Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, ATBU, Bauchi branch, staged a protest on Thursday, urging President Bola Tinubu to facilitate the immediate implementation of the Prof Nimi Briggs Committee’s agreement on renegotiating salaries for academic staff at federal universities.
The ASUU members marched from their secretariat within the Yelwa campus to the main gate, holding placards with various inscriptions to draw attention to their plight.
Addressing journalists, the branch chairperson of ASUU, ATBU, Comrade Ibrahim Inuwa, stated that the non-implementation of the agreement had denied academics a wage consistent with current economic realities, and also led to continued poor funding of universities.
He lamented that ASUU members have remained on the same salary system for 15 years, with all efforts at renegotiation failing, thereby leaving them stagnant.
He further explained that the demand for renegotiation of the pay package with the Federal Government of Nigeria is anchored on International Labour Organisation, ILO, Convention No. 98, which provides for the principle of collective bargaining.
“Following the FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement, it was stipulated that the agreement would be reviewed every three years. However, the union has been without a renegotiated agreement for the past 15 years.
“Consequently, after much effort and pressure on the government, a renegotiation committee was set up under the chairmanship of Wale Babalakin in 2017. However, this committee failed to conclude its assignment within the agreed time frame.”
“Two other committees, headed by Prof. Munzali Jibrin and the late Emeritus Prof. Nimi Briggs, negotiated and produced draft agreements, but the process was halted before finalizing the reviewed agreement. Since 2021, the document has remained in draft form,” he said.