Obi Increases Lecturers' Pay To More Than Dep Governor's, ASUU Rejects It (2010)

Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State has said the state government has fulfilled all terms of agreement reached with representatives of Academic and Non-Academic Staff Union of the state university during a stakeholders meeting with bishops and elders of the state in Onitsha last week.

Consequently, the governor expects the striking university workers to call off the strike and resume work.

But the striking lecturers rose from a meeting at Igbariam campus of the university yesterday and insisted on continuing with the strike because, according to a source at the meeting, government is yet to meet their conditions.

Vanguard gathered that the lecturers said they were not interested in the salary increase but a salary scheme that would clearly spell out their conditions of service.

After the meeting of the governing council and ASUU at the weekend, it was thought that the strike would be called off this week, but it appeared there is still no hope for the university to reopen on November 22, 2010, as promised chairman of the governing council, Prof Elochukwu Amaucheazi.

Governor Obi, while speaking at Anambra State Youth Reorientation and Empowerment Programme for youths of Anambra South Senatorial Zone at Saint Cletus Catholic Church, Nnewi, said that based on the intervention of the elders of the state, his administration had fulfilled the terms of the agreement.

The programme was organized by the state government, in collaboration with Anambra Rebirth and Institute for National Transformation.

According to him, with what has been agreed upon, lecturers of the university will be earning 80% of what their counterparts in federal universities earn at present.

The governor said that during the meeting hosted by the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, the stakeholders requested all parties to make sacrifices to reach a compromise, explaining that the state government had fulfilled all terms requested by the stakeholders.

He said with the new salary for the lecturers, they were now the highest paid workers in the state, with professors earning twice the salary of the deputy governor.

He said, in spite the pressure from the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, no member of the State Executive Council was earning the salary recommended by the commission because of the lean resources of the state.

He also said that till date, states in the South West and South South, including Lagos and Rivers States, with their jumbo revenue, were not implementing the new salary structure.