73 days after, Nigeria’s research institutes still grounded by strike

.Strike may cause food scarcity next year – ASURI National scribe

Activities at Nigeria’s 26 research institutes have remained grounded following an industrial action by workers under the aegis of Joint Research and Allied Institutions Sector Union (JORAISU) for 73 days.

JORAISU, the umbrella body for the three trade unions in Nigeria’s research institutes namely: National Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Associated Institution (SSAUTHRIAI) and Academic Staff Union of Research Institutes, embarked on an indefinite strike on November 14, 2017.

The strike, according to a statement by JORAISU, was provoked by the failure of Federal Government to keep its part of an agreement reached with the body over unpaid 12 months arrears and other issues since 2011.

The unresolvedssues include payment of 53.7% salary increase, withdrawal of circular on non-skipping of salary grade level 10 retirement of 65 years for non-research staff as obtainable in the universities, peculiar allowances, and adequate funding of research institutes, among others.

Before now, 23 meetings with the Federal Government had been held from April 29, 2010 to November 14, 2016 and a total of 140 days ultimatum had been issued by JORAISU, the letter further revealed.

Meanwhile, a visit to the Ibadan office of the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) revealed that there was total compliance among the senior staff. But junior staff were seen carrying out essential services like wetting cocoa plants.

The situation was totally different at the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Lagos. Offices were locked and the silence was similar to that of a graveyard.

The situation was not different at the Centre For Management and Development at Magodo, Meanwhile, researchers in Nigeria’s research institutes have expressed readiness to give everything to the battle to make research institutes in Nigeria come alive. For them, the time is ripe for Nigeria to take its pride of place among comity of nations.

Commenting on the matters that have kept researchers away from work for more than two months, the branch Chairman of ASURI at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) Lagos, Dr. Amoo Olufemi, said: “There is no strong agreement with government yet. We are a very responsible union. What we are looking for is how to make research better because for Nigeria’s economy to grow, research is key. Research and development have been neglected, and that is why we are still in the dark. Check the budgetary allocation, how much was devoted to research and development? Nothing. “

He continued: “We keep importing everything. We just want Nigeria to move from this spot to the next level, and the only way we can do that is through research. It’s not about arrears alone. It’s about giving research priority so that Nigeria can be economically buoyant.’’

For Dr. Aroyeun Oluwasegun, a deputy director at CRIN, there is no end in sight to the industrial action as it may last longer than four months. He said the payment was not captured in 2018 budget.

Oluwasegun added that other issues can be resolved when arrears owed are paid as researchers fund research by themselves for now.

According to Theophilus Ndubuaku, ASURI National Secretary, most researchers in Nigeria are poor because they spend a fortune on research. He added that getting promotion is tied to research.

He said, “Researchers use half of their salaries to do research so that they can get results which they can present to get promotion. You must use your money to fund your training, else you will stagnate for 15 to 20 years on one salary. To publish a paper alone, you must have N100,000. And now to conduct research to produce the paper, you must spend hundreds of thousands of naira”.

The ASURI National Secretary warned that due to the current industrial action by researchers in Nigeria’s 26 research institutions, another food crisis looms next year.

His words: “This country may experience another recession because of this strike. Nobody is observing it. The result will come out in the next one year when the farmers will tell you that they couldn’t get maize to plant because the institutions that are supposed to raise maize seedlings, okra seedlings, cocoa seedlings, oil palm seedlings for this period of time time were not doing anything.

“This is the time to raise seedlings for farmers to plant in their farms. The implication will be that there will be no crops because there was nothing planted. For instance, every oil palm seedling in this country, if it must be a good oil palm, the seed that you will plant, the hybrid, must be produced in national institute of oil palm research. If you want a good high yielding cocoa variety, you must go through cocoa research where they do cross fertilization and produce the seed. Seed production now has been scientifically manipulated that it is not good enough.

Meanwhile, the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Ondo State University of Science and Technology and Deputy Director at FIIRO, Oshodi Lago, Prof. Kunle Teniola, has traced Nigeria’s retarded economic growth and the alarming rate of unemployment to the lip service paid by successive governments to research.

His words: “By paying lip service to research, the country will experience retarded growth with little or no development. It means depending on other countries and their technologies. There will be scarcity of home grown technologies tailored to solving problems directly. We only manage other people’s way of life instead of improving our lifestyle or traditional products”.

“No wonder, many of our traditional foods and medicinal drugs have been lost to foreign substitutes. The result is obvious economically. It is also responsible for high rate of unemployment.”

Meanwhile, the Secretary of NASU, FIIRO chapter, Mr. Kehinde Michael, has said that the appeal by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, to researchers to go back to work while the issues raised by the researchers on strike can’t be considered, saying that it is a case of once bitten, twice shy

Ladesope Ladelokun, Lagos