There are indications that unions in the university may rise up against the Federal Government over the alleged exclusion of their members in the 40 percent pay rise for peculiar allowances and arrears.
The Federal Government recently commenced payment of the approved 40 percent increase for civil servants in the federal ministries, agencies and departments under the Consolidated Public Salary Structure.
But workers in the university sector have kicked against their exclusion, describing the action of the government as a recipe for crisis.
But the Federal Government has said that there is no cause for alarm as the university workers are captured in the pay rise.
The government also said that it was waiting for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to conclude its negotiation on the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) on the condition of service with its employer, the Ministry of Education so that it will be transmitted to the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission.
Speaking to Vanguard on Monday, the President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim, said that the idea of denying university workers the salary increment is an invitation to crisis in the university sector.
Comrade Ibrahim accused the government of abandoning the agreement it entered into with the university unions, alleging that the N50 billion Earned Allowances the government promised to include in the 2023 budget has not seen the light of the day as workers were yet to receive any payment on that.
According to him, “This idea of denying university workers the salary increment is only a recipe for crisis in the education sector. Because government had promised two years ago that they were going to review the salaries putting in the re-negotiation committee and re-negotiations never got concluded.
“We have even lost the chairman of the re-negotiation committee. In the last one year, we have not heard anything from the government and it is like everything has been halted.
“So if they were people who know what they want and if truly they were interested in developing the manpower of this country and having interest in the education sector, they should have considered making reality those promises they have made.
“There is this N50 billion Earned Allowances which they said have been put in the 2023 budget, it has not seen the light of the day. There is a proposal for salary increment which they made and which has not also seen the light of the day.
“And now from nowhere we just heard that 40 per cent peculiar allowance has been given to the core civil servants. We are not averse to making lives of civil servants better by giving them any allowance There won’t be any good civil servant, there won’t be any productive civil servants if the universities are not productive, if the university staff are not properly remunerated because you will be churning out half baked graduates and nobody will have any interest in employing any Nigerian graduate again.
“So the idea of excluding university workers from this salary enhancement is a recipe for disaster in the education sector. This is my position as SSANU President.
“And I want to call on the government to immediately without much delay release the N50 billion Earned Allowances and also implement the salary increment which we have been talking with them in the last two years.”