According to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of Modibbo Adama University (MAU), Yola, Nigerian university academics are the lowest paid in the world.
The revelation was made by branch leader El-Maude Gambo Jibreel on Thursday during a news event in Yola.
He lamented, “Our members have been on the same salary for over 15 years; the last time our salaries were reviewed was in 2009.”
He restated that lecturers in Nigeria receive the lowest salaries of any country in Africa, if not the globe. He went on to say that professors in Nigeria are the lowest paid in the world, with an average monthly salary of N1,489, or less than $300.
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According to him, “Many Nigerians do not understand the strike it had been embarking on for years, there is a need for the public to understand what the struggle of ASUU is all about and join hands with ASUU to save the educational sector in Nigeria and place Nigeria on the development path.”
He clarified that the sole purpose of the eight-month strike action in 2022 was to force the Nigerian federal government to carry out the Memorandum of Action (MoA) of February 7, 2019, which the Union and FGN freely agreed upon.
El-Maude declared on behalf of the union that they are not and will not be asking the government to take any new actions, only to carry out the agreements they made with the federal government in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022.
Additionally, he voiced concern about the fact that the federal government’s funding for the nation’s universities does not enter the universities’ accounts. He claimed that the budgetary allocation to education has been extremely inadequate, which makes matters worse because only a small portion of what is budgeted for education actually gets spent.
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He emphasised that the amount of deterioration in the infrastructure of Nigeria’s public institutions is better understood when he pointed out that N170 billion was set aside as a revitalisation fund in the most recent financial exercise, but the money has not reached the universities.
Assuring that the union is engaged in a patriotic battle to reposition the Nigerian university system, he also urged Nigerians, particularly those who are enthusiastic about national development, to band together in order to restore the glory of the nation.
He therefore urged all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians, as well as members of the media, labour movement, student organisations, and civic society, to work with ASUU to ensure that they protect the nation’s future.
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