ASUU laments high cost of basic goods, poor salary

• No capacity training, no promotion, Rivers varsity warns lecturers

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Benin (UNIBEN) branch, yesterday, expressed worry over rising cost of basic services and goods in Nigeria.

They said the situation has been made worse because university lecturers have been abandoned to grapple with harsh realities of poor salary structure following alleged failure of Federal Government to honour its agreement with ASUU.

The lecturers also appealed to the Federal Government to honour its agreement with ASUU and prevent the nation’s educational sector from sliding further into an undesirable level of decay and dysfunction.

Speaking at the end of a special congress of ASUU held at the University of Benin main campus, Benin City, Edo State, the Chairman, UNIBEN branch of ASUU, Ray Chikogu, and Secretary, Success Abusomwan, flayed the Federal Government for paying lip service to the duty of funding education and failure to fulfil its obligations to the university system and lecturers.

He said: “It is unimaginable that in the face of the daily exponential increase in the cost of basic services and goods in Nigeria, university lecturers have been abandoned to grapple with the harsh realities of an abysmally poor salary structure that they had to endure for 13 agonizing years.”

MEANWHILE, Rivers State University has vowed not to promote lecturers who fail to participate in capacity training aimed at realigning them on how to carry out their duties

The university said its workshop, themed: Capacity Building For Academic staff, was aimed to enable the academic staff to understand the importance and relevance of what they do as academics in a dynamic and ever-changing society.

Declaring the two-day workshop open, yesterday, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nlerum Okogbule, directed the Registrar of the University, Prof. Sydney Eyindah, to ensure that proper attendance was taken to ensure the presentation of their certificate of attendance of the workshop becomes part of the requirements for their promotion.

Speaking earlier, the Director of Quality Assurance, Rivers State University, Prof. Eric Amadi, stated that the training became imperative as the lack of regular training of lecturers was negatively impacting the university visibility and Nigerian University Commission’s ranking.

He added that the workshop was an avenue for the older lecturers to mentor the younger ones and imbibe the university culture into the younger lecturers.