protested what they described as the “casualisation of university lecturers and bastardisation of tertiary education in Nigeria” by the federal government.
The Nigerian government had paid lecturers under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for 18 working days in the month of October.
According to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, pro-rata was done because they cannot be paid for work not done.
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The statement further claimed that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, never directed the Accountant-General of the Federation to pay the university lecturers half their salaries.
In a swift reaction, the two universities staged a peaceful solidarity protest in Yenagoa on Monday.
In Port Harcourt, the lecturers led by the UNIPORT ASUU chairman, Dr. Darlington Uzoma, marched from the union secretariat in Delta through the main gate of the university to the Senate building.
“About 20 of our members in UNIPORT are being owed 22 months’ salaries because of the carelessness of the Federal Government through the payment system it adopted,” Uzoma said.
Meanwhile, at the Niger Delta University in Bayelsa, the Lecturers called for the sack of the ministers of Education; Labour & Employment, and Finance, Budget and National Planning; Adamu Adamu, Chris Ngige and Zainab Ahmed, over alleged poor performance in office.
The protesters were armed with some placards displaying different inscriptions such as, “The Children of the Poor Have Right to University Education, “Federal and State Governments Should Not Kill Public Universities in Nigeria”, “Stop Proliferation of Universities Without Funding”, and “Bayelsa State Government Should Fund NDU Adequately,” and many more.
The aggrieved lecturers marching was preceded by “a special congress” of ASUU NDU held at the Law Faculty Campus of the university, which was attended in solidarity by representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Civil Liberties Organisation, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, students, among other activists.
The chairman of ASUU, NDU, Prof Tonbara Kingdom, while speaking at the protest condemned the payment of half salaries to lecturers in federal varsities, stressing that the union in the Bayelsa State-owned institution was totally opposed to the casualisation of academics and bastardisation of higher education in the country.
Prof Tonbara accused federal and state governments of systemically killing public universities with inadequate funding and proliferation of institutions in order to create the conditions for private universities to thrive and deny the children of the poor, access to university education.
He said; “This rally is part of the ASUU national struggle. The children of the poor must attend universities. A people united cannot be divided. The people, ASUU, and civil society are all here to say they are in support of the struggle of ASUU. Forward ever, backward never.
“We will never surrender. A people united cannot be defeated. We will not go back, we are going forward. The federal government should look for a way to solve this problem.
“The sacking of Ngige and the Minister of Education is necessary. They must go. If they cannot solve this problem, they must go. The Minister of Finance must go.
“How can the Accountant-General take instruction from the Minister of Labour and pay our colleagues half salaries? It is unacceptable. So, ASUU NDU is insisting, ‘pay them their monies.
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“We are not casuals, and we will not accept half-pay. Solidarity forever.”