President of the association, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim, made the declaration at a virtual stakeholders forum, organised by the Education Writers Association of Nigeria, EWAN, on Sunday in Lagos.

The forum, which also had Mr Ibeji Nwokoma, President of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational And Associated Institutions, NASU, in attendance, was on “Withheld Salaries vs Labour Crisis”.

The Joint Action Committee, JAC, of affected university labour unions had, on March 18, directed members to down tools, following their four months withheld salaries and the non-implementation of agreement they entered into with the federal government in 2009.

“We had a meeting with representatives of the Federal Government in Abuja on Wednesday and nothing tangible came out concerning the issue.

“Yes, they acknowledged the fact that we were on strike and that the action had paralysed activities on campuses of federal universities.

“So, the meeting was nothing but an appeal to suspend the strike, while they do something as soon as possible.

“Now, just imagine a situation where there is no water, no light, no mobilisation of graduates for NYSC, which are all responsibilities of our members in universities.

“The strike will end by 12 midnight. We’ll go back to our various branches to review the outcome of the warning strike, as well as the recent meeting with the federal government, and from there agree on the next line of action.

“We have given a window to do the needful and failure to meet their own side of the bargain will be met with drastic action,” he warned.

He noted that it was no longer news that government would make promises, only to renege on it, citing the 2009 renegotiation agreement as an instance.

“We have the right to go on strike once we follow the due process. It could be a warning strike just like the one that is ending this night (Sunday).

“No one can stifle us, or stop us from voicing out our pains.

“We could picket our working places. We could also report to work without working and so forth.

“All are lawful in the labour law. So, nobody can take them away from us.

“We are not asking for anything outside our rights. We cannot continue this way, because after all, we too are humans, we are also parents, with bills to pay and mouths to feed,” he said.

The union leader blamed the present state of things on the government’s attitude toward the education sector.

He said that members of unions were pained using strike as a last resort to drive home their demands, considering the impact it normally had on the students.

“It is not that the university workers including SSANU like to go on strike, it is the government that always pushes us to apply that sanction. It is unfortunate for the government to take serious matters with levity.

“Members of our various unions are very critical in the running of any given university system. We should be taken seriously, whenever we make demands like our counterpart union in the same system.

“We deserve to be treated equally. There should be no preferential treatment. For government not to have paid us the withheld salaries like our sister union, ASUU, is a great disservice to us.

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“I want to say that we will continue to fight against this injustice until the right thing is done,” he said.

He said that the best way to prevent incessant strikes in the entire education sector was to fund it adequately.

“If you spend well in education, you spend less fighting insecurity, hunger, poverty and others. Government should take a cue from other climes.

“So, the panacea to ending crisis in Nigerian universities, in fact, in the entire sector, is funding and more funding ,” he stated.

He noted that since the struggle by members of the various unions to get government to do the needful, many of them had lost their lives in the last one and half years, due to lack of funds to access good healthcare.

Mohammed also decried the issue of non-autonomy in the university system, adding that the situation was creating issues for the smooth operation of the system.

He urged government to ensure that appointment of vice chancellors and principal officers of universities, especially the federal ones, should be based solely on merit, rather than through what he described as ‘godfatherism’.

The SSANU leader said that same must be applied to appointment of members of Governing Councils across board.

Source: NAN

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The local currency dropped by 40.78 per cent when compared with N471.67 it exchanged for the dollar on Tuesday.

The depreciation followed the directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to banks to remove the rate cap on the Naira at the investors and exporters’ Window.

The directive would allow for a free float of the nation currency against the dollar and other global currencies.

The open indicative rate stood at N473.83 to the dollar on Wednesday.

An exchange rate of N791 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded within the day’s trading before it settled at N664.04.

The Naira sold for as low as 461 to the dollar within the day’s trading.

A total of 193.33 million dollars was traded at the official investors and exporters window on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Prof. Ndubisi Nwokoma, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Analysis and Research, University of Lagos, said the CBN directive for a free float of the Naira was a good development.

“The CBN decision is a good development, hoping that unnecessary arbitrage (round tripping) would be eliminated from the market.

“We expect that the foreign exchange rate will trend downwards when foreign capital inflow increases, following from these.

“The negative side is that many assets or foreign sector related to Naira prices, like external debt, among others, will be adjusted upwards with some minimal effects on inflation.

“Inflationary effects may not be much, given that many economic agents had been sourcing for their foreign exchange at the parallel market before now,” he said.

Source: NAN

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The figure represented a decrease of 0.42 per cent compared with the N428.88 it exchanged for the dollar on Monday.

The open indicative rate closed at N427.75 to the dollar on Tuesday.

An exchange rate of N444 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded within the day’s trading before it settled at N430.67

The Naira sold for as low as N415 to the dollar within the day’s trading.

A total of 158.68 million dollars was traded in foreign exchange at the official Investors and Exporters’ window on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, some financial experts have described as ‘worrisome’ the unwholesome depreciation of the nation’s currency.

The experts who expressed their concern in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Lagos, urged the federal government to save the local currency by addressing the rising inflation and other causative factors.

The experts said that the persistent fall experienced by the nation’s currency due to the rising inflation had reduced its purchasing power and made people to lose confidence in the domestic currency.

Uche Uwaleke, a Professor of Capital Market, urged the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to deal with the inflation challenge driven largely by cost-push factors.

Uwaleke urged the apex bank to ensure increased power supply through decentralisation and encouraging mini and off-grids solutions.

“Ensuring availability of petroleum products by decentralising refining, encouraging modular refineries and privatising government refineries will reduce the huge foreign exchange that is spent on fuel imports,” he said.

Uwaleke also enjoined the apex bank to scale up its development finance interventions in agriculture and MSMEs after a thorough evaluation of existing ones in order to boost non-oil exports.

He urged the CBN to work with other stakeholders such as the Nigeria Ports Authority and customs, among others to accelerate the implementation of the RT $200 billion programme.

He said: “Given that the surge in demand is largely speculative, the CBN can quickly restore confidence and allay fears by increasing the level of interventions in the foreign exchange market in view of the relatively huge external reserves (about $40 billion) at its disposal.”

He enjoined the National Assembly to make a law that would prohibit public office holders from sending their children/wards abroad for education in order to conserve foreign exchange.

Also, Sheriffdeen Tella, a Professor of Economics at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun, said to salvage the local currency, “we have to stop payment for imports till we are sure of what we are paying for.”

“Nobody should be allowed to pay for local items in foreign currencies like paying local footballers in dollars for winning local leagues,” Tella said.

Ndubisi Nwokoma, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Analysis and Research, CEPAR, stressed the need to minimise political interference in the allocation of foreign exchange and deal directly with the end-users to address the free fall of the Naira.

Nwokoma said that government must address the issue of oil theft by ensuring that all oil export proceeds were remitted to the CBN.

He also stressed the need to stimulate non-oil exports and discourage use of dollars in electioneering.

Source: NAN

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