The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday alerted that no fewer than 60 members of the union died between November 2023 and February, this year.
ASUU made this known in Ibadan at a press conference addressed by the coordinator of the ASUU, Ibadan Zone, Prof. Oyebamiji Oyegoke, held at the University of Ibadan.
He said the deaths were as a result of poor working conditions of its members in public universities across the country “which has led to the pauperisation of academics in Nigeria compared to their counterparts elsewhere across the world.”
“In the FGN/ASUU Agreement of 2009, the consideration was to have an African average in terms of salaries. By then, the exchange rate was N150 to $1. Salaries of the professorial cadre were pegged at between N450, 000 and N500, 000 (which was equal to about $3,000 per month).
“As had been noted, the agreement was to be reviewed after three years, which was supposed to be in 2012, which never happened up till date. The current exchange rate is N1, 500 to $1. By implication, a professor in a Nigerian public university earns $300 monthly as against $3,000 in 2009,” he said.
ASUU, therefore, charged the federal government to “immediately set in motion the process of signing and implementing the Late Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated agreement on Inadequate Funding of Public Universities.”
On implementation of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), he said the union “is consistently rejecting IPPIS.”
He added, “We are, however, worried that the grip of IPPIS on the universities is far from being eased more than four months after the government directed the exit of federal universities and other tertiary institutions from the discredited payment platform.”
