 Welcome back to the Breakfast in Plus TV Africa. Let's look at the issue of ASU and the salary and areas. The Academic Staff Union of Universities have received full salary for the month of November that's 2022. A senior member of the union at Bayaro University, Kano Meth is known in an interview. However, he said that the federal government refused to pay lecturers for eight months in which the union and back done strike. In October 2022, they were also paid pro-rata, that's half pay, according to the Minister of Labor and Employment Chris Ngige. Lecturers across the country have been protesting against the decision by the federal government. Meanwhile, the National Executive Council of the Union is expected to hold a crucial meeting in the coming days over the withheld salaries. We have Dr. Pita Ogondoro, an educationalist, a research and leader of Nigerian teachers, an online community of over 470,000 members. Ogondoro, it's good to have you join us. It's my pleasure. So quickly, how do you respond and react to this? What do you make of the situation? The government had asked the people to go back to the classrooms, these lecturers, that they were going to leave up to expectation, pay everything. And then the teachers honored the invitation. There was also even a court's order, which they respected. And now, you know, the government has paid salaries, but withholding arrears for eight months. The government is acting as a bully and that's irresponsible behavior. And the government is teaching the rest of us bad habits, bad attitudes. The government is telling the rest of the employers in our country that they can do anything they like with their employees and get away with it. The government, as we know, is Nigeria's biggest employer and is a kind of role model. So whatever the government does, it's likely to be what other employers are likely to copy. So I think that this is very unfortunate for all. The government hasn't yet recognized that education truly is a bad rock of development. And if we continue to toy with the people who operate in the higher education realm, we are actually trying in a very terrible way with the future of our country. Because you need great ideas. You need ideas that those who operate in the average hours produce to be able to deal with the enormous development challenges that confront Nigeria. Unfortunately for us, the politicians who are in our country obviously in the trades, they don't understand these things. And because they do not wear the shoe and therefore do not know where it pinches, they are not able to find themselves to be under pressure to fix the education problems that confront our country. Of course, you know that their own children are not here. They are all training abroad and they are putting the dollars that we do not have to keep their children in places where they get the best education, hoping that they will come back and control the rest of us. So definitely this is irresponsible behavior. And we are encouraging these highly skilled people to leave the shores of Nigeria and go out and work in center countries, which I think is a very unfortunate situation for us as a country. So in all of this, what options do you think is left for Asu? And her members? Well, now that it's obvious that the government is a bully, you know that the government is not just an employer. The government is also a regulator and of course a law enforcer. They have used the instrument of the court to compel university lecturers to return to the classroom. And so when you are dealing with the bully who seems to be omnipotent, you have to devise very crafty and innovative ways to take care of yourself. And so what the lecturers are going to do is to also withhold their knowledge. They might pretend to be in the classroom, but they will not be delivering the knowledge that we need to be competitive as a nation. That's option one. Option two is for those who definitely have skills that are in demand in center countries, they would get out of our country and they are living in droves. Those who are in the health sector, whether they teach in universities or work in hospitals are already living in droves. So we are likely to get to a point within the next one year where even when the government begins to behave responsibly, they will not find people who will trust them enough to want to pick up employment in the high education sector. So this is a very sorry state for Nigeria. It's a very unfortunate situation where you have found ourselves in. Even if it's a sacrifice, the government should make it and pay university lecturers the money that is due to them. They should know if they are trained in industrial relations that this is what always happens when workers embark on industrial action, especially the kind that we have seen in the past eight months. These lecturers went on strike not in any responsible way. They gave notice, government put pain on paper, reached agreements with lecturers and they unfortunately failed to play according to the agreements. And then lecturers after two notice went on strike and you are refusing to give them that which is due to them. I think that we are doing Nigeria pick the surface and this pollution is said if we have a way and we are willing to try, we should then sweep them out of the places where they are. So but let's also look at some of the concerns that the government has raised over time. First of all, he said that it doesn't have resources, no funds to meet the demands of us. Don't you think that this is valid? Especially when we look at the zero remittance to the federation account where we can actually say that we are highly dependent on oil as an ending. We haven't been remitting nothing. And that's on the one hand. So if you look at the current economic situation, don't you think that government doesn't really have resources and funds to meet the demands of us? We'll probably pay the areas. Well, that's very logical. Tell me, supposing the strike didn't happen, wouldn't we have paid salary for those eight months? And education is not a sector that is expected to generate funds to pick up the bills that attend to the matters that happen in the education space. So if those lecturers didn't go on strike and they were teaching for those eight months, wouldn't they have been paid their salaries? The money that was budgeted for that sector, for that particular cost element, to take care of those eight months, what happened to that money? Was it not there? What happened to it? Who has used it to do something else? Who is that person? What's that person's name? And which bank is holding that money? We call it a subvention. Every month a certain amount of money is supposed to be allocated to universities and through the National Universities Commission. That money certainly was allocated by parliament last year. What happened to it? What have we used it to do? Has somebody probably put it in a fixed opposite account and is you didn't interest and we don't seem to know what they want to use that interest to do. So we shouldn't engage in this kind of irresponsible argument. We are behaving irresponsibly as a country and I think that parents are also behaving irresponsibly. Everybody seems to be thinking that as members are they are the problem. By the time all of them leave Nigeria and go to work in some other countries, that's when it will turn on all of us that we have not done ourselves any favor. So but how do we solve this issue? Like what exactly can we do to need the issue in the board for once and for all? Strike the back and forth with ASU. What exactly do we need to do? Whatever they have, whoever is holding the money for those eight months should bring it out. Let them pay and pay now. That's one. Two, for the longer term and to be able to pay on a sustainable basis, we should certainly sit down and agree with all the stakeholders in the industry as to how we are going to be able to deal with the expenses in the sector on a sustainable basis. The current model is not working where government is not going to be able to deliver on a sustainable basis because they are not charging parents for the kind of education that we want our children to receive. And so we have to engage in proper communication that will enable parents to commit to paying school fees in federal schools. The current model where the pay almost nothing is not working and we have to face that reality. And the politicians should stop being afraid. The thinking is that if we ask parents to pay for their children to receive good education in federal universities that they will not give them the votes anymore. But that's irresponsible behaviour and that's selfishness. Why are we worried more about the votes that will come in the future rather than the education we should give our children now that will help our country to move forward economically, socially, politically and technologically? So I think that we need to think better. We should stop worrying about votes and think more about development. And that's how people who have played as politicians in other countries have thought about the development of their countries and that's how come they have moved forward. So let's do the needful and do it very urgently because it's getting late for us. So many people are living in our country, people who have skills and this place has become very, very unattractive. Security challenges are there. Now we are adding the absence of pay for work that we have committed to. We are creating more and more problems that we may not be able to resolve in the next 50 years. All right, then Dr Pitao Gundura we have to go now. Thank you so much for being part of the show. We appreciate your time. It's my pleasure. And we just hope that our leaders and those according to him who are holding the funds and the money would release it. So there will be national peace. Dr Pitao Gundura is an educationalist. He is a research and leader of the Nigerian teachers online community of over 470,000 members. That's it. That's the science of a conversation on the breakfast. We'll join the newsroom at nine o'clock for the new spring. And if you miss out on a conversation it will be all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel who are plus TV Africa and plus TV Africa lifestyle. My name is Messier Bookmore. Do have a fantastic morning.