….as FUOYE CONUA celebrates Oyarekua in maiden symposium, breaks ground for new secretariat
By Wole Balogun
S.A Media to VC
National President of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), Comrade (Dr.) Niyi Sumonu has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to urgently increase the take home up pay of lecturers in the public Universities
as a way of not only cushioning the effect of the hardship being incurred by the removal of fuel subsidy but also compensating the academics for helping to build the nation through teaching, research and various community services.
Sumonu who lamented the fact that since 2009, government has failed to consider increasing the take home pay of the Nigerian public Universities’ academics in spite of progressive inflation and economic hardships, stated that the ugly development has been responsible for lecturers retiring into a life of penury. He therefore urged the Federal Government to also fund research by lecturers and allow them to draw 25 percent of their contributory pension fund for post retirement incentives for survival.
The CONUA national President made the remarks on Tuesday evening during the maiden edition of a symposium organized by CONUA local branch of the the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE). The symposium featured the celebration of an excellent academic life of a retiring lecturer and Professor of Food Science and Technology of the University, Prof. Mojisola Adenike Oyarekua, ground breaking ceremony of a proposed secretariat of CONUA in FUOYE as well as addresses by the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Sunday Abayomi Fasina and the CONUA national leader.
Tagged: The Life of an Academic, the symposium was mainly organized by the FUOYE chapter of CONUA to celebrate the sterling contribution of Prof. Oyarekua to scholarship in her field, University administration and educational development of the nation among others. Prof. Oyarekua, a former Provost of the now defunct College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti now Bamidele Olumilua University of Science and Technology, was celebrated as an outstanding Nigerian academic who has brought pride to the nation by excelling in her chosen career at home and abroad.
Her intimidating credentials as an academic was read to inspire the students to aspire for academic success as she was revealed to have served in various capacities as Dean of the School of Post Graduate Studies (SPGS) in FUOYE and appointed Major of the city of Louisiana, U.S.A on account of her intimidating profile as a global scholar in her academic field and one who has received fellowships of many professional bodies and grants.
While addressing the students, Prof. Oyarekua charged them to be focused and studious assuring that there are opportunities for greatness and fulfillment in academics if they are serious and focused.
Urging the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) not to develop unhealthy rivalry against CONUA, she advised the older unions in public Universities to collaborate with CONUA in ensuring that government attends to the welfare and wellbeing of University workers in Nigeria. Her words: “If we follow the path of diplomacy like CONUA is doing, we will get our demands.
We are not at war. ASUU and CONUA are to work together. The welfare of academics and that oif students must be paramount to us as pressure groups in the academia.
Prof. Oyarekua who joined CONUA president to advocate for more incentives for lecturers also appreciated FUOYE VC, Prof. Fasina, for his outstanding achievements as the Chief Executive Officer of the University. She said:” as an administrative person myself, I am able to appreciate the good works the VC of FUOYE is doing. He is a very good administrator and very humane and quite loving to students and staff. His achievements have made many Nigerian youths to desire FUOYE as their university.”
Speaking at the event, Dr. Sumonu said: “To start with,CONUA is grateful to FUOYE’s chapter for setting this precedence. It is a trail blazing I am very happy with this ground breaking it shows CONUA has places to go. Fuoye is the first to start this and we are so happy that our joy knows no bounds.
We pray this will be completed in a short time.
“ Why we have here to do today aside the ground breaking , is to celebrate our Professor who has just retired and the theme of the celebration is the theme is the life of an academic , the triumph and the challenges.
Part of the triumph s is that being an educator is shaping the future of a country . There is a link between education, research and development.
There are things we need from government for us to achieve better results in nation building, it is sad that since 2009 there has not been any any improvement in the take home pay of academics in this country despite the attendant inflations. As a result of that we are calling on government unequivocally to console statutory meetings that will effect the improvement on take home of academics so that it will address immediate and long time issues
“Another thing is that most of our colleagues retire into penury as a result of poor remuneration
So as we go into retirement we are asking government to give us the opportunity to be able to draw a minimum of 25 percent outside the mortgage or housing fund from our contributory pension . So our people can plan well before their retirement . So, we want government to do something on this quickly
“One of our mantra that led to our registration is the fact that CONUA does not believe in incessant strike
And we didn’t just come to that conclusion in a jiffy. What we did was to study the use of strike by trade unions in the academia. And we put it side by side the frequency of strikes. We conducted studies on the effect of strikes for over 40 years and we discovered it is no longer needed and that it is doing more harm than good to our educational system and that the government has gotten used to these strikes and they would just append their signatures to agreements they know ab-initio they won’t honour. So that cycle continues . CONUA has seen that and realize that especially , in a democratic institution, we should deploy other methods with which we can achieve desired results, methods such as diplomacy, advocacy, court and lobbying among others, all these we are doing and we believe in no time it will yield good results for us,” he said.
Dignitaries who graced the occasion included the VC who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Prof.Tajudeen Bolanle Opoola, CONUA’s national Secretary, Comrade Dr. Henry Oripeloye, National Treasurer of CONUA, chairpersons from CONUA chapters OAU and the representatives of sisters union on campus as well as students of FUOYE.
