Gabriel Dike
Certainly, this is not the best of time for the 40-year-old Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) as the staff unions are up in arms against management over the implementation of the contentious Consolidated Tertiary Institution Salary Structure (CONTISS 15) migration.
In the last three years, the management of LASPOTECH and the three staff unions have been at loggerhead over the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration leading to series of industrial actions.
Since January 2019, the main campus has been turned to a war zone over the agitation against what the unions termed wrong implementation of CONTISS 15 migration by the management.
Investigations by The Education Report revealed that the current agitation by the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP), the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and a section of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has forced the Rector, Dr. Samuel Sogunro and other principal officers to stay away from the campus in the last two months. The unions have vowed to prevent them from entering the campus.
A major casualty of the ongoing three-month strike is the matriculation ceremony for newly admitted students, National Diploma and Higher National Diploma which failed to hold last month (February) because of the situation on campus.
Also, the convocation ceremony is another major victim as the event did not take place last week. The two staff unions had vowed to disrupt the ceremony.
When our Correspondent visited the Ikorodu campus, there were signs of trouble in the air as armed policemen in seven police vans and a truck were stationed at the main entrance while plain cloth detectives monitored the situation inside the campus.
The presence of the security personnel did not deter the aggrieved staff from gathering near the polytechnic sports complex, close to the main gate. After about two hours of discussion, news reached the unions that the Rector, Mr. Sogunro was in his office.
The striking workers decided to storm the rector’s office but first they picketed some offices, especially the Works and Services Unit to chase out some members found in the offices.
At the Library Complex that also serves as Sogunro office, the workers accosted the security men on duty and demanded the whereabouts of the rector. For over four hours they remained in front of his office.
Genesis of the crisis
The two unions, in a statement said “before 2015, LASPOTECH has always been adjudged as the most peaceful institution in the country. Unfortunately, the resumption of Mr. Sogunro led administration has turned this peaceful accolade into a tumultuous agony. The over three years deep rooted crisis that engulfed the institution since 2015 when Sogunro resumed as the rector is due to the highhandedness, vindictiveness, zero tolerance for alternative views, financial recklessness and lack of administrative skill and his management team.
“We are not surprised at Sogunro’s display of arrogance and tyrannical tendencies, his antecedence speaks volume. Unfortunately, the staff members do not have any contribution to the process that produce a rector for the polytechnic, otherwise, someone like him; throughout his time as a junior lecturer till he rose to the pinnacle of his career as a chief lecturer could not have passed the test within the community for the position of a rector. Sogunro twice lost elections to represent the congregation on the Governing Council of the polytechnic (the 9th and 10th Governing Council).’’
Reversal of CONTISS 15 implementation
The statement titled: “LASPOTECH on the brink of collapse’’ co-igned by SSANIP and NASU chairmen, Mr. Abiodun Awoyemi and Mr. Semiu Fasasi respectively, said against NBTE directives and conditions for the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration as implemented in October 2016, the Sogunro-led management reversed the implementation in January 2019 for all staff on CONTISS 11 and below to pre-migration status (September 2016) and beyond.
The unions disclosed that the newly engaged 89 staff who were employed based on the advertised migrated salary scheme were not spared; also, officers on levels 13 and above across academics and non-academics were equally demoted, adding ‘’a rough estimate shows that over 800 staff members were affected with many going home with negative salaries’’.
They accused the rector of interdicting and suspending staff without following due process because of the CONTISS 15 migration struggle. The unions alleged that the vice chairman of SSANIP and the polytechnic Pharmacist, Oluseye Ero-Phillips, SSANIP chairman, Mr. Awoyemi, immediate past NASU chairman, Mr. Ogungbayibi Adebayo, Treasurer of SSANIP, Mr. Ayanda Abiodun, Mr. Ibuowo Jelili, Mr. Adeniji Yusuf, Mr. Abimbola Alawada, Mr. Samuel Ogunsanya and four others in Mass Communication were demoted based on the wrong implementation of CONTISS 15 by the management.
Sack of union leaders
The NASU chairman, Mr. Semiu Fasasi, his Secretary, Mrs. Ogunbambi Muinat, Mrs. Oluwayemisi Olabisi and Mrs. Abiola Afolabi became the first causality of the on going three-month-old strike as they were sacked and paid one month in lieu. The letter of disengagement of NASU chairman and Secretary was sent via WhatsApp and the affected staffs were barred from entering the polytechnic.
The unions said aside employing his relations and friends to juice positions, they alleged that Sogunro and the governing council members collect N100, 000 as court sitting allowance, refused to comply with the provisions of the Senior Staff Conditions of Service for the appointment of deans, lecturers were made to contribute personal funds towards the accreditation despite the receipt of N750million for the exercise, incessant threat to disengage staff, purchase from black market of 35 pump action riffles (a prohibited item under Act 2004) at N6.4million, one of the gun was used to kill Ahmed Amoo, ND 11 student of Mass Communication Department.
Other issues raised include denial of study leave and access to TEFUND grants to vice chairman of ASUP, Salami Olugbenga to pursue his PhD, undue promotion of a staff as chief lecturer in 2014 while outside the country on study leave for his Msc programme, concession of ICT Centre for N250million without due process, stoppage of check-off dues for NASU and ASUP since 2017, employing a dismissed rector in the School of Agriculture, abolished staff welfare and housing/furniture loans, medical facilities limited to consultations and withdrew eye test/treatment for drivers.
As a way out of the current crisis, the unions called on the state government to sack the Sogunro-led administration and members of the 11the governing council.
Polytechnic management reactions
Deputy Registrar, Information and Public Relations, Mr. Olanrewaju Kuye, acknowledged that the agitation for the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration by the three staff unions is an issue that has thrown the polytechnic into unrest since 2016.
Kuye explained that CONTISS 15 migration is the movement of staff from one salary grade level to the next level, provided the staff meets the necessary conditions stipulated by the NBTE such as the staff must have been employed before 1st August 2009, the staff must possess the basic academic/professional or both qualifications applicable to his/her competence in addition to compliance to institutional policy and such a staff must have spent a minimum of two years on the current position before the year of migration.
According to him, the lawlessness of the three staff unions and threats to the lives of members of the governing council and the principal officers of LASPOTECH got to a peak during a session of the council meeting.
His words: “The council members were rounded up and locked up at the Board Room with threats to set ablaze the entire building with the members inside. Charms were freely displayed and urine poured on the heads of elderly council members sent to appeal to them. Power supply was cut off and all members’ cars vandalised.’’
He said the office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education in order to save lives and property, directed the governing council to implement the CONTISS 15 migration scheme in order to pacify the union members that held the council members hostage for several hours, stating, the implementation was on the terms presented by the three staff unions which was later found to be defective.
“The faulty implementation of the CONTISS 15 started immediately in October, 2016, notwithstanding, the three staff unions continued to agitate for the payment of the 87 months arrears calculated to N1.7billion which was a financial burden to accommodate.’’
Kuye disclosed that LASPOTECH management sent two members of staff (a deputy registrar and a union member) to NBTE in Kaduna to seek clarification on the policy implementation of CONTISS 15 migration. Both returned with conflicting reports.
“The representative of the unions came with a point to point movement implementation which was their position for October 2016 defective implementation, while the representative of management insisted that the implementation was to be in line with the normal promotional movement as it was done in 2004 when the polytechnic implemented the alignment of nomenclature policy of 1998 of Lagos State Government.
“Based on the conflicting positions of the representatives, the office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education wrote directly to NBTE, seeking clarification on the implementation of the said NBTE guidelines. The board, in response, sent the policy guidelines directly to the office of the SAE’’, he stated.
Kuye said the SAE sent the policy document to council which set up a committee with representatives from council, management and the three staff unions to consider the document as directed by the state government.
Said he: “At the said meeting, the unions insisted that the polytechnic should implement the NBTE CONTISS 15 migration guidelines holistically even though management and council were not favourably disposed to the unions position for they believed that it should only be for officers on CONTISS 11 downwards and CONTISS 12 upwards (where necessary) according to NBTE. To give peace a chance again the council/ management obliged.”
Kuye denied that any staff of the polytechnic was demoted as claimed by the unions as regards the implementation of CONTISS 15 migration.
On the sack of the four union leaders, Kuye told The Education Report that they were disengaged from the services of the polytechnic and not for union activities and also defended the management’s decision to ask the affected staff to stay off the campus.
Kuye confirmed that the rector and other principal officers after their harassment in January have not being allowed into the campus by the aggrieved staff unions, stating that “they are monitoring our offices and have threatened to kill some of us.’’
Stakeholders are of the view that it is only the governor that can resolve the current crisis in LASPOTECH. With the general election over, they expect Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to pay attention to happenings in the institution.