•Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Benin Zone, yesterday, rejected the proposed salary increment by the federal government.
The zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Monday Lewis Igbafen, made this known in Benin while briefing newsmen on the stand of the zone on the proposed increment.
Igbafen, who described the proposed salary increment for the union as “a mere drop in the ocean that is incapable of achieving the desired reversal of the brain drain syndrome currently bedevilling the university education in Nigeria,” said it is “sad that the federal government has again demonstrated a blatant unwillingness to quickly and holistically resolve all the outstanding issues.”
He said: “The federal government would be serious for once to put the unresolved issues behind them by satisfactorily concluding the renegotiation of the 2009 FGM/ASUU agreement and genuinely addressing other ancillary matters in contention.
“The salary and conditions of service components remain a sore point that needs a radical approach to stem the impending crisis in the system.
“We have rejected the proposed salary increment by the government because it is a mere drop in the ocean that is incapable of achieving the desired reversal of the brain drain syndrome currently bedevilling university education in the country.
“We are saying enough is enough to the back-and-forth approach of the federal government to the negotiation. This half-hearted approach must stop now. This ‘we are talking with ASUU’ without results must stop.”
Igbafen lamented that university teachers have continued with the same salary regime of 2009, when the value of the naira to dollar was N120.
He added: “The most obvious implication of the refusal of the government to conclude this negotiation is that university teachers in Nigeria have continued with the same salary regime of 2009 when the value of the naira to a dollar was N120, and this is even added to the fact that salaries in other sectors have since been reviewed upward twice or more.”
