Workers all over the world is celebrating another May Day, considering the economy situation in Nigeria, where most of the workers have not been paid salaries for months, do you think there is any reason for the celebration?
Looking at it from the labour point of view, it is another May Day but when you look at the welfare of workers in term of benefits, which is remuneration for their contributions towards the growth and development of the country and the economy, one will say that there is nothing to celebrate.
Most of the states of the Federation are owing their workers, some locathGovernment workers have not received their salaries for three months and some for four months; even some states like in Benue State are owing six months and this is what Nigerian workers are facing, while we are talking of celebratong May Day. On the other side however, I think we are celebrating because the labour movement always associates with democracy.
I will say that this year is a unique year in the history of this country, because against all odds we were able to conduct free and fair general elections where winners emerged and losers accepted and consider defeat in the interest and unity of the country. For me, as workers we have a lot to celebrate because we are part of democracy. The labour movement is part of the agitation for democratic rule in Nigeria. We help to fight the Military out of office to enthrone democracy. When you talk about election, who are the people that conducted the election? They are the workers. So, in that aspect, I will say we have something to celebrate.
A new government will be taking over by May 29, what is the SSANU agenda for the incoming government?
You know that government is about continuity, what we eill see is just a change of baton. That is all what is going to happen on May 29. Our agenda for the incoming government is as usual. We are going to cooperate with the government to ensure stability in the university system, to ensure peace and stability in the university system. This, I assure you we will do. I also expect that what the outgoing administration was unable to do, we have to role it to the incoming administration.
We assure you of that, we are not leaving any stone unturned. All the shortcoming of the outgoing administration in terms of our 2009 agreement and other issues outstanding would be presented to the incoming administration but as usual we will be diplomatic about that. I know the administration will be workers’ friendly and also listen to workers so that together we can move the country forward.
Some people are moving the idea of privatising our university system, specifically, what should the president-elect do to bring change to the education sector?
Those talking about privatisation of the sector are enemies of education system, because as students of history we know that those sector and public institutions that were privatised have not yielded any result. Also, without education the country is dead. Show me that educated country and I will show you a healthy and vibrant nation. So, education is important and key to the foundation of every development in the country. It is something every government should not play with. If you make it unreachable to some people , you can imagine the impact.
Education ought to be free and qualitative, that is our stand. Government needs to come up with a programme that should drive the education sector. Not long ago, all the university based unions had an education summit which would soon come up with a blueprint on education in Nigeria. We urged the incoming administration to look forwards to implementing the programme embedded in the blueprint. I don’t want to preempt anything on that programme but I am sure it would give government a road map towards quality education in Nigeria.
They should listen to us. When the document is out, I expect the government to buy into it and implement it religiously. I know that it is not going to be easy but we should start from somewhere and take it up from there. I believe in the next 5 or 10 years, Nigerian education system would be as qualitative as others in the world. What I know is that for stability, government should maintain the already reached agreement and ensure that labour leaders are carried along and develop the tertiary education as a whole and not only the university sector. It should also take care of education from the grass root because the problem is poor foundation.
The old UBE is faulty, teachers have not been trained, the right people are not teaching because you can’t give what you don’t have, most of the teachers are just there to collect salary. So, if government come out with a broad based programme, with state of the art facilities to compete with private sector, even though most of the private ones, the owners stole our money, they killed the public university and are growing their own. The public schools must be taken care of so as to bring about accountability and corrupt free system. So, the incoming administration must revise this trends. Corruption must betackled from the system.
On the Earned Allowance, how much is still remaining since government has paid part of it?
N30 billion was released as part of the Earned Allowance,and about 62 billion is yet to be released. Everything is about N93 billion and you know, the N93 billion we are talking about is for July 2009 to June 2012. From July 2012 to date, noting has been said about Earned Allowance except for some university who were able to pay. So, Federal Government is still owing, so on Earned Allowance, government has a lot to do. Why we are shouting is for government to bring the remaining balance of N62 billion which covers from July 2009 to June 2012, then we can start talking about 2012 till date.
With all these, do you think the incoming government would be able to resolve the crisis and settled it?
Of course, just like they intend to solve the subsidy challenge.
But if this mony is not released before this government bows out?
We are calling for immediate release of the money and if that is not done we may be push to shut down the universities. And you are aware that we gave ultimatum about this issue and that of the demonstration staff schools. Our agreement states that Federal Government should bear responsibility for both recurrent and capital expenditure in the university staff schools and in the secondary school; that government should be in charge of capital projects while recurrent should be for PTA.
Now, a circular came describing the same schools as private schools. Just because a circular came from Salaries, Income and Wages Commission that private schools should not included in the central budget of MDAs, then the Executive Secretary of NUC whom we believe has over-stayed his welcome in the commission issued directive to university. He should retire and go to his village because he has nothing to do, he has destroy the universities, he sent out a circular to all Vice Chancellors to stop including the budget for staff schools in the central budget of the universities.
In other word, he has described staff schools as private schools. On what ground are we calling these schools private? In the first instance, these schools are laboratories for faculty of education, so while some VCs are still watching the development, the overzealous ones like that of Usman Danfodio who had just six months to retire sack the entire workers and asked them to reapply afresh. These people were interviewed just as the Vice Chancellor was also interviewed and they have university council approval and letter of appointment and you just sacking them because of a mere circular.
We have written to the Executive Secretary, demanding for the withdrawal of that circular and in addition we demand the removal of the Executive Secretary, Julius Okojie or something unpalatable will happen.
They deceived the outgoing President, Dr. Jonathan on this matter, because recently in a meeting, the President was shocked to hear that the staff schools issue was among the 2009 agreement and they are there. These are the people who are pretending that they are working, they are not doing anything but rather causing confusion in the country. We are demanding that the President elect, Mohammadu Buhari if he comes on board should sack all of them so that we can have sanity within the system.
Your first tenure as the president of the union is gradually coming to an end, what are your achievements in the last four years?
I will say that we tried our best within the resources available to us. I will say that it hasn’t been easy but internally we have achieved something, we have satisfied the aspiration and yearning of our members. We have ensure the implementation of 65 years retirement age.
To certain level, we have also ensure the implementation of the 2009 agreement in conjunction with other university based unions in term of Earned Allowance. Part of it has been released. Also, my union is championing the release of the balance and also the implementation of the remaining part of the agreements. Within my union, I have also settled many cases without going to court. I worked with many Vice Chancellors to ensure peace in the campuses.
We have also tried to get some welfare programmes for our members to encourage our branches. We embarked of programme leading to our members accessing loan for houses, vehicles, and also trained them. Unlike some other unions, we make use of what we have and we don’t go on begging those in authorities for assistance, or soliciting for fiancial help to sponsore our membets. That is what made SSANU unique among other unions. When we want to talk on national issues, we are independent, we speak our minds as it is.
In terms of Women affirmative, how will you say SSANU women have felt under your administration?
We have done a lot because we have women committee, and we use to have annual women conference.
The last one we had was held at Obudu Mountain Resort for almost three days. We took our women there, it was a unique conference, other invited guest from NLC, MINILS and other unions were also in attendance and attested that it was the best ever. Also, I am planning to expand the scope of our women commission, a Constitution Review Committee was put in place because my National Delegates Conference would be coming later in the year.
This is to ensure the creation of more positions in NAC for the women. Right now there is only one woman that represents the women commission, I believe that we should have a deputy women leader, who should be a member of NAC. I have encouraged training for women and asked the women to compete. We have women who are chairperson of branches of SSANU in the universities, we also have women who are secretaries and treasurers.
As you travel around, mostly across the country, do you take into consideration the health challenges of your members, and have you done anything towards that?
Yes, we have what is called SHARP. We ran that programme for four years and it is still on. Here we run a programme on HIV/AIDS that brings out action plan on people with HIV/AIDS in workplace, what should be done to them, their dependents and so on and how to prevent the spread of the disease in workplace. You know that the disease is predominantly among the age of undergraduates and the university community is made up of students and workers.
You find out that staff marry students, so, there is need to equip our members intellectually on how to prevent ourselves from getting infected by the disease. Recently, we held a symposium on stress management and control at the Obudu Mountain Resort, a one day programme that was very interesting.
I didn’t know that up to 80 per cent of us suffer from stress and we did not even know what we are suffering from until that very day. Like what the Bible say, my people perish for lack of knowledge. That seminar went down well with my people. Also, during our meetings, we use to have free tests for our members because we know that we can only be a strong union if we are productive and we can’t be if we are not healthy.