The supplementary budget sighted by Dataphyte has revealed the National Assembly approved the budget provision of 45 billion naira to sort out some salary and striking issues of workers of tertiary institutions. The sum amounts to 4.6% of a budget devoted mainly to defence purposes.
This legislative gesture comes alongside the controversy over the approved budget for Whatsapp interception solutions and the findings by Dataphyte of an additional N7.46 billion approved for the Defence Intelligence Agency to independently intercept voice and data communications of Nigerians
The N45 billion set aside for “public service wage adjustment of the budget’s security wide votes” is expected to cater for three line items, namely, “minimum wage arrears of tertiary institutions, 2021 salary shortfall contingency, and earned academic allowances for universities.”
In a recent report, the Academic Staff Union Of Nigeria Universities (ASUU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) threatened a fresh strike over unpaid salaries. According to the report, the ASUU President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, said, despite its promise to the union to pay all outstanding salaries before December 31, 2020, the government is still owing its members from 2 to 16 months salaries in many of its branches.
Most strike actions by the staff unions of tertiary institutions in the past 32 years have been for fair wages. Further strike actions in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions are likely to cause more extensions in students’ study time, consequent delays in graduation, and increased unemployment of certificated skilled labour. Frequent industrial strikes increase the likelihood of students dropping out of tertiary institutions. These are some of the economic and social costs that Nigeria is yet to recover from as a result of the previous 9-month strike action of ASUU.
Hopefully, the 45 billion Naira budgeted for wage adjustment will be enough to avert any plan to paralyse academic activities in tertiary institutions for the time being.
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