Painful, Abia State Government Intimidates And Turns Abia State University Lecturers To Slaves.
The growth of any society, especially in this digital age, is driven by the quality of education that is available to its members. Educational investment is anchored on quadruplets, the Child, Teacher, Parent, and Government.
For a good quality education to be delivered or achieved, each of the four stakeholders that constitute the quadruplets has a defined role to play. The Child has to be disciplined, submissive and dedicated in order to learn. The Teacher should be equipped with both intellectual and professional acumen, in addition to being passionate about human capacity development. The Parent has both moral and legal obligation to provide a conducive environment for positive upbringing of the Child, including adequate moral and financial support. On the part of Government, it is looked upon to enact laws and formulate policies that have to encourage effective teaching and learning.
Universities are Citadels of Learning. They do not only propel Intellectualism, they, through rigorous researches, could accelerate technological and industrial developments of societies they are located in.
If Universities should live up to their expectations, the Lecturers should be appropriately motivated. They should, at all times, be psychologically stable. University Lecturers should not be paid a salary that can not sustain a family of four; father, mother, and two children, for two weeks.
Once a Lecturer is pushed into a situation of avoidable financial quagmire, the consequences could tell badly on the learning environment, with Students as the likely casualties. It could lead to many attitudinal shortfalls, such as, ill preparations for lectures, exploitative sale of half baked handouts to Students, sale of marks after examinations, and any other untoward behavioural conducts.
It is reported that Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Abia State University Chapter, currently is on an industrial action, after the mandatory 14-day notice it had given the University Authority, which includes Abia State Government which head is the Statutory Visitor to the University, to fulfill agreement ASUU had reached with the Federal Government in 2025 had expired.
According to reports from many sources, it is alleged that Abia State Government has been paying the University Dons based on 2009 FGN-ASUU Salary Agreement, but taxes them based on FGN-ASUU Agreement of 2025.
Reports further state that Abia State University Lecturers are the least paid in Nigeria. It is also said that the problems of the University are made worse by the fact that the State Government did not spare the Institution of an alleged suffocating policy of Treasury Single Account, TSA. This very probable obnoxious financial policy means that every revenue generated by the University, including School Fees paid by Students, have to be paid into the State Government’s Treasury Single Account. This is why, according to reports, the University is so financially and, of course, administratively handicapped that for it to buy even diesel to run its generator, the Authorities must have to go to, Umuahia, no, Nvosi, to get approval.
A renowned Professor of Economics in the University, Nnamdi Chinedu Nwaeze, who, probably out of frustration, is alleged to have drawn the attention of the Public, via his Facebook Page, to the miserable conditions of Lecturers of Abia State University, Uturu, stating that an average ‘tricycle operator who could earn N450,000.00 in a month, earns more than a Professor at Abia State University whose salary is just N400,000.00’, is reported to have been suspended on Thursday (Orie) 13th August, 2026, just a day after the Strike by ABSU Lecturers started.
This dimension is obviously worrisome as the leadership of ASUU in the University is believed to have resolved not to call off the Strike except the suspension of Professor Nwaeze is lifted, even if her main demands are met.
Some observers fear that there is a deliberate policy of witchhunt by the State Government against the Ngwa Academia at ABSU. In the very recent past, it was alleged that a Professor of Ngwa extraction was frustrated to resign from the University, as he missed being sacked by the whiskers.
If this geo-sectional dimension actually plays out in the University, and, by extention, in the State, it would be morally and socially deplorable.
Meanwhile, Equity Global Reporters Ltd wishes to remind the State Government that the Parents of the Students at ABSU are passing through hard times. If the Strike is not quickly resolved, the risk implications would be many. In the first place, it would disorganize the budgetary arrangements of Parents or Guardians.
It would avoidably elongate the duration of Students in the University.
Thirdly, it could create situations in which Students, out of idleness which is the devil’s workshop, could be lured into loose ways of life.
Abia State Government is, therefore, urged to quickly intervene and restore academic activities in the University, without resort to vindictiveness. As the saying goes, the Labourer deserves his wages.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
Sunday( Eke) 16-08-2026.
