NDU STRIKE: PUTTING THE ISSUES IN RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Ebierelayefa OkosuThis disquisition has arisen from the unending questions that now surround the controversial indefinite strike being embarked upon by the lecturers of the Niger Delta University (NDU). Now in its fourth month, the strike action, which has done irreparable damage to the academic calendar of the institution, is losing sympathy and support in many quarters, within and outside Bayelsa State, because it seems to have lost its shock-value and has dragged on for too long than necessary.
It is apparent that the NDU lecturers’ strike has also lost the popularity it initially enjoyed, seeing that some facts that were recondite as at when the strike commenced have come to the open. To start with, it is now an open secret that the Bayelsa State Government had been faithfully committing close to a eighth (1/8) part of the entire monthly wage bill of the state to pay faculty and non-academic staff of the NDU until the present economic downturn set in.
As one would expect under any administration, the economic downturn had precipitated a fiscal structural adjustment (apologies to IBB), whereby meeting up recurrent obligations like the salaries of the lecturers and other workers at the NDU, became an uphill task since January. However, this picture doesn’t hold true for only the NDU lecturers; it holds true, and of course, cuts across all the MDAs of the Bayelsa State Government.
It is for this reason the Bayelsa State chapters of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) constructively negotiated with government and arrived at a modus vivendi to receive full salaries for January, and subsequently, receive 50 percent of their salaries until there is remarkable improvement in revenue to the state.
It will be recalled that being a responsible institution, the Bayelsa State Government opened its doors of negotiation to the striking lecturers no sooner than they began the industrial action on April 23. During the negotiations with government, the lecturers under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), NDU chapter, made a battery of demands, chief among which, the immediate setting up of a Development Plan for the university. The lecturers also demanded the payment of promotion arrears to their members.
Other demands were the payment of three months’ outstanding salaries then, as well as the payment of graduate assistants teaching in the varsity, as conditions for ending the strike.
The Bayelsa State Government on its part offered to make full payment of January salaries to all cadres of staff at the NDU, and 50 percent payment of salaries for subsequent months. (The January salaries have since been paid as agreed by government). The State Government also accepted the proposal for setting up the Niger Delta University Development Plan. Investigations showed that the plan has already been set up, while the modalities for its implementation are being worked out by government.\
Furthermore, to demonstrate government’s desire to keep the NDU afloat as Bayelsa’s flagship academic institution, the State Government did not only accept to pay the graduate assistants as requested, but also gave approval for the payment all promotion arrears to faculty and non-academic staff without any ado.
Given these concrete, substantial steps taken so far to meet the demands of the NDU lecturers in the face of daunting economic challenges amidst an excruciating financial climate, one would have expected the lecturers to soft-pedal and by now, opt for the classroom while negotiations for a better deal continue. The public perception the lecturers are labouring hard to create at the expense of the educational development of Bayelsa State, that government is not doing enough for their well being even at this time, is absurd and uncalled for. It is way off the realities on the ground.
The pertinent questions then are these: If medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health personnel in government’s employ, who are as important as lecturers are to society, can accept the temporary 50 percent salary arrangement, why can’t the NDU lecturers do the same thing? If judges, magistrates, court registrars and other important judiciary staff in Bayelsa State can accept the 50 percent salary offered by government having appreciated the difficult times the nation is passing through, why can’t the NDU lecturers emulate them, call off their strike and save the educational future of our children studying at the NDU? Moreover, if every worker on the payroll of the State Government has seen the need to make some sacrifice by accepting the half salary option, with the belief that the remnant 50 percent would be paid once the economy improves, why can’t the NDU lecturers make the same sacrifice as learned ‘patriotic’ citizens of the state?
The lecturers need do the needful even as negotiations go on, with a view to work out an amicable resolution of the contentious issues involved in the present financial quagmire.
It needs to be emphasized that by no stretch of imagination is the Bayelsa State Government planning to shirk its responsibility to the NDU. Although it has expressed some reservations on the N500 million salary expenditure to pay workers alone at the NDU, scrapping the NDU or starving it of funding is definitely not on the cards. The half-a-billion monthly salary bill is on the high side when it is carefully considered that it represents nothing short of 12.5 percent of the state’s entire recurrent spending every month.
However, findings from impeccable sources indicate strongly that the NDU generates about N1.5 billion annually. This amount is unaccounted for, yet it is solely, independently managed by the Management of the institution. While this had been the unhealthy practice over the years, the economic situation in the state and country today demands a radical paradigm shift – the internally generated revenue of the NDU should henceforth be properly accounted for by the Management. Records of such past spendings in the last couple of years should be audited. The State Government should be properly briefed and furnished of the school’s financial dealings at the close of every session. After all, he who pays the piper also calls the tune.
The NDU lecturers can only be fair to the state if they immediately call off their prolonged strike since government has met three key items on their four-point menu of demands. It bears repetition to stress that the half salary payment option, which is informed by the sharp drop in statutory earnings, affects all strata of workers in the Bayelsa State Civil Service. It is not offered to the NDU lecturers alone as the local branch of the ASUU and the opposition media lapdogs in the state want the world to believe. In fact, the lecturers’ continued non-compromising stance is not only preposterously unreasonable but completely detrimental to the educational development of Bayelsa State.
The Ijaws have an old saying that if a fisherman gets angry at a leaking canoe he himself is inside in the middle of the river and allows it to leak, he ends up going down with it. One prays that this should not be the lot of the striking NDU lecturers.
No comments:
Post a Comment