THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SEEMS TO BE READY TO LET THE LAWS OF ITS UNIVERSITIES TO WORK WITHOUT INTEREFERENCE: The Governing Council of each federal university is the appropriate agency to engage its staff on ALL matters affecting them, not “Government”.
Furthermore, the Public Service Rule (PSR) provides that all ministers shall have control over agencies under their ministries through their “Governing Boards only.” There is no evidence that this provision excludes the NUC or federal universities (which the NUC oversees). Until the federal government pulls away, and allows uninterrupted space to the Governing Councils to GOVERN their universities, including determining and implementing suitable welfare packages and conditions of service for their employees, strikes by university unions such as ASUU shall remain a nasty recurring phenomenon, with devastating consequences on our education system. Governing Councils having free space to operate is an important element of university autonomy, which many enlightened Nigerians seek to see in our federal universities.
The Governing Council of a federal university may choose to pay their staff the salaries and allowances that it can afford. Besides, salaries and allowances of lecturers in an academic field don’t have to be the same as those of lecturers in other disciplines within the same university. Unformity of salaries across federal universities and academic disciplines is without basis. For instance, without a deliberate attempt to belittle anyone, it makes no sense to pay professors of English Language the same salary as their colleagues in Software Engineering or Mathematics. In addition to differences in needs, it is indubitable that it is easier to find the former than the latter; and it is common knowledge that scarcity breeds high pricing.
When I was a much younger mathematics lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the military government at the time appointed a retired military general by name Mamman Kontagora as the Sole Administrator of the University. This gentleman decided to give a special needs allowance to mathematics lecturers “in order to retain math lecturers.” That was how we earned the highest salaries in the Faculty of Science of Ahmadu Bello University at that time.
While interacting with pro-chancellors and vice chancellors of federal universities on Tuesday, September 6, 2022, the Minister of Education Mal. Adamu Adamu said:
“Not only is our interaction today necessary, but it is also urgent to clarify the misrepresentations and draw your attention to the facts which you, as managers of our universities, ought to know by virtue of your assigned duties. It is indeed one of your statutory duties to negotiate with your workers on matters of their welfare and conditions of service.
“As the most important officers in our university system, pro chancellors and vice-chancellors must demonstrate more commitment to ending the ongoing strike.
“As Chairmen of Councils and Senates –the highest policy and academic bodies in the system– you must consider it your paramount duty to promote policies and actions that will discourage industrial disputes on our campuses. Government will continue to support the physical and academic development of its universities. Government will continue to reasonably enhance the working conditions of all university staff, academic and non-teaching. The main challenge, as you are fully aware, is dwindling resources available to address all the concerns of the citizenry.”
The time has come for governing councils of federal universities to be creative, more innovative, resourceful, and assertive. Now is not the time for the federal government to be forced into reactions that would force another season of strikes in federal universities only few months after a strike recess. I would call on the federal government to seriously consider selling at least 40% of its ownership of federal universities to both national and international investors in education. Let us not pretend, the federal government cannot fund its universities; it has bitten more than it can chew. It is time to spit out some.
University lecturers must be paid well, and at least their 2013 US-dollar equivalent salaries should be a starting point. This is because since 2013, when a professor at the bar (at CONUASS 7/10 salary level) earned a monthly gross salary of over 3, 100 US dollars, he presently earns only about one-third of that. But the money must come from both the federal government and other sources (e.g. new investor co-owners and IGR of individual universities as determined by their governing councils).
My dissatisfaction with ASUU is its insistence to be paid what its members never earned during the strike, and their lack of empathy for their students who will not be compensated, neither by ASUU nor by the federal government. Nonetheless, I have affirmed, and shall continue to do so, that university lecturers in Nigeria deserve a better pay check.
Leonard Karshima Shilgba
© Shilgba
Leonard Karshima Shilgba, PhD
Professor of Mathematics,
Director of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance,
Pioneer Ag Vice Chancellor/President,
Pioneer Vice President (Academics)
Admiralty University of Nigeria.
Tel: +234-7035939505;
+234-9074346000 (WhatsApp)
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