The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the Tertiary Institution Loan scheme launched by the Federal Government, describing it as an insult to the sensibilities of tertiary workers and the height of mockery of the Nigerian university system.
The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, recently established the Tertiary Institution Loan Scheme, which offers interest-free loans of up to N10 million to university employees.
The initiative’s goal is to improve employee wellbeing, assist professional development, and promote financial stability, with a one-year moratorium and a maximum five-year repayment schedule.
However, while addressing a press conference in Uyo on Monday, the zonal coordinator of the ASUU, Calabar zone, and senior lecturer in the department of biochemistry, Ebonyi State University, Mr Ikechuku Igwenyi, stated that such a loan is another type of distraction.
The Calabar zone of ASUU includes eight universities, including the University of Calabar, the University of Uyo, Ebonyi State University, and Abia State University.
Others include Cross River State University, Alex Ekweme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, and the University of Education and Entrepreneurship in Akamkpa, Cross River State.
Igwenyi wondered why a government that pays its workforce with an outdated salary structure of more than 17 years refuses to renegotiate the same salary since 2012, and many others could turn around and offer an impoverished worker an impossible and slavish loan in a depressed economy instead of completing the formalities for the implementation of a commensurate salary structure.
He said, “May we inform you that each time we take a bold step to bring government to the dialogue table, the Federal Government will surreptitiously come up with teasers, blackmails and distractions such as the inauguration of the new Renegotiation Panel, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), a salary award that is outside the principles of collective bargaining, palliatives, NELFUND and now, the Tertiary Institution Staff Support Loan Scheme, which is the height of mockery.
“It insults our sensibilities that a government that pays her workforce with an outdated salary structure adopted 17 years ago will refuse to renegotiate the same salary since 2012, when it was due; refuse to pay 3rd party deductions for salaries paid almost a year ago and arrears of promotion; and constitute several Renegotiation Committees, which produced many well-thought-out agreements with MOUs, MOAs and timelines without implementation.
“Unfortunately, the deceit has become a glaring case of puerile duplicity and infantile cunning, as the government ab initio knew they were not going to accept or implement the outcome, yet they dragged the Union and the public into believing that there was a dialogue.
“How would a so-called people-orientated democratic government owe its workforce and turn around to offer the impoverished workers impossible and slavish loans in a depressed economy instead of completing the formalities for implementation of a commensurate salary structure?
“How can a responsible government, in the face of these debts owed to university lecturers, turn around to ask university-based unions to take the responsibility of guaranteeing the loans they know nothing about?
“Which salary structure will be used for the repayment? Where will this huge amount of government money invested in this so-called interest-free loan come from? Why is it difficult for them to use the funds to stabilise the workers through payment of their salaries and improvement of their wages?
“How can the government impose the recovery of this loan on staff unions as guarantors of the loan, as if we are employers of tertiary institution workers? They have succeeded in imposing NELFUND on the system and trapped students in a slavish loan that will cage the future of our children, and having succeeded, they have turned around to tie the hands and brains of their parents with this impossible loan scheme.
“No sensible worker goes for a loan for feeding and domestic expenses if adequately remunerated, except when it becomes the only panacea for hunger and starvation, as they have imposed on us.
“We therefore make bold to reject the Tertiary Institution Staff Support Loan and everything it represents because it has been described as a poison chalice.”
The lecturer stated that the union’s last meeting with the federal government would be on August 28, 2025, and that the union could not spend its hard-earned money on transport for a meeting whose outcome was unpredictable.
