Earned Allowance: N23m is too meagre for UNILAG non- teaching staff-VC

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has said that the N23 million allocated to the non-academic staff of the institution as their earned allowance is grossly inadequate.
Ogundipe told our correspondent in a chat that the N23million was “too meagre” to meet the needs of the different non-academic staff unions at UNILAG.
The Federal Government had last year released the sum of N23billion to public universities as earned allowance with the lecturers under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities receiving about 75 per cent of the funds and the non-teaching staff, only 25 per cent.
The earned allowance was part of the N220 billion the government pledged to the higher institutions, which is an integral part of a resolution reached to address the last strike embarked upon by both the academic and non-academic unions over the non-implementation of previous agreements reached with them by the FG.
According to the UNILAG VC, “What is the rationale for sharing, because N23million for a first generation university like University of Lagos, where a second generation university is getting more than N300million and another first generation like ours got 105million naira?”
The VC, however, denied allegations by the unions that he was using the police to compel them to end the strike.
The union had said that the management, in its attempt to frustrate the ongoing peaceful national strike at the local branch, had employed coercion by intimidating members of the unions, especially those in the Admission Office, School of Postgraduate Studies and Students Affairs, to go back to work; thereby infringing on their rights.
“I am not sending police men after anybody. What I’m interested in is for us to run a stable calendar and also have a conducive environment, without anybody being attacked or harassed,” the VC said.
Ogundipe said as the union leaders account to their followers, he’s also answerable to the government.
The VC said, “Anyone following the event knows I have been commending the union in UNILAG, that they have been considerate, unlike what we have in other universities, where they shut down the system.
“What happened on Monday, last week is quite unfortunate, but we are managing it and at the end, all of us will come together and resolve it because we are all stakeholders of the institution.”
On his plan for the university, the new VC said the institution would start rebranding soon and this would include research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
“We are going to encourage our staff to put in more efforts to attract research grants, innovation, which comes from research and through entrepreneur. We want our students to be relevant, not in Africa alone but in the world,”
he said.