01 Nov 2009 |
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Insensitivity And The impending Explosion in UNN We have not been paid in the last four months; about 500 of us have been sacked in the last five months. My kids are presently out of school on account of non-payment of school fees and other sundry levies. I now rely on loans and handouts from relatives to be able to feed my family- once a day- at night mostly. During the day, anybody can make do with whatever comes his way. My husband is late and the burden of providing for the family rest firmly on my tiny shoulders. You people should help us talk to the authorities. We are suffering on this job. What they pay us in good times is hardly enough to sustain one person for a full month- talk less a woman that has a family to cater for. Imagine then our plight when for four long months, this pittance is yet to get into our hands. The following were revelations made to me this morning by one of the cleaners working at the Nkrumah Hall here in the University of Nigeria Nsukka. I was moved into engaging this woman in a brief conversation that turned out to be lengthy by her unusually sad face. How you dey madam? I asked her. Bros, you don see me now; na too much suffer suffer one dey suffer here. Dem no dey pay us. We sef, we even lucky, say them no sack us; dem don pursue 500 of our people comot. Why? I asked her. Dem say money no dey. How much dem dey pay una? Oga na only N5000 a month. She told me. How una dey manage now? Oga na God. We dey do some kin small small work for our farms, na there we dey get little money take dey feed our family…. In the present day Nigeria- this is hardly a new story. Non-payment of salaries and other entitlements which would attract widespread furry in other climes are no big issues here. The civilian regime is as guilty as their military colleagues. Here, workers both in public and private sectors are owed as much as nine month salary arrears and nobody understands that to mean anything strange. Absurdity, in the words of Okey Ndibe makes sense in Nigeria. We shall dwell less on the myriad of problems facing the average employee here in the country. There are many and we shall miss the point of this piece if we make any attempt at comprehensive discourse. Suffice it to add that many of those who dress in good and not-so good looking clothes to leave for various places of work each morning are not in any fundamental sense different from those who queue up as unemployed. Teachers in Nigeria often complain of being owed backlog of salary arrears- (like is the case in Abia State right now where teachers and others in the state civil service are being owed over five months of accumulated salary). Some regular employees in today’s Nigeria take home as little as N7, 000 monthly. Anyone who wants to understand why the civil service in the country reeks of unthinkable corruption should seriously study the role of poor and irregular remuneration in it. I would suggest to labor unions in the country to begin serious agitations to up the minimum wage to N100, 000. Yes, seven hundred and fifty US dollars monthly. The current demand for N52, 500 is less than adequate. In addition, they should force the greedy-self seeking bunch at the national assembly to- if and whenever they wake up from their irritating slumber enact a law that would make it a punishable offence to owe any worker whence payment is due. That might actually help reduce the present enslavement of the Nigerian working class by those who fatten at others’ misery. We now move straight to an issue I have set out this morning to address: the impending disaster threatening to tear down the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Here’s a grim report from a close observer: for the past one week, the taps have gone dry; toilets and bathrooms are now washed sparingly; the environment littered with all sorts of refuse. According to this source, the students now stream to fetch water each morning from the swimming pool some distance away for their morning bath before hurrying off to lectures. Why have the SUG officials not protested I asked rhetorically. They are dead! He said with a straight face. The only serious thing going on in most circles in the school presently is rumor. Rumors of increase in school fees, increment in the hostel levy, sacking of more staffers and demolition of some structures designated as illegal. He continued: It’s a sad that the SUG officials in UNN have failed to make any pretence of representing the students by taking their pains to the relevant quarters. That would have been a minimum expectation. He alerted me that the average student spend sixty minutes on the minimum in an attempt to get a bucket of water from the tanks where less than 1000 liters of water is supplied to over 3000 students- if at all supply is made. He ended on this note: there’s anger all over the school right now. We all are angry. What likely may follow this is what no one can likely foretell exactly but one may hazard that whatever it becomes, it certainly shall be less than pleasant to those who delight in inflicting anguish on those whose welfare they should take care of.
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