Some of the striking workers at a protest rally
In Edo State, tertiary education is
practically comatose. Reason: Four of the state owned institutions of
higher learning have been shut down due to the industrial action
embarked upon by their academic and non-academic staff unions.
Since September the College of Education,
Ekhiadolor; Institute of Management and Technology, Usen; College of
Education, Igueben; and the College of Agriculture, Iguoriakhi, which
joined in solidarity, have been enmeshed in workers-management faceoff
which has now consumed the educational activities in their different
domains.
The development is now threatening the graduation of the final year students and by extension, their future.
The workers, under the Coalition of
Unions of State Owned Tertiary Institutions, are protesting against the
non-payment of their monthly salaries spanning over two months in some
of the institutions.
The workers described as lamentable the
situation brought about “as a result of the obnoxious 65/35 per cent
monthly salary wage bill sharing formula foisted on the institutions by
the Edo State Government.”
They alleged that while the state
government had “openly claimed to have fulfilled its financial
obligations to these institutions,” it had failed in its responsibility
to identify why the salaries were not paid to the affected staff as and
when due.
The workers are also calling for the
immediate commencement of payment of the 16-month salary differential
arrears arising from the variances in the implementation of the salary
structure of the Consolidated Polytechnics and Colleges Academic Salary
Structure and the Consolidated Tertiary Educational Institution Salary
Structure from July 2009 to October 2010.
In addition to these is the call for adequate funding for the accreditation of programmes in the affected institutions.
The staff of the institutions had in
August embarked on a warning strike just when preparations for the
second semester examinations were in top gear. They also carried out a
work-to-rule.
But the situation went from bad to worse
on September 17 when CUSOTI announced the commencement of an indefinite
strike to press home their demands.
The coalition, in a letter signed by its
President, Mr. Fred Omonuwa, and Secretary, Mr. Martin Imhenrion, said, a
full blown strike on Wednesday, September 17, 2014.”
In a telephone interview with our
correspondent, Omonuwa said that the staff cooperative society of some
of the unions were owed over N20 million. The money according to him was
used to augment the funds for the operation of the institutions.
Omonuwa, who is also the Ekiadolor
Chairman of the Colleges of Education of Education Academic Staff Union,
noted that the coalition had earlier in 2012 gone on strike but
suspended it following the election of Governor Adams Oshiomhole.
He also said that although the government
had agreed to pay the salaries so that the striking workers could
return to work, while other demands were being sorted, the money had yet
to be released.
For the Chairman of the Academic Staff
Union of Polytechnics at the Institute of Technology and Management,
Usen, Mr. Augustine Agbi, the subvention said to have been provided by
the state government remained intangible.
He said the staff had resorted to
borrowing from banks due to deductions from their salaries and the staff
cooperative societies one of the reasons they decided to go on strike.
But the seemingly endless strike did not
go down well with the management of the College of Agriculture,
Iguoriakhi. It argued that it had no labour issues with the staff and
warned them to resume work or risk losing their October salary.
Efforts to seek the reactions of the
Commissioner for Higher Education, Washington Usifo, proved abortive. He
was yet to respond to calls and a text message sent to his telephone
line, at the time of filing the report.
It was, however, gathered that the Edo
State Government had agreed the pay the workers their unpaid monthly
salaries as the management of the institutions made available the
necessary statistical information pertaining to staff record but
maintained that it had no obligation to pay the 16-month differential
salary arrears.
The Commissioner for Special Duties and
Establishment, Mr. Dido Adodo, explained that the decision was a result
of an earlier agreement reached with authorities of the institutions in
2010 on the implementation of a new salary structure. “We had an
agreement that there would be no 16-month differential arrears. But the
workers later came and said that the agreement was not properly done and
demanded arrears,” he said.
On the state of infrastructure, he said
that the state government planned to upgrade the College of Education,
Ekiadolor to a university of education and equip it with the necessary
facilities, a process which he said would require time.
He, however, urged the striking lecturers to sheath their swords and return to work.
Perturbed by the decision of their
lecturers and non-academic staff, students of the affected institutions
took to the Benin-Ore Expressway to express their displeasure over the
turn of events. They barricaded the busy expressway and left motorists
and travellers stranded for several hours before normalcy was restored
by the joint efforts of security agencies, including the Nigeria Police
and the Federal Road Safety Corps.
The students again on November 18
protested on the Benin-Ore Expressway demanding an immediate resumption
of academic activities in the affected institutions.
One of the students and the Deputy
Coordinator of the National Association of Nigeria Students, Ekhutu
Richard, lamented that the strike had affected the school calendar hence
preventing graduating students from meeting up with their
comtemporaries in other schools.
Ekhutu said, “We are demanding for our
rights. For more than three months. We have not been in school. Some of
us are supposed to have graduated in October. We only came because we
want the public to know that we want to go back to our school.”
Also, the Student Union President of the
College of Education, Igueben, Martin Uwaifo, said that some of their
parents who were yet to come to terms with the reality of the strike had
begun to think that their children had been rusticated.
“I ought to have left Igueben since
September but here I am. Our parents are now questioning the rationale
behind our continuous stay in the school wondering whether it was as a
result of rustication or programme extension.”
Students of the institutions who spoke
with our correspondent, expressed shock at the dimension the strike
took. One of them, the SUG President of the Institute of Technology,
Pedro Osemwengie, expressed fears that with no end in sight students
might be tempted to engage in illegal activities during the oncoming
general elections.
“This is the worst strike we have ever
seen in the history of IMT, Usen. It has become a burden to me as the
SUG President because I’ve got several calls from my colleagues
complaining about the hardship caused by the strike. I am begging the
governor to please come to our aid because if the students are idle at
home as the elections are coming anybody could just come and tempt them
to commit crime.”
For Cynthia Osayi, a National Diploma II
student of Office Technology and Management, her career may have to
change as her mother had threatened to swap her college education with a
trade.
“It is still shocking that I’ve stayed at
home for over two solid months doing nothing. We were preparing to
write our second semester exams when we suddenly heard that our
lecturers were going on an indefinite strike. I was supposed to do my ND
project but all my financial and mental efforts are wasting away with
the strike. In fact, my mother has advised me to forget school and go
and learn catering as a viable alternative because she is becoming tired
of seeing me idle all the time,” she said.
Cynthia’s mother, Mrs. Suzan Osayi, who
confirmed the possibility of withdrawing her daughter on telephone,
explained that she had begun to lose the hope of her daughter rounding
off her academic programme as planned.
“I’m not happy the way she has been
sitting at home doing nothing because of the strike. If the government
and the teachers will not call off the strike, then she should go an
learn a trade that will fetch her some income,” she said.
Also another parent, who gave his name as
Mr.Ogiemwonyi, urged the state government and the striking workers to
reach an agreement and call off the industrial action, which could
expose the students to bad company.
“My son, who is a first year student of
Accounting in the school in Usen, came back over two months ago and told
me that his school was on a one-week warning strike. But when the
warning strike ended, he told me that it had become indefinite. In fact,
I’m fed up with the situation. The strike is doing more harm than good
because as these children stay at home instead of being in school, some
of them could join bad gangs and engage in electoral malpractice. Let
the state governor come in and settle this matter so that the children
can go back to their classrooms,” the parent said
Indeed, the students have had their
academics disrupted, as the strike had consumed the examination period
and gradually eating into the new academic session.
But their hopes of returning to school
remain hanging on the prospects of the parties involved in the in the
dispute reaching a lasting agreement.
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