Professors teaching in Nigeria’s federal universities have been offered a 35% salary increase by the Federal Government in an effort to end about seven months of a lingering labour strike by lecturers affiliated with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The minister of education, Adamu Adamu, on Tuesday however said that the government could afford to offer only 23.5 percent increase in salaries for other categories of lecturers that fall below the rank of professor,
Adamu also noted that the President Muhammadu Buhari has issued a warning to government officials against signing agreements with labour unions that the government can not be able to meet.
He was speaking during the meeting with vice chancellors of universities and other stakeholders within the Nigerian university system.
According to him, ‘the Federal Government can only afford a 23.5% salary increase for all category of the workforce in Federal Universities, except for the professorial cadre, which will enjoy a 35% upward review.
“Henceforth, allowances that pertain to ad-hoc duties of the academic and non-academic staff shall be paid as at when due by the governing councils of universities to which such services are rendered and to the staff who perform
them.
“That a sum of 150 billion naira shall be provided for in the 2023 Budget as
funds for the revitalization of federal universities, to be disbursed to the
Institutions in the first quarter of the year, and that a sum of 50 billion naira shall be provided for in the 2023 Budget for the payment of outstanding areas of earned academic allowances, to be paid
in the first quarter of the year.”
Speaking at the end of the meeting, the pro-chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria, Professor Peter Okebukola, assured that the government was ready to go all out to ensure that the university lecturers returned back to school.
