The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities on Friday told the Federal Government to disregard the recommendations in the report of the committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian public universities.
The union gave the advice at a lecture organised by the South West Zone of the association.
The lecture, held at the Lagos State University, Ojo, was entitled: “Needs Assessment and Contemporary Issues in Nigerian Public Universities.”
Alfred Jimoh, SSANU’s National Vice-President and Chairman of the South West Zone, said that the report of the Needs Assessment Committee would create problems in the universities, if implemented.
Jimoh noted that the report was one-sided and discriminatory against non-teaching staff as they had no representative in the membership of the committee.
He said it was unreasonable for the committee to recommend that non-teaching staff should be downsized and an embargo placed on employment for the next five years.
He said: “Considering the menace of unemployment in the country, downsizing non-teaching staff is not an option as they would add to the already over-populated unemployed in the society.
“Government should sieve the recommendation of the report and consider only the aspect that deals with the infrastructural decay in the universities.”
Jimoh said the lecture was aimed at sensitizing their members, government and the public on the dangers ahead of implementing such report.
He said: “The team has held the lecture in eight universities already and LASU makes it nine.
“These include Universities of Ibadan, Ilorin, Benin and the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso.
“Others are Delta State University, Abraka, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma and the University of Lagos.”
Jimoh said the implementation of the report by the government could lead to a revolt as some universities had started the implementation of the report.
The SSANU official urged the government to exempt the university system from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System as the policy could not succeed in the sectors where it had been applied.
“Considering the peculiarity of the university, we should be given the time to develop an IPPIS that will be unique to the system,” he said.
Abdussobur Salaam, the Chairman of SSANU at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and who was also the guest lecturer, said that the lecture was designed to analyse the Needs Assessment Report and redefine the issues raised.
Salaam stated that the assertion that more expenditure was incurred in administrative and routine functions than in core academic matters was false because the facts on ground indicated the opposite.
He said: “While the non-teaching staff may actually be more in terms of numbers, the cost implication of catering for academic staff in the universities is more than that of non-teaching staff.
“For instance, the salary of a professor can service the salaries of 20 non-teaching junior administrative staff and senior administrative staff.
“The report failed to objectively and robustly examine the critical human, material and infrastructural need-gaps within the public universities and come up with practicable solutions.”
According to Salaam, the recommendation of the committee as ascribed to the International Best Practices to downsize the non-teaching staff and outsource very few numbers needed, was a fallacy.
He said: “A report from world-class universities in UK, US, Canada, South Africa, among others shows that the non-teaching staff are more in terms of numbers but the cost implication on the academic staff is more.”
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