Research Scientists protest against HoS for non-release of Conditions of service in past 15 years

The Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI) on Friday massively protested against the Head of Service (HoS) Mrs Folashade Edun for the non-release of Conditions of Service and Scheme of Service for the past 15 years.

Leading the protest to the Office of the Head of Service in Abuja, the National Secretary General of the Union, Dr. Theophilus Ndubuaku, the National Treasurer and National Auditor with other principal officers of the Union lamented the power play that the HoS got herself involved at the expense of the much needed researches in Nigeria.

Speaking with journalists who monitored the protest in Abuja, the researchers accused the Head of Service of frustrating their activities, saying that the likes of the Head of Service were responsible for underdevelopment of the country.

His words: “The protest.is like coming to the Court of Public opinion. We are protesting in front of the Head of Service and am sure the Head of Service and the functionaries of government are all seeing us. As you can see the banner, he had negotiations that has last d for 15 years and what are we negotiating, the conditions of service and scheme of Service for research institutions in Nigeria.

“Now, it sounds so unbelievable that a country of over 200 million people that is hungry for development; that the research Scientists in the research sector doesn’t have any reliable conditions of service. So the government took us to 15 years of negotiations, something that shouldn’t take us for 6 months.

“After 15 years, we all arrived at what should be the condition of Service for Research Institutions and that is left for the Head of Service to release and the Head of Service released it to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the Ministry of Labour circulated it.

“As I speak with you now, the Presidency is operating that scheme of Service; the Ministry of Science and Technology that has more Research Institutions than any other Ministry is operating the condition of Service, but the Ministry of Agriculture said they will not accept that condition of Service which they coordinated the negotiations over 15 years. That they will not accept it of the Head of Service doesn’t send it directly to them and not through the Ministry of Labour.

“Don’t forget that it is the Ministry of Labour that bring Unions and government together to resolve labour issues. They were the one that initiated the negotiation and handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture to coordinate. They now surprisingly said, they will not accept it except, it comes directly from the Head of Service.

“So, the Ministry of Labour called a meeting about one ago which was attended by the presidency, the Labour, CSOs and others and it was agreed that the Head of Service should send the new scheme of Service directly to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.

“But the Head of Service hasn’t done that for over one year and that’s not all, when the Head of Service released the condition of Service, they also supposed to release the scheme of Service, so the research Institutions in the Presidency, the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology and a host of others have been waiting for the Head of Service to release the Scheme of Service which has been completed with the Conditions of Service.

“So we all have a situation where we are operating a condition of Service without the accompanying scheme of Service and we don’t just understand. We have written to the Head of Service for an audience and they didn’t acknowledge or reply to the letter.”

ASURI insisted that there was power play over the conditions and scheme of Service which Mrs Folashade Edun was deeply involved in, a development, they said, has hampered the development of the nation.

“We don’t understand the kind of power play that is going on in this country. How can presidency be implementing a document and a Ministry will not and this a country of over 200 million people that is in a state of distress.

“Now everybody knows that this country has failed. Some people said, it has failed; some people said, it is failing. Whatever it is, if you look at the statistics, this country is designated as poverty capital of the world. Every indices of development are at the lowest level. If you look at unemployment in some States, it is as high 80% of their population.

“Now, we have insecurity that has defied all solutions by security agencies. Why do we have insecurity? It is because of unemployment; it’s because of poverty and anger and underdevelopment.

“There is only one way we can address the underdeveloped; there is only one way we address the issue of poverty in Nigeria. Which way? The way other countries have followed and that is research.

“Everybody knows that everything you see around you are products of research and no country develop without research, and that research is key to development.

“Now why the country that needs research most don’t seem to care about it, yet, we have highly educated people who are at the helm of affairs at every sector in this country and they know very well that research has been neglected by successive governments.”

Reacting, Alhaji Ahmed Abdullahi, a deputy Director in charge of Communications in the Office of the Head of Service who came out to address the protesters, after listened to their complaints promised to study their grievances.

He said, he needed evidences of letters written to the Office of the HoS, to be able to react, hence, he hasn’t much to tell journalists.