Trouble over earned allowances

The Federal Government may soon be having a problem on its hands with the release of funds for the payment of earned academic allowances and earned allowances to university workers.
Some unions are accusing the government of bias towards ASUU, which got the lion’s share of the N23 billion released to 22 universities. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE, NICHOLAS KALU, OSEHEYE OKWUOFU, KOLADE ADEYEMI and YINKA ADENIRAN report.

It was just last September that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) called off a five-week strike over non-implementation of its agreement with the Federal Government. One of its demands was the payment of earned academic allowances, which had accrued to N23 billion as at 2009/2010.

The Federal Government, in fulfilling its promise, this week directed the payment of earned academic allowances/earned allowances to 22 Federal Government-owned universities to academic and non-academic members of staff.  While academics under ASUU will get N18.3billion, non-teaching staff members belonging to the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian University (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) will get N4.6 billion.

However, the sharing formula has begun to cause disaffection among the unions – with the non-teaching workers questioning the huge disparity.

At the University of Ibadan on Monday, the Vice Chancellor (VC), Prof Idowu Olayinka announced to leaders of the various unions that he had been directed to pay ASUU members N1,626,117,386.20 of the total N1,731,827,144.53 for the allowances, while the others would get N105,709,758.33.

The directive caused a lockdown of the university the following day as the non-teaching members of staff paralysed academic and administrative activities by locking three out of the four gates leading to the university.  Lecturers were said to have stayed away from the classrooms for fear of being attacked.

Reacting to the development, ASUU President, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, said the union had specific discussions with the Federal Government concerning payment of the earned academic allowances.  He said other unions were free to demand for their balance from the government, just like ASUU would also do.

He said: “The position in the letter is clear.  We made separate demands based on different documents.  The truth is that the entire N23 billion was initially allocated to Academic Staff based on verified claims.

“In 2013, there were arbitrariness in the distribution of funds for earned allowances.  Note that we never talked about earned allowances, but earned academic allowances.

“When the funds were allocated the guidelines were not clear.  Many universities arbitrarily distributed the funds.  We  felt that it should not be repeated.

“As far back as November last year we were at the National Assembly to make specific claims for the earned academic allowances.  We were not negotiating for any other union; we were talking about our own members.

“Government appealed to us that others should be accommodated and that was why the N23 billion was reduced.  Is it a bad idea that government said bend backwards for others and we agreed?

“We do not undermine the struggle of the other unions.  It is not all the claims that have been paid.  If any union feels they were not fully paid, they should go to government.  They can always ask for the balance of their claims just as we are going to do.  We only insisted that any distribution must be made based on a specific framework.”

When contacted twice on Tuesday to speak on the issue, SSANU National President, Sam Egwoke, said he was attending a meeting and could not comment. “I am at a meeting please, I cannot talk about it,” he said on phone.

However, on Tuesday, SSANU’s Vice President (Western Zone), Comrade Alfred Jimoh, said the protest was a rejection of the sharing formula.

He said: “It is spontaneous reactions of members, who are oppressed, depressed, mistreated in their place of work. This is a result of ridiculous attitude of university proprietors – government – and the teaching staff in the university system as it is evident in the sharing of earned allowances that was sent into the universities. A lot of things are wrong with that thing.

“The first time in the history of payment of salaries and allowances in Nigerian universities, government met with the teachers and stratified the fund released into the universities and divided it among them.

“Secondly, government asked unions to go and compute their salaries and bring it, which had never happened before. For employers to ask employees to calculate your earnings and bring it. Yes, we all did it and submitted to the government, but through back door we were shocked to the marrow that government that is fighting against corruption can sit down and do this level of corruption in the university system. And we believe that it is the same agenda of removing and reducing the non-teaching staff of Nigerian universities. The teaching staff have been crying out since 1993 up till now, it is the same agenda.”

Comrade Wale Akinremi, SSANU Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, said: “We still don’t want to believe that the money has been shared till now. There is no responsible government or agents that will send that type of letter to us that is flying around in the university. If at all the letter says that as a result of verified submissions, we want to know the ratio that gives ASUU N1.6 billion and N105million to non-teaching.

“When we did the last one, we had N2.1 billion in UI, the non-teaching had almost a billion and ASUU had over N1billion. We want to know what has changed in the new verification.

“There was nothing like earn academic allowance in 2009 Agreement.  It was fraudulently imported by the government representatives because they are coming from ASUU constituency.  We did not vote ASUU, but we voted President Muhammadu Buhari to fight corruption. With the way they are going, they will cause chaos in the university system. In a system, every component of that system is important, university system is universal; no one is superior.

On his part, NASU Chairman Comrade Oluwasegun Arojo, said: “It is obvious that most of the documents emanating from the Federal Government have  been influenced by ASUU. The best time to liberate ourselves from the shackles is now, we have been patient enough. We demonstrated this morning (Tuesday) to express our feeling to the government and citizens that we are not second class citizens. ASUU has claimed to be first class citizens, claiming that they have magic  fingers; we will give them our own best.”

At the University of Calabar (UNICAL), NASU Chairman, Comrade Sunday Ovat, said the N200 million released was insufficient to pay all non-teaching members of staff their allowances compared to ASUU’s N615 million.

He said: “Initially a circular for N615 million from the Federal Government was sent specifically for the non teaching staff, but later another circular came that N200 million was for non teaching staff and N600 million for teaching staff. The N200 million is not enough to pay non teaching staff their earned allowance. That is our contest.

“The payment has not started yet because if they start, some people would earn while others will not, we don’t want a situation where some of our members will earn and others will not.

“What we agreed is that if the Federal Government does not have enough to pay from 2009 to date, they should pay the ones they can cover, then we can now ask for the other ones.”

Ovat said NASU members had not protested the situation though they felt bad.

“The N200 million, I say again, is not enough, but if it was the N615 million in the initial circular that was sent specifically mentioned for non teaching staff, it would have been enough. But they withdrew that one and sent N200million for NASU and N600 million for ASUU. So, many of us feel bad. But there has been no formal protest over the situation,” he said.

On his part, ASUU Chairman, UNICAL Chapter, Dr Tony Eyang, urged the government to speedily pay up the outstanding allowances since 2010.

“We know that it is just a fraction of what is being owed that has been released. But that in itself is commendable. We expect that the balance should be paid and timely too before it becomes a source of agitation again. They are owing part of 2009, 2010 up till date, but what they have released can only pay for 2010. We urge the government not to wait for another round of agitation before it is release.”

Non-teaching workers are not also happy at the Bayero University Kano (BUK).

Chairman of SSANU in BUK, Haruna Aliyu,  who spoke on behalf of the other sister unions, said that the non-teaching staff were awaiting directived from the Joint Action Committee  (JAC) for the next line of action.

He said BUK was allocated N734, 886, 838.47, out of which, the academic staff got N685, 063, 675.47, while thenon-Academic staff got N49, 823, 163.00.

Aliyu, said :” To our astonishment, the funds  was shared by the Federal Government, instead of it sent directly to the Universities and allow them to share it in accordance, with each union’s agreement, with the government.”

”It is in this regard that, the three Non-teaching staff union under the office of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), rejected the allocation and directed their members to stay away from participating in the payment of the money in their respective universities and await further directives from the National body,” he said.

However, the BUK ASUU Chairman, Dr Ibrahim MagajI Barde, said the lecturers got what they worked for:

‘We in BUK have no problem in respect of the allowances, which we had already received from the Federal Government and the beneficiaries paid.

“The claim was based on the nature of work between the Academic and Non-Academic Staff, so I can’t comprehend the  type of allowance they are demanding for because  theirs is responsibility allowance.”