Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have joined in the mad rush with other parents to enrol their wards into private universities as an option to the instability in the Nigerian public university system.
This is coming not only as a response to the eight-month strike that saw the public universities closed from February to October, 2022, but a possible further escalation of the situation, following the decision of the Federal Government to pay the ASUU members, who have since returned to work, half salaries.
In many of the private universities, ASUU members, who are also parents, are said to be queuing up with their counterparts in registering their children and wards to get uninterrupted education, which has now become almost impossible in the public tertiary institutions.
A parent in in Chrisland University, one of the private institutions, told Whirlwindnews, how he counted up to six ASUU members who brought their children for the tests and screening, mandatory for admissions into the institution.
“I counted up to six parents who came for the screening. And when it came to the meeting with the school authorities the lecturers explained that they were not sure of what would happen. There is the fear that another strike is knocking at the door, given the persistence of the problems in where they are teaching,” he said.
In fact, there are indications that another round of faceoff is brewing over the decision of the Federal Government not to bend on the issue of payment of salaries to the ASUU members for the period of the eight-month strike.
“They were paid pro-rata according to the number of days they worked in October,” was the explanation of the FG to the pay the ASUU members received as the October salaries, a development, which led to a disquiet in some Nigerian universities, and fears of another industrial dispute.
The affected teachers, were reportedly shocked, when they got alerts on Thursday and discovered that their salaries had been cut into half for the month, which prompted some of them abandoning the classrooms on the instruction of their leaders, who ordered them to stay away for now.
But speaking on the issue, the FG, explained that the development had nothing to do with selective treatment and half salary, having paid some of the lecturers in the system who were in the medical field in full, stating that the differential in the payment, was due to the fact that the medical teachers did not embark on strike for the period.
Olajide Oshundun, head of press and public relations, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, in a statement, which gave perspectives to the development, said the pro-rata payment was done because the union could not be paid for work not done.
Stressing that Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, did not direct the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), to short-pay the university lecturers, added: “Following the ruling of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the order of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), asking ASUU to go back to work, the leadership of the union wrote to the Minister, informing him that they have suspended the strike. The Federal Ministry of Education wrote to Ngige in a similar vein and our labour inspectors in various states also confirmed that they have resumed work.
“So, the minister wrote to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning, directing that their salaries should be restored. They were paid pro-rata according to the number of days they worked in October.
“Counting from the day the union suspended its industrial action, pro-rata was done because you cannot pay them for work not done. Everybody’s hands are tied.”
Dismissing a statement by Muhammad Al-Mustapha, chairperson of ASUU, Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS) branch, that Ngige was biased in the payment of salaries to selected professional members of the union, the statement added: “Those obviously being referred to by the UDUS ASUU chairperson are members of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MDCAN) who abstained from the eight-month strike of ASUU. This is because they abhorred the incessant strikes by the union and its grave effects on medical education in Nigeria and the production of more medical doctors.
“Accusing the Minister of Labour and Employment of biased payment of salaries to selected professional members of ASUU is a barefaced distortion of facts.” Mustapha, who said he received information that a segment of the staff in the College of Health Sciences (CHS) had been paid seven months of their withheld salaries from March to September, added that this was due to a letter written to the Minister of Finance, instructing the exemption of the listed staff on the application of the ‘No Work, No Pay’ rule and that the medical lecturers abstained from the eight-month strike.