Govt has no business giving unions money to share —SSANU President

The President of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim, in an exclusive interview with Labour Editor, SOJI-EZE FAGBEMI, on the crisis in the university system, and how the government, defiant to all efforts made by the non-teaching unions – SSANU and NASU, will force the varsity workers to embark on an indefinite and comprehensive strike with effect from midnight on Friday 5 February. Excerpts:

You have already declared an indefinite and comprehensive total strike with effect from midnight on Friday 5. What is the justification  for university workers to go on strike at this critical time?

I can tell you that all of us that are doing this are not doing it because we are happy but we are forced to do it. When you are leading an interest group like labour union, your major concern  is about the welfare and well-being of your members. University system or university education is something that should not be toyed with. When a student goes to university and at the end of the programme he is awarded a degree, the word of chancellor who awards the degree will tell you that we award you this degree, having found you worthy in character and learning; it is not even in learning and character. Molding the character of students mostly has to do with our membership. You don’t mould the character of a student in the classroom, classroom is just  one aspect of it. But his interaction in the hostels, his interaction within the system, in the lab, within the administration, how he acquires and how he gets support, how his life is impacted by the community is what moulds his character. Therefore, we play a greater percentage in the degree each and every student gets at the end of his programme, having been graduated. Now for us to be able to discharge these responsibilities, we must have  the best of conditions of service and government that is the owner  of these institutions has put in place a system with approved conditions of service for every member of staff. In the conditions of service, it is clearly spelt out, every member of staff has a schedule of duty and the schedule of duty describes exactly what you are supposed to do in the office on daily basis; if you are an administrator or an accountant or an engineer or a doctor or a nurse, name it. Like I keep saying, SSANU is a melting pot because in SSANU you get all that is in the society. You have engineers, nurses, you have doctors, you have technicians, you have administrators, you have accountants, you have auditors, name it.  So, these people have peculiar jobs to do in order to keep the system going. Over the years certain demands came and government met with the labour unions. We have four  university based unions- ASUU, SSANU, NASU and NAAT, each representing a section of the community. Government, having been confronted with the myriads of demands for the improvement of the welfare and the well-being of these membership, met  differently with these groups, and it culminated into signing an agreement in November 2009. That agreement was signed under no compulsion, government was not under duress but it was a case of superior argument, government accepted some, rejected some. It is not that we are happy with the ones that have been rejected but as human beings, reasonable people we said okay let us go ahead , let’s take the ones  that have been accepted, let’s see inputs come to fruition.

What has happened to that agreement and what efforts have you made before resolving to go on strike?

From 2009 to date, it is about eleven years, we are still trying to convince the government to implement what it has signed and agreed that it will do. These are some of the issues. Over time, in those eleven years we have not even had the opportunity of reviewing these agreements because the  one that has been agreed has not been put in place. In the agreement, there is a section that says this agreement is subject to review every five years. This agreement we are still talking about, ordinarily should have been reviewed twice, but not even the first one has seen the light of the day. Now this government came on the mantra of service delivery, fighting corruption, ensuring that things are done rightly. We confronted the government, we approached them, we keyed into the programmes and nothing is forth coming. It’s like we have given our own part of the bargain, the government is yet to reciprocate. We have also seen and tried to meet with government. In October last year we had to go on a warning strike and government did not call us until the last day of the strike. We met with the Minister of Labour, Senator Ngige, and in that meeting which he chaired, we had the Executive Secretary of NUC, we had the Director of IPPIS, we had  the representative of the SGF, the representative of the National Salaries Wages and Income Commission. Those are the key stakeholders where our problems are revolving around. We signed an MOU, having reviewed the situation and government having agreed that there are problems. That MOU was given a timeline of two weeks that those government agencies should go and ensure that all these problems are solved. Almost four months down the line we have not seen much improvement. Out of the seven issues that we have listed only one is being resolved and that is the composition or setting up of visitation panel to the universities which is supposed to come every five years but  it’s coming after a decade. Even that one  was just a mere mention in the media, those committees or panels have not been inaugurated and they were expected by the government time-table to have even submitted their reports in November. We are now in February. So, I’m giving this background for the members of the public to understand that this thing did not just start yesterday. Part of the problems we have is that we were engaged by the government to work and give our best. If you work, at the end of the day you are expected to take a pay. Now we work and at the end of the month some of our members get mutilated salaries, some do not even get at all; just for a simple reason that government convinced us that there’s a payment platform they are bringing that will ensure that payment of salaries becomes seamless, wastages are blocked, and corruption is fought.

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You said you keyed into a programme, and also mentioned a platform, are you referring to IPPIS?

Yes, and because we believe in that, we keyed-in after our observations that  the university system is  not the same with the Ministries and Departments (MDs) because there are peculiarities in university, the job schedule is not the same with the ministries. For example, government had approved the law extending the service years of our members. We retired at the age of 65 for the non-teaching staff, while those in the academic line, especially at the professorial ladder, can retire at the age of 70. When this platform of IPPIS was shown to us we realised that once you are 60 years of age it kicks you out or if you have put in 35 years in service. We drew their attention. We also have a provision that if you are in the university system and you have reached up to a certain level because university is universal, you are to share knowledge with other colleagues in other places, meaning there’s a programme for sabbatical leave for both teaching and non-teaching. And this IPPIS platform, where you key-in with your BVN, you cannot take double payment from the same source. And if you are on sabbatical, one of the benefits is that while learning and acquiring and also impacting and sharing knowledge with the new place you have gone to, you are also supposed to take your pay from your mother station and in your new station. That programme is just for one year, IPPIS does not give that leverage. So we also pointed out to government. There are some specific allowances that are unique to the university system, things like responsibilities allowance for certain category of staff, excess workload, shift duty for our medical staff and those in the works department, call duty for medical doctors, hazard allowance for people who undertake hazardous jobs. These are the things that are not obtainable in the regular civil service. All these are not there in the IPPIS platform. But they convinced us, and said that having identified these, they have rectified and they have worked on it, and that it will be captured. IPPIS came into being in February 2020 for the university system, one year after such problems still exist. Now, in my university for example, in February (last year) a lot of people including myself got less than a quarter of what we should have been paid as salary.  We have had issues where drivers were paid the salaries of registrars, that’s a case of over-payment, we have had principal officers getting the salaries of cleaners. And you do not need rocket science to tell you that this system is faulty. And if we have keyed-in to help government fight corruption and make sure that our payments are seamless, can we say that this is an achievement? Or is the goal achieved? So the members of the public, Nigerians should understand that university staffers are also human beings, and that they are Nigerians. And that for the system to operate we should not pretend. If you expect the best from us we should also get our wages paid. And we are going on strike because government has remained adamant and has refused to solve these problems. This is exactly the scenario of the context within which this labour unrest is coming up.

Must your struggle be based only on the welfare of your members without considering the institutions you represent and the life of the students?

I am glad you mentioned that, welfare and wellbeing of every human being is paramount. The system is a chain, you cannot on an empty stomach perform optimally, you don’t expect somebody to work for 30 days and at the end of the day he would not be paid. As I am talking to you there are some of our members who have not received salaries since IPPIS started and they keep moving from Abuja to their different destinations, coming to check one problem or the other. This is why the union is there and we have made this known to the government. It did not start today, from October to date, it is getting to four months that government has agreed that there is a problem, and that this problem will be solved in two weeks. Two weeks have now become four months and we have lost so many of our members. This is a time of pandemic, we have our members who work in the health centers and mind you, in every university community you go, the health center does not only attend to the population within the campus, even communities surrounding it. Our healthcare workers have not benefitted anything from this COVID hazard allowance they have given other healthcare workers in government hospitals. It does not stop there, even their regular allowances have been withdrawn. How do you think a parent would react sending his child to the university, the child falls sick, goes to the clinic and gets infected or there is no attention by the health unit. Will that situation augur well for anyone? This is what I want you to understand that welfare and wellbeing cannot be neglected.

What is your position on IPPIS now?

Our position currently, after this experience, nasty one is that we do not accept IPPIS as a solution and that is why the JAC, in its own wisdom has decided to float what is called University Peculiar Payment System. In our membership we have the accountants who payroll and pay staff salaries, we have the ICT gurus because we mount the ICT centers in the universities. Since we are talking of software and solution for payments, who should know it better outside the membership of SSANU and NASU. So, that is why we are giving government a better solution, a better platform for these payments. However, it is now left to the government to borrow from us and improve on it. If IPPIS can be looked at and they look at our own platform and borrow from what we have, improve the IPPIS so be it. As long as our salaries would be paid, our allowances would be captured and our peculiarity would be solved, we don’t have any problem with that. But as it is today, IPPIS is a disaster.

This issue of sharing the N40 billion released, 75 per cent of it goes to ASUU and 25 per cent to the other three unions. What is your thought?

As much as possible, I do not like talking about the sharing formula, but because it is a reality, we cannot avoid it. My own position, and the position of my Union, SSANU is that the government has no business giving unions money to share because unions are not parallel government. Unions are not employers of Labour. Union is a pressure group. In 2013, when the government gave the first tranche of the Earned Allowances, they sent the money directly in the name of pro-chancellors of universities and the pro-chancellors handed the money to the university’s managements. And because university managements run the system, and because every members of staff has his or her schedule of duties and condition of service, the university system took care and knew specifically who should get what. If you are a lecturer, your entitlements are there, spelt out; if you are an admin staff your entitlements are there, spelt out. Since the unions have fought and gained some approvals from the government, what government requires to do is that such money should have been sent to the universities through the councils and management and let management decide who should get what. But when you now say, Union A, I’m giving you N10, unions B, C, D, we are giving you N2, do you expect peace? It is obvious there is favoritism, there is clear disregard to the university autonomy because university has an autonomy law that gives it independence from the operation of the regular civil service. So, the university resources is owned by the councils and the Vice-Chancellors are the Chief Executives, the Registrar appoint on behalf of the council, so every member of staff should be given what he is due. So, for me and for us, money should not be given in the names of unions but money should be given for members of the unions through the universities, that is our position.

Perhaps government believes some section of the staff are more important than the others in the university system?

That is our cry. It is totally unnecessary and uncalled for because I am by calling, not to do the jobs of the academic staff. The academic staff is by calling not trained to do my own jobs, so we should have a symbiotic relationship. Everybody should remain within the prism of his own appointment and one of the concerns we have today, if you look at the seven issues we have listed, it is the issue of usurpation of duties by academic staff taking over our jobs. Yes, the university runs a committee system but it does not say that because it has to be committee, a square peg should be put in a round hole. I will give you an example, if you go to the universities today you will see that the academic staff have taken over the jobs of the non-teaching staff. You have somebody appointed to be the Dean of Students and he will be one sharing mattresses, allocating bed spaces, decides who stays in hostels and who should not. What is academic about that? When we were in the university that was not obtained. You have a Professor of History chairing the Committee for the Distribution of Diesel, when you have a Director of Works who is appointed with retinue of staff. You have a Professor of Creative Arts chairing Committee on Water Distribution. What is academic about distribution of water. These are some of the things we are crying, that they should concentrate on their jobs. We have the greatest respect for our academic colleagues, let them go, conduct researches, do the teaching and their community service; allow the administrative jobs, the technical works, engineering works, Accounting jobs to be done by those that are employed to do so.

May be the government consider you less relevant, how important are the non-teaching staff in the university system?

This is while you will see in the next two weeks if the government does not fall in line with our requests and demand, we will shut the system because our members will withdraw and we will allow them to do the work of cleaning, security, and preparing salaries. Let us see who will prepare salaries.

Remember that these students have spent over 10 years at home due to strike by one of the unions, ASUU. Do you consider the plights of the children, their future when taking this decision?

I will tell you that we are also parents. Personally I have two children in the university an I’m not happy seeing them.

May be you have then studying in abroad?

No, in Nigeria. I do not have the money to sponsor them abroad. If anything, most of the academic staff who have so much are the ones sending their children abroad but our children are in the Nigerian universities, and we are not happy seeing them home. But we want a situation whereby, if they should get education, they should get the best and the system cannot give the best the way it is today because if you stave people of their duties, if you stop them from doing their works, if you do not pay them their wages, you do not expect to get the best out of them. So, I want to assure Nigerians that we are not going on strike because we are happy doing so, but we are going on strike if we have to go, because we are push to the wall. That is why our strategy is different. We started with protests, driving home the points, drawing the public knowledge to our neglect. After the protests, you can see that government did not even bother. We have asked our members who are majority parents and Nigerians, and you would have seen the statistics and the percentages that they have given us the go ahead to declare an industrial dispute. And in our characteristics of being truly humane and considerate, we have given two weeks to government. Two weeks is good time for government to rescind and re-think and invite us to sit down again and ensure that our problems are solved and then, issue of strike will not come again. But if after two weeks nothing is done, honestly we will plead with Nigerians to understand with us because we are also Nigerians that we need to take home something to eat.

But when the timing is wrong, such as in this case, don’t you believe you will lose the sympathy of Nigerians you are pleading with?

There is no good time for strike, there is no time that you can say is good for strike. Strike are a necessity and government allows through Labour laws that unions can go on strike if there is dispute between an employer and employee. We are not doing anything outside the confines of the laws of Nigerians, we are at liberty to go on strike if our rights and privileges are trampled upon. When other people go on strike, people do not talk, it is now our own strike that is becoming an issue. I don’t believe that we should be treated like that because we are not also  a second class citizen. Let me give you an example to tell you that our people are patient. The issue of the new minimum wage, one year after implementation we have not been paid our arrears. All other civil servants within the MDAs have been paid except staffers of the tertiary institutions. That is one of the problems, and if we are a strike trigger happy Union, we would have declared it since. But we have been calling on government and government keeps on promising. There was a time government promised us that before the last day of the year 2020, this payment would be made. Our people kept vigil up to 12 midnight of 31st of December, waiting for the alert but it never came. What is the problem? You can no longer believe on what your leaders tells you, I don’t think that is a good development. Leaders should be honest, leaders should be upright, leaders should be humane and leaders should be compassionate to their followers.

Nigerians are tired of incessant strikes in the university system, what do you think the government can do issue of strike can do that in the next five to ten years, we won’t witness strike in the universities?

The best thing for government to do which we will all be happy with is to put square peg in Square hole, and do the right thing, attend to the rights and privileges of your workers. If workers are paid as at when due, the problem will be reduced.

One of your leadership has warned that if the government refuse to do the needful, you have the capacity and can go for one year strike if others can go for 10 months?

Well, I don’t know who said that, but I think we have never gone to a strike that lasted beyond a month or two. I think the longest strike we have had is about three months and that was one-off thing, but I tell you, as the president of SSANU, I do not pray and I do not envisage and I am not hoping that we have that kind of experience again because that retards our development as a nation and that is why we are doing everything possible to ensure that government listens to our cries and government sees reasons to address our problems. This is our prayers and this is our request.

In their usual character, the government may not invite you until the eve of the commencement of your strike. If this happens, what will be your position?

Our position remains that we are realistic. If government is to solve our problems until the last day of our ultimatum, so be it as long as the problem will be solved. We are not competing with government, we are only agitating, and requesting for our rights. We are not a parallel government, we are a pressure group and that we are telling government that something is wrong somewhere. In fact, if anything, government should commend us for ensuring that we are following due process.

But if on February 5, nothing is done, what will you do?

There is no going back.

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