ASUU Bemoans Escalating Insecurity, Poverty, Unemployment In Nigeria
By Abdullahi Yusuf
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Kano Zone, has decried what it called the growing spate of insecurity, worsening poverty and unemployment in the country.
The union also bemoans the rising cost of living, livelihood displacement and heightened destitution”occasioned by the ruthless imposition of IMF/World Bank-inspired neoliberal reforms that displaced Nigerian economy from largest to fourth largest economy in Africa.”
The Kano Zonal Coordinator of the union, Comrade Abdulkadir Muhammad,made the observation at a news conference held at Bayero University,Kano(BUK),Kano,on Friday.
Comrade Muhammad listed the neoliberal reforms to include:removal of fuel subsidy,currency devaluation, commercialization, privatization, deregulation and state borrowing.
“The political leaders seem to be indifferent to the suffering of Nigerian workers and the toiling masses.They also appear not to have any genuine and credible solutions to the country’s socio-economic crises,” he said.
The union, therefore, urged governments at all levels”to take necessary and humane measures to ameliorate the situations of Nigerians.”
ASUU then expressed sadness over the imposition of a “corruption-ridden” salary payment platform,the IPPIS on the nation’s public Universities which it said violates their autonomy.
It said the Federal Government imposed the device on the Universities without recourse to their peculiarities.
“Despite a court judgement against this and a presidential directive for all tertiary institutions to be exited from the IPPIS, academic staff in Federal Universities continue to receive their salaries via the same platform,” the union said.
It went further to lament that some State Governments in the zone such as Kano,Jigawa and Kaduna, had adopted a replica of the IPPIS, while others are in the process of imposing it on their Universities.
The replica,the union said are:BATMIS,IPPMS and KIPPIS which it said grossly violate the University Miscellaneous Act.
“ASSU-Kano Zone calls on State Governments to take a cue from the Presidential directive resulting from the court ruling to exempt Tertiary Institutions from IPPIS and avoid illegal enrollment of our members into related platforms,” the union added.
