ASUU rejects FG’s proposed 35% salary increase for varsity lecturers

• Insists on Nimi Brigg’s salary benchmark

By Gabriel Dike

The ongoing renegotiation between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may hit a brick wall as the union has rejected the proposed 35 percent salary increase by the government’s re-negotiation team.

Daily Sun gathered that the 89 ASUU branches in public universities at their recent National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja rejected the offer.

Rather, the union is insisting on the benchmark proposed by the former chairman of the government’s re-negotiation team, Prof. Nimi Biggs.

ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna told Daily Sun that when the proposed 35 percent salary increase was tabled at the last NEC meeting, the 89 branches rejected the offer.

Speaking specifically on the take home pay of a lecturer, Piwuna said: “The recent offer by the Federal Government to us was a 35 percent increase. When we had our meeting to suspend the warning strike, none of 89 branches accepted the 35 percent increase.

“All the 89 branches of ASUU in Nigeria rejected the 35 percent increase. So, it’s a non-starter for us.

“We have Prof. Nimi Briggs’ benchmark, which we are discussing with them in the team. And we believe that’s what they should use.”

The Briggs renegotiation committee in 2022, recommended a monthly salary of N1.2 million for professors in the Nigerian public university system and the government jettisoned the report.

Professors in the public university system earn less than N500,000 in a month.

In the same year, the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) recommended to the Federal Government an  increase in salary of university professors to N800,000 as against the N1.2 million negotiated by the Nimi Briggs’ committee.

The CVCNU’s recommendation represented a 50 percent salary increase offer as against the increase proposed then by the Federal Government.