Prince Oriwaye Adefolalu is a senior staff member of the University of Lagos (UNILAG). He was the chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) in the university between 2003 and 2009. He speaks with TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE on the travails of university workers, including professors who he claims have to queue to access a N35,000 loan to purchase a five-kilogram bag of government rice.
Your complaint about the difficulty UNILAG workers, including professors, were facing before they could buy Lagos State government’s subsidised foodstuffs, known as ‘Ounje Eko’, went viral on social media recently. What were you saying exactly?
First, I will appreciate the governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for sending ‘Ounje Eko’ to the University of Lagos (UNILAG). It is something his government had been doing in many other parts of the state.
We have a right to benefit from any government programme like this because we pay tax to the government. We have the right to enjoy what other people of Lagos State are enjoying. I will add that the prices of those foodstuffs may be cheaper, but the majority of us cannot afford them because we don’t have money. What are those commodities and their prices? Five kilograms of rice is about N5,400 and five kilograms of beans is N9,000-plus. There are also garri, bread, pepper, onion and few other items.
The third edition of the sales was held last week. Initially, I thought it was 50kg of rice that they were selling until I got to the scene and discovered it was five kg. About that, I was highly disappointed, because I came all the way from Ikorodu, several kilometers, to UNILAG and spent more than N5,000 for transport to purchase five kg of rice and so on. Is that not a huge loss on my part?
Is that kind of gesture by the government supposed to apply to somebody of your caliber?
What caliber are you talking about when we are talking about food? Many professors, PhD holders and senior non-academic staff members like me stormed the place to buy ‘Ounje Eko’. The government knows that many of us in the university system don’t have money and that is the reason why they brought the foodstuffs to us. Somebody on Level 14, for example, is not a junior worker. If the Federal Government led by President Bola Tinubu did not deny us our legitimate benefits in terms of salaries and allowances, we would not have been subjected to these kinds of ridicule and embarrassment.
How is it an embarrassment?
For professors to have to apply to the school cooperative for a loan of N35,000 before they can afford ‘Ounje Eko’ is an insult not only to us, the workers, but also to the government and the country at large.
As a salary earner, you prioritise your wants. Those cooperatives give out soft loans of between N25,000 and N35,000. Some of us that have been working in the university for more than 25 years see it as a serious embarrassment. As a matter of fact, it is evidence that things are not working. It is evidence that professors are also crying as a result of the current economic hardship in the country.
But were you able to buy the foodstuffs?
Let me tell you what played out. When I registered for the loan, I was told that the cooperative had received applications from more than 300 people for that batch. They said my name could only come out with the second batch. It was as if we were doing students’ admission. That is how terrible things have become in the country. It is only that many Nigerians like to pretend and behave as if all is well. I believe that if the government pays workers their salaries and allowances and other entitlements as and when due, many won’t be financially down as we are. Our four months salaries are still being withheld. Government promised to pay N35,000 as palliative to workers. They paid for a few months and stopped. Also, it is yet to implement the minimum wage. Although it is small, it will cover some expenses such that professors won’t need to queue for N35,000 loan before they can buy ‘Ounje Eko’. They wouldn’t have abandoned their duty posts for such. The time we spent queuing as if we were in refugee camps would have been used for something better. I have some photographs of the scene, but I wouldn’t want them to go public.
So, this government should just give us our money. If professors, whom the people have high regards for, have descended so low to the point that they are struggling to buy subsidised food items, it means that something is wrong with us as a country. We are calling on the government not to subject university workers to ridicule. Somebody who is hungry may not bother about embarrassment to get food on the table. That is the situation for most of us in the university system.
Is the financial condition of university workers as bad as you have painted it?
There was no exaggeration in what I have said. Things are not okay. Our conditions are worse than I have painted them. Some people beg for N1,000 or N2,000 to survive. There is no dignity in begging, let the government pay all our outstanding salaries and allowances. It is not easy for somebody to be working without being paid. The person will lose concentration. Even as a journalist, if you don’t have money, the job will not go smoothly as it should. You won’t be able to write stories well. Let the government pay us. More people are getting frustrated about Nigeria’s situation on a daily basis. Why this act of wickedness? Mr President once declared that the government was ready to pay the withheld salaries, but here we are, several months after, nothing has happened. It is a pity that the Nigerian citizens cannot trust their leaders again. The president should be true to his word. His word should be his bond.
I queued for the N35,000 loan, but the experience was even more embarrassing when I was told that I would not be able to get the money the same day. Even if you have the money, will five kilograms of rice or beans sustain a family of four for a week? The government should come up with policies that can actually bring down the prices of goods and services so that the people can go to the market when they choose and purchase the quantity of food they want rather than getting them to go to a regimented market for ‘Ounje Eko’. The government should stop gambling with peoples’ lives. Come to UNILAG and you will see the obituaries of many in their early 50s. Most of them died because they couldn’t afford to access quality medical care.
You sounded as if you had lost confidence in the political leaders.
Well, what I know is that the majority of them are deceivers. They pretend to be people’s friends, but they are not. Many of them are greedy and self-centred. They have so much money but they take care of themselves and their cronies and leave the rest of us to suffer. This is the reality. And the suffering is not limited to university workers; it extends to most Nigerians, including you, journalists. For the ‘Ounje Eko’, even many people from neighbouring communities trooped into the university to buy the foodstuffs. Government policies are simply not people-oriented.
Look at petrol price today. When workers agitated for a new minimum wage of N250,000, the government settled for N70,000. At that time, the pump price of petrol was less than N600 per litre. Today, it is N1,000 or more. Yet, the government has not started paying the minimum wage which the fuel price has already rubbished. Does this government want to kill everybody?
But the government is appealing for people’s patience; that sacrifice is needed to enjoy abundance in the future.
That is the reason why I said earlier that our leaders are not sincere. If they claim their difficult policies are meant to better people’s lives, must everybody die as a result of such policies? The people whose lives they claim to be working hard to better are dying. If everybody dies, who are they working for then? It is deceit. They are not being truthful. Most of their policies have no human face. Are they themselves sacrificing? They are not.
Somebody in the level 14 cadre in the civil service should not be struggling to make ends meet in an economy. But that is not the case in Nigeria. In this country, somebody in a higher cadre but without access to free money will live in abject poverty. The salary is small; it can’t do anything substantial in the face of high inflation. People are only pretending as if all is well. All is not well. We must tell ourselves the basic truth. There are no two ways to saying this.
The government should do the right thing. They are there for the people and not for themselves alone. As we speak, many cannot access their money with the pension fund administrators several years after retirement. How will they survive? The government did not remit its own share of the contribution. The people are hungry. There is serious hunger in the land.
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