By Philip Yatai

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Kaduna State University Chapter, says their meagre monthly salary no longer takes them home.

The union stated this in a statement jointly signed by its Chairman, Dr Peter Adamu and Secretary, Mr Abubakar Jumare, made available to newsmen after its Congress Meeting in Kaduna on Wednesday.

The congressed was organised to review the 2020 Memorandum of Action (MoA) between the Federal Government and ASUU.

The members claimed that most lecturers were living a life of misery due to worsening conditions of living of an average Nigerian lecturer in the face of rising inflation.

They expressed concern that the condition of service in Nigerian universities has remained stagnant without any deliberate effort from the government to review it.

“It is also sad that while governments are lamenting on paucity of funds, more universities are being established, asserting more pressure on the limited resources.

“Meanwhile, the bill to amend the National Universities Commission (NUC) Act to stop the proliferation of universities by the state governments is still lying fallow at the National Assembly,” they ssaid.

The union pointed out that most state universities were neck-deep in crises associated with funding, Earned Academic Allowances, and domestication of the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions Act.

Other issues according to the union are pension matters, salary payments, third-party deductions, and overall development of the state universities.

“We should be worried that the state universities, which should serve as a solution to the provision of university education, were at the brink of total collapse.”

ASUU noted that the Federal Government had partially implemented the 2020 MoA, while most of the pressing issues agreed in the MoA were yet to be implemented.

“Worse is the forceful deployment of Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) which has grossly mutilated the meagre salaries of our members and placed them almost below the poverty line.

“The deficiencies of IPPIS and its corrupt tendencies made ASUU to utilize the local content act to create a more sophisticated and efficient platform for the university system.

“As at today, all requirement as prescribed by NITDA have been fulfilled but the government is still foot-dragging on the deployment of UTAS to universities as a payment platform,” the lecturers said.

They urged the government as a matter of national emergency, to immediately address the pending issues in the 2020 MoA to avert an impending strike action.

they also urged all stakeholders, civil society organizations, students’ union and well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on this issue to keep our universities afloat.