The proposed salary increment offered to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members may reduce salary of junior lecturers and add to the senior academics, according to analysis and investigation.
Sources in the union who were privy to the negotiations confided that ASUU refused to resume further talks because of “a Greek gift”.
One of the sources noted that while there would be a “meagre” increase in the salaries of professors, there would be a deduction in the take home pay of graduate assistants.
“For graduate assistants, the government proposed N1m per annum for starters, while senior graduate assistants will get N1.2m per annum and by the time the necessary deductions will be made in terms of pension, tax and others, some of them may be going home with less than N90,000 monthly.
“At the moment, graduate assistants on step four earn N1,606,380, while they get N133,865.08 as gross monthly salary, and by the time you deduct N3,346.63 National Housing Fund contribution, N10,039.88 as pension and N8,555.83 as tax, the person goes home with N111,922.74,” PUNCH quoted the source as saying.
The source further noted: “For junior professors, the government proposed that a total of N6m per annum, while a professor at bar will be earning N9m yearly. The professors at the bar are the senior professors from step 7 to 10.”
A member of ASUU NEC corroborated that: “Yes, it is true; it is more like they removed money from junior lecturers and added the small change to senior ones.
“Now, with the new proposal, GA at the bar will earn N120,000 per month and when you apply deductions, you can imagine what the net will be.”
It was gathered that the Federal Government’s offer was rejected by the majority of ASUU members at their zonal congresses.
This came after the union leaders met with the Nimi-Briggs committee.
ASUU President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, had earlier described the proposal as a “miserable offer”.
The union of public university academics had on Monday, February 14, 2022 commenced a strike due to what it described as “failure” of the government to meet some of the demands of the union bordering on non release of revitalisation funds for universities; non-release of earned allowances to lecturers; end the proliferation of universities by politicians and state governments; refusal to deploy the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of lecturers; and refusal to renegotiate the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement as reasons for its present strike.
READ ALSO: ASUU strike: 461,745 students stopped from varsity admission
On its part, the government had raised a panel led by the pro-chancellor of the Federal University Lokoja, Prof Nimi-Briggs, to head its negotiation team with ASUU.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, while briefing State House correspondent last Thursday, noted that the failure of the government to agree to the payment of six months arrears of salaries of the lecturers was delaying calling off the strike
According to Adamu, ASUU insisted on its members receiving salaries for the period they have been on strike.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education has said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has invested an estimated N2.5 trillion in the tertiary education sector.
“The Buhari administration has invested in infrastructural development of the education sector more than any other administration in the history of this nation.
“It is on record that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund has invested an estimated N2.5tn in tertiary education, thereby exceeding the sum total of N1.2tn contained in the 2009 agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and we are still counting,” a document from education ministry stated.
Adamu said the government received reports of the visitation panels and will soon get White paper recommendation on it.
“We set up White Paper committees to make recommendations to the government on the reports of the visitation panels, which we received in 2022. Their reports were submitted this year and are being processed,” he said.
One of the demands of ASUU is that the government release the White Paper reports of the visitation panels sent to the various universities across the country.
Today is the 188th day of the industrial action in Nigeria’s Ivory Tower that left students helpless and campuses deserted.
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