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The six tertiary institutions owned by Oyo State government at the weekend declared a full-blown indefinite strike. The institutions include The Polytechnic, Ibadan; Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo; Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology; The Ibarapa Polytechnic, Eruwa; The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki and College of Education, Lanlate.
This is coming as workers at The Polytechnic Ibadan, said that the institution has lost about 10 staff due to the fractional payment of 25percent salaries by the State government since November 2015
Addressing journalists shortly after the declaration of the strike, Chairman, Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), The Polytechnic Ibadan chapter, Ibrahim Adekunle Akande while maintaining that the fractional payment which commenced in November 2015 had rendered most staff in the institution useless, however, noted that about 10 staff who are members of various unions in the institution have lost their lives due to the difficulties they face in meeting their daily needs.
According to him, this started in November 2015, the government of the day just woke up one day and slashed our subvention, they have been given us 25 per cent since then, and that 25 per cent is nothing to write home about, we have been suffering, we cannot cope with the financial obligations, our children have been sent out of schools and life has been so miserable for us to live, that is why we converge here and decided that we are going to reject the fractional payment.
“We are going to implement no pay no work because we have suffered a lot. The predicament has turned us to another thing entirely; some of us are just roaming about without being sane.
“Some are paralysed, some have died and in fact, it is worrisome, there is nothing we can do than to reject the payment.
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“Last week Thursday, we meet Commissioner for Education, we discussed, and he told us that they are going to call us for a meeting and since then we have not been able to receive any message from them and you know this what we’re saying is against the Labour law, Labour law states categorically that employee must be paid by the employer as at when due.
“You see, for months no payment, they have breached the contract, they have breached the labour law. They are not up to their standard and that is why we are saying no to the fractional payment.
“And we are not going to call off, we are not going to call off until our money is paid.
“It is in two stages, one is, we have rejected the 25 per cent, we don’t want any fractional payment anymore.
“Two is that we want that subvention to be 100 per cent, we have rejected 25 per cent before we can be talking about arrears. The arrears are going to 15 months and they are not saying anything about this.
“We have recorded no less than 10 or more that have died. Some are having high blood pressure due to non-payment of salaries they cannot buy drugs and some are paralysed, in fact now, there is one of my members that cannot even recognise anybody at all because of stroke.
So many cases like that you know those people who are over 50, one or two will have one ailment or the other, they take drugs regularly, but there is no money to buy it, even to feed their children, there is no money to feed the family, to feed ourselves.
AKINREMI FEYISIPO, IBADAN
