Remove Labour Minister Ngige now, OAU ASUU insists
By Jeleel Olawale
The Academics Staff Union of Universities, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife Chapter has on Wednesday demanded for the removal of the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige over the casualization and modulated salary paid to the university lecturers in the country.
The union made the demand at a rally organised by the university lecturers, protesting against the casualization of academics in Nigeria held at the university campus.
The members of the union were armed with placards with different inscriptions,“stopping brain drain in Nigeria is a must, give proper remuneration to lecturers, lecturers are not slaves, stop destroying our public universities at the expense of your private ones,” among others.
Speaking at the rally, the branch Chairman, Prof. Anthony Ifechukwude said, “we are not troublesome, we are union of intellectuals, the greatest insult on our union is the payment of modulated salary the federal government paid us in October.
“We are not interested in whoever is the Minister, we are interested in the minister doing what is right. If he is not doing what is right, treating the situation as personal issue.
He has become a stumbling block in the progress of achieving the demands of the union, then he should be removed from office”.
“Our issues with the government is not no-work-no-pay and we have other issues that government has not addressed while some were partially addressed. We are not casual workers, we should be paid our full salary.”
Anthony stated further that government should have paid lecturers their full salary to show that federal government is sincere on the issues.
He said, “the government is not interested in tertiary education. Our condition of service has three components, teaching, research and community service and what was withdrawn during the strike was teaching.”
The Chairman noted that the union has exploited every available opportunity before embarking on strike, stressing that the union was forced to return to work because the union needed to obey court order.
Similarly, the President of the Students’ Union, Comrade Olayiwola Folahan said the students’ body has been supporting the lecturers on their demands for the revitalisation of the university education.
“We want a better education system, our laboratories are dilapidated. We have taken several steps to reverse the poor state of affairs in the education sector.”
Also, comrade Raheem Ibrahim urged the lecturers to continue to fight for the revitalisation of education in the country, the federal government has failed in its obligations to provide adequate fund to the education sector.
The ASUU Chairman, therefore, called on Nigerians to prevail on Federal Government to end casualization of university lecturers which is capable of disintegrating the nation.
