Lecturers of college of education institution have given the federal government a 21-day ultimatum to address pending issues or risk indefinite strike action.
The lecturers under the umbrella of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union,COEASU, listed the pending issues to include refusal to effect third party-deductions in most COEs; double standard deployed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment against the COEs, relative to other tertiary institutions and imposition of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System on the COE system which “bedevilled the payment of emoluments of staff with anomalies, infractions and deprivations.”
The President of COEASU,Nuhu Ogirima, at a press conference, Wednesday, in Abuja, notes they alleged that the government failed to address the plight of the public colleges’ system one year after sending a memo detailing the deplorable state of the institutions.
The union alleged that most state governments have equally followed the federal government in handling the affairs of their public COEs.
Nuhu Ogirima revealed that in August 2019, the association transmitted a memo passionately requesting the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to intervene in addressing the plight of the public CEOs system.
He said the memo was predicated on decades of utter neglect of the COE system, which the Federal Ministry of Education could not successfully address.
Nuhu Ogirima said the trust COEASU had on government was misplaced as none of the pledges, including “even the paltry fraction of N15 billion only as a palliative, out of N486 billion required as at 2017, to cushion the effects of the non-implementation of NEEDS Assessment, and others have not been fulfilled till date.”
He also added that, Federal government should take notice hereby that should the government refuse to redress all the issues in contention within 21 days, the union would have no other option than to declare a nation-wide industrial action.
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