THE Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics has said that it will meet with the federal government on Wednesday or Thursday this week.
This is in connection with the ongoing strike which the union started on April 6, 2021.
President of ASUP, Mr Anderson Ezeibe, in an interview said the only thing the government had been able to attend to due to their strike was the setting up of governing councils for all federal government polytechnics, adding that the state government polytechnics’ had yet to be set up.
“For now the only thing that has happened is that the governing council has been set up last week Thursday. That is the only significant thing that has taken place so far. We are looking forward to some meetings with them on Wednesday or Thursday this week. The council is for the federal polytechnics, the state polytechnics are still having issues due to the constitution of the governing council despite the fact that their laws provide for such. The school owned by the Ogun State Government, Moshood Abiola University, Edo State Polytechnic, Romans Polytechnic in Bornu state does not have governing councils since 2012. This minimum wage is about N4bn.
“We believe the government can fund this through other funding windows, then the revitalisation fund of 25bn they can get a funding window for the same way they got for the universities,” Ezeibe said.
Ezeibe also called for the reversal of the appointments of five rectors who were recently appointed by the Federal Government.
He explained that it was unacceptable for the government to ignore the polytechnic acts on the qualifications for the persons who would be rectors.
Ezeibe added that just two days into the strike, the government suddenly came out with the lists without heeding their call for standard.
The five Federal Polytechnics which had unqualified rectors according to ASUP were, Ohodo (Enugu), Ugep (Cross River), Shendam (Plateau), Monguno (Borno) and Wannune (Benue).
“The appointment of unqualified persons as rectors is unacceptable; the polytechnic act has provided the qualification for the persons who will be rectors of polytechnics, we don’t see the reason the government will be doing something different; five out of the six who were recently appointed do not fit into the qualification for those that will be rectors of the polytechnic. So, we are saying that those appointments should be reversed. This is going to be the number one item of discussion, we need the government to demonstrate some measure of seriousness in tackling the issue by accepting that you have done something wrong and reverse it where necessary.
“The laws provide that the rector shall be a chief lecturer of a minimum of five years as a polytechnic lecturer but they went to get a professor in the university, is he a chief lecturer?”
Source: https://franktalknow.com/
