President Buhari’s personal assistant on New Media, Lauretta Onochie in an article she titled “The Habitual Greed Of The Academic Staff Union Of Universities, ASUU, Is Targeted At The Great Nigerian Students” berated the members of the Academic Union of Universities, ASUU.
She wrote: “It’s easy for the ASUU leaders to boast that they can live without their salaries. Yes we Know. They can. But we must rescue the future of the Nigerian students from the damage ASSU embarked on since the 80s.
Apart from churning out half-baked graduates with no skills at all, what else do they do, anyway? They spend the contributions of members as they please. Who asks them to render an account? Nobody. Who do they render accounts to? Again, Nobody.
They are also kicking against the IPPIS, a salaries Payment platform system introduced by the Federal Government which has helped to weed out ghost workers. President Muhamamadu Buhari, VPresident Yemi Osinbajo and even Lauretta Onochie, are all on the System. This means that you receive one salary for one month, paying a fair tax and most importantly, that lecturers are committed to their students.
But ASUU wants GIMFIS, a rickety platform which they claimed they invented for the payment of their salaries. IPPIS deducts full PAYE taxes from salaries. With GIFMIS, funds are sent directly to the Universities Finance & Accounts Department where they make ‘deals ” with the Bursars and State Tax Board officials.
The State Governments will then, in a financial circus show, manoeuvre and approach the Joint Tax Boards (JTB) to demand these cumulative shortfall on tax from the Federal Government of Nigeria. In 2018/3019, the Federal Government paid about ₦800B in this weird situation.
Again they each teach on the average, in FOUR (4) Universities. IPPIS will only pay 100% salaries for University of Primary assignment and 80% of only one other public University. They want to teach in four Universities resulting in low efficiency. They short change our students and get paid four times, for low productivity. Consequently, our lecturers have no sympathy for our young people, entrusted to them to help build their future.
How can one Lecturer have four full time jobs when there are qualified post graduates looking for one? How can an ASUU Lecturer give his best to his students who are the future of our nation while dashing from one university to another? And how can lecturers who are inefficient, who teach in four universities, expect to be paid when they abandon their long-suffering students on perennial strikes?
In other nations, the Unions pay the salaries of their members when they are on strike. How many of the Lecturers have been given any form of payments since the strikes began in the 80s? This is why they get multiple jobs to be able to survive during strikes.
In Nigeria, the monthly union dues deducted from ASUU members, are shared by the present and past ASUU leaders. So the beneficiaries of the strikes, from the 1980s, have not been the University Academics, definitely not the students but the ASUU leaders themselves.
Lecturers in Nigeria, should not be forced to participate in any strike that would result in loss of earnings. As a Lecturer in the United Kingdom, my Union asked me if I wanted to be part of a strike action. I was told it was for five days and that my employers would not pay me for those five days. The Union went on to say it would pay me for three of the five days. So it was my choice to either go on strike and lose two days’ pay or continue going to work and get my full pay.
While the leaders of ASUU are living large, the ordinary lecturers are at home, twiddling their fingers, with no salaries from government and no payment from their greedy Union Leaders. The students are left confused, thinking the government is their problem. The truth is that the government is actually, trying to force ASUU to render profitable and efficient duties to Nigerian students.
The Federal government has embarked on massive renovation and re-equipment of it’s Universities’ structures, including the appalling hostel accommodation our young people were subjected to, across the nation.
ASSU has not told Nigerians why they went on a month long WARNING STRIKE. Who does that?
The truth is this:
The Universities and Teaching Hospitals have been inflating their staff lists and using the inflated lists to collect more money from the FG, which they then divert to OTHER uses. This is clearly against the laws of our land. Consequently, the ICPC has been ramming its ten fingers down their throats and they are vomiting the cash.
Hear the Chairman of ICPC:
Part of our preliminary findings, the summary of which are included in a visual narrative in your folders revealed gross abuse of personnel budget and inflation or padding of the nominal role. As at the time we went to press we had covered about 300 MDAs and the amount inflated was about ₦12b. As at today, we have discovered additional ₦6b making a total of ₦18.624b restrained by ICPC. The exercise is still on going but we can confidently report that culprits are mostly academic and health institutions.
For example preliminary findings show the following —
University of Benin Teaching Hospital ₦1.1b
Federal Medical Center, Bayelsa ₦915m
Nnamdi Azikwe University ₦907m
University of Jos ₦896m
University College Hospital Ibadan ₦701m
University of Benin Teaching Hospital ₦1.1b
Usman Dan Fodio University ₦636m
University of Ibadan ₦558m;
-Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman, ICPC
The Minister Of State For Education, Mr. Em?ka Nwajiuba clearly stated in March that all conditions of ASUU had be?n met. The strike, therefore, is about the government’s insistent that ASSU pay attention to the great Nigerian students by concentrating on not mire than two jobs.
The Nigerian students who are the direct beneficiaries of these dubious acts and trauancy of ASUU, must not join hands with those who have shortchanged them, over the years. They must know that the current blackmail of the Nigerian state by ASUU, is targeted at them, the students.
Members of ASUU who have no acc?ss to the fat ASUU bank account must r?turn to work immediately. The students must join well-meaning Nigerians to call on Lecturers to return to work. The only people benefitting from the blackmail of the Nigerian state by ASUU, are the officials of ASUU.” she wrote.
Credit: Students Mirror