Aaua Administration, 2009 Agreement And The Place Of Half Truths By Busuyi Mekusi

By Busuyi Mekusi

In our earlier piece we tried to expose how the Vice Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, tried to repudiate the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement even though he was very much aware that State Universities were part of the processes that birthed the Agreement. This is more so as the University Council adopted the Agreement in 2010, with the commencement of the salary component that also attracted the payment of arrears. The AAUA branch of ASUU has also had reasons to commend the University Council and Administration for this initiative at different times. The Union in AAUA has also made efforts to encourage Council and Administration to attend to the other components in order to prevent internally induced brain drain.

The Vice Chancellor of AAUA has consistently told both willing and unwilling members of the public that the AAUA is either ahead of other Universities or, at times, specifically Federal Universities as far as the implementation of the 2009 Agreement is concerned. The advancement laid claim to by the VC, I am very sure, is in relation to the payment of N15, (Fifteen thousand naira) only as Research Enhancement Allowance per month. The payment of this money came at a time when certain State Universities were paying N30, 000 (Thirty thousand naira) only as Hazard Allowance, and other sister Unions in AAUA also demanded for this.

Suffice it to place on record that while ASUU-AAUA did not at any time demand for the payment of Hazard Allowance to his members, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Oluwafemi N. Mimiko, made frantic efforts to discredit the local branch as he wrote to the President of ASUU that the Chairperson was going to create crisis as a result of his unwillingness to pay Hazard Allowance. It is noteworthy that this lie was later exposed. It is also important to point out that the Research Enhancement Allowance was paid when academic members in AAUA were struggling under the huge burden of a new tax regime, and there was the immediate need to put in place a palliative measure that led to a temporary reduction, which would also precede a more friendly and sustainable arrangement with the Board of Internal Revenue.

Permit me to also hint that the salary differential between what academic staff members earn in AAUA and other institutions around, both Federal and State owned, for all categories ranges between 30,000 and 100,000. One would, therefore, wonder how AAUA is ahead of other institutions. The claim of the Vice Chancellor cannot but be seen as playing politics with the truth as he is very well aware that several Universities have commenced the implementation of the different categories of Earned Academic Allowance. One would have thought that the University Council and Administration should contemplate something extra to attract and retain academic staff in AAUA, after blazing the trail on the details of the 2009 Agreement rather than struggle to argue that academic staff in AAUA should not expect to be equally remunerated like their colleagues in Federal Universities. One obvious implication of such thinking is that the University is not particularly interested in the best. It is interesting to know that most of the reliable private Universities around simply improved on the provisions of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement in order to attract requisite academic staff.

It is hoped that rather than continue to misinform members of the public, the Vice Chancellor should do the needful so as to arrest the depletion of the academic workforce, most especially people that came into the system as Graduate Assistants/Assistant Lecturers, after earning their PhDs. It will be unnecessary to deny students access to quality teaching as the need to forestall the creation of inferior Universities is very core to the commitments of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

Busuyi Mekusi (PhD)

Chairperson

For and on behalf of ASUU-AAUA