Following the nonpayment of 13-month salaries to workers of the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo (RUGIPO), members of staff of the institution, in this report by ADEWALE MOMOH, disclose how the situation has been bearing its fangs on them with some of their colleagues dying due to inability to buy drugs
For workers of the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, their dreams of getting employed in the public sector where their welfare will be fully guaranteed are fast turning into nightmares.
With over 10 months of salary arrears which the authorities of the institution had been owing the workers, their hopes of providing for their families has begun to dim while some of them had died due to inability to afford drugs to take care of themselves.
The workers who spoke through the Chairman of the institution’s Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics, SSANIP, Comrade Chris Olowolade, lamented that the situation had become unbearable. “The survival of workers for such a long period without salaries is beyond explanation. If it can affect me the way it affected me, to the extent that there was a day I didn’t have a grain of rice in my house, I didn’t have a drop of oil in my house and the gas finished
As big as I am, you will know how others who don’t have the strength and are not in the same position which I occupy would have been affected. So, it is beyond explanation and a precarious situation.
“By God’s grace, we survived the December (Christmas) and New Year celebrations. During the New Year celebration, I didn’t eat chicken or even fish in my house. It was as bad as that! “A lot of us are dying daily. Most of the deaths have been caused by the inability of our members to buy drugs and get medication. The price of some of these drugs is ridiculous.
“We had a month whereby we had 15 deaths on that campus. And all of them were nursing one ailment or the other. They could not get the needed medications that were why most of them died. It is a known fact, not that someone is exaggerating. Once a staffer dies, the union will write to the management the records are there.
The issue is pathetic. “Even, there was a time, we had a whole Deputy Registrar, because of one ailment or the other he died. Had it been, he had money to procure drugs and other medication, we are sure by now he would have been alive. It was a serious situation.
“If anybody is denying the fact, this mere paltry sum of three months that were paid, you will discover that in this January, except those that died, those that were paid, you will see that the death rate will reduce, at least to a certain extent because since the last payment now, we have not recorded any death.
“The last death was the day they paid when a woman got the alert and she passed out when she looked at it because the payment was small compared to all that she had spent.”
The non-payments of the arrears had not too long ago led to a face-off between the management of the institution and the unions where the polytechnic authorities summarily suspended the activities of both SSANIP and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU).
It was learnt that the institution’s management took the decision over a proposed massive protest planned by the workers to express their displeasure at the situation and as well the authoritarian action of the school’s management
The unions had also resolved to resume the earlier suspended industrial action as SSANIP had in a letter dated January 4, 2022, communicated its communiqué to the polytechnic authorities, saying “the congress-in-session resolves to resume the indefinite strike action suspended on Monday November 8, 2021.”
According to SSANIP in the communiqué, its members are languishing in acute pain over 13 months and 35% of salary arrears are owed.
The letter, which was signed by the association’s Chairman and Secretary, Comrade Olowolade Chris and Comrade Ojo Akinyemi, respectively, urged the state government and the RUGIPO management to consider the grouses of the union and do the needful.
However, the management, in a circular also dated January 4 with Ref no AD/130/ VOL/XIII/437, suspended the union for “calling out its members to withdraw their services in the institution until further notice”.
In the circular signed by the institution’s Registrar, Atiku Sule, the management said a meeting was held with the leadership of SSANIP and NASU on Monday, January 3, 2022, over issues bordering on workers’ welfare particularly arrears of salaries being owed and subvention arrears recently approved and released by Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu to the institution.
It further said it was resolved at the said meeting that the released subvention is paid as follows: “35 percent balance for the month of January 2021; 100 percent for the month of February 2021; 100 percent for the month of March. 2021
“This position of the unions is, however, subject to the approval of government that it be used in the defrayment of the same.”
The management, who wondered why the unions would still embark on strike despite the meeting, said: “Activities of the union are hereby suspended forthwith” because the “development which constitutes an obvious threat to the peaceful and smooth-running of the institution.”
Meanwhile, two days after the proscription of the union, the ban was lifted following the intervention of the state government in the crisis. It was learnt that the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Duties and Labour Matters,
Dare Aragbaiaye, who mediated the dispute, urged both the management and unions to sheath their swords. With the lifting of the ban by the institution’s management, the unions equally reciprocated with the suspension of the strike action.
Confirming this, the SSANIP Chairman, said: “The strike had equally been suspended in fulfilment of the agreement reached during the tripartite meeting headed by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Union Matters and Special Duties. “The 13 months’ salary arrears that we were being owed is the main issue but not limited to that alone.
They agreed to offset part of the salaries and they have done so. What they paid will amount to three months’ salaries at a goal. They were parts of the salaries that were paid in percentages before. “Part of the money that they paid to us, 30 percent of January 2021 is inclusive.
Full month of February which is 100 percent and 100 percent of March were paid. Also, 70 percent of April has been paid as well. “At that tripartite meeting, they only attended to the issue of suspension of the union activities and the resumption of workers which is the suspension of the strike action.
That was what the meeting was centred on. All other related issues will be attended to later. “In order to allow the state government to wade into the matter and to give a holistic approach in resolving it, we had to give them a chance.” Speaking on why most of them had continued to stay back in the institution despite the situation,
Olowolade disclosed that: “In the country today, you know that securing employment opportunities is not easy and Rufus Giwa Polytechnic is an old institution established almost 40 years ago. So, most of us are old in that job, you cannot secure permanent employment elsewhere again, except those who were being engaged through the backdoor.
“They were people that were employed in the last three years, where there were no adverts; no interviews either oral or written, except those that are young now, majority of us are old chaps. So, for those of us that are old, transferring our employment is not all that easy. But one or two have left.
“There was a man that was engaged to be in the legal department but he has left the place. We have a lot of lecturers that were given TETFUND study leave abroad and they didn’t return to the country regardless of the bond they signed.
A lot of people have left the system. He further stressed that the three months salaries that were paid had already been exhausted due to outstanding loans and credit facilities they had engaged in during the past month as part of moves to survive.
While appealing to the governor to intervene in the situation, the SSANIP Chairman expressed concern over why the institution paid till only April whereas it had gotten the subvention for August
“And we have expended what we were given. Most of us used the payment to repay loans. Some paid those who had been giving them food and medication on credit. Virtually all of us now are back to square one.
“We are praying and begging the governor to please address the situation. We are aware that subvention had been released to the institution up till August but they paid us up till April. December 2016 and January 2017 have not been paid to workers. So we are still having over eleven months of unpaid salary arrears.
“There was a time it was 14 months. Not that we are comfortable with it but there is nothing we can do. We sympathise with the governor, we discovered that the IGR is dwindling but the worker deserves his wage.
“We are not against the government but we are demanding salaries and wages. If there is anything that is not clear to the government or question they want to ask, they can do that because we cannot explain why we are still in April as regards payment when the subvention of August has been released.”
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