According to ASUU, the FG has converted teachers into farmers and taxi drivers.

 On Tuesday, the Academic Staff Union of Universities protested that the Federal Government had forced its members to work as farmers and taxi drivers.

By refusing to execute the Memorandum of Action reached with the union in 2020, the ASUU accused the Federal Government of a premeditated attempt to impoverish university professors.

Comrade Adelaja Odukoya, the coordinator of ASUU Lagos Zone, disclosed this while addressing media at the end of the Union's zonal meeting held at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Odukoya, flanked by branch chairmen from the zone, claimed that academic members are "being impoverished by the Federal Government."

The Union chastised members of the National Assembly for earning between N1.5 million and N1.3 million per month, compared to academics who make N416, 000 per month.

The ASUU Lagos coordinator stated that the union will not back down from its planned strike action until the government intervenes. He bemoaned the low pay of ASUU members, claiming that the federal government had converted professors into farmers and taxi drivers.

In a statement headlined "Our pay cannot transport us home: End poverty wage today," Odukoya bemoaned that Nigerian professors are the lowest paid in the world, calling their pay a "disgrace that indicates the importance that the Nigerian government placed on education in the nation."

He pointed out that the last time professors' salaries were raised was in 2009, accusing the Federal Government of "weaponizing" poverty against them.

Odukoya stated that the union will not abandon its planned strike action as a result of the government's inability to satisfy its demands.

The strike, he claimed, had become necessary "given the government's willingness to abandon the Nigerian University System to the greedy pillage, attack, and permutations of both short-sighted Nigerian officials and foreign neoliberal operatives."

Odukoya also accused the Federal Government of just giving lip service to education by underfunding it, underpaying lecturers, and providing inadequate facilities in higher institutions, among other things.

"It would shock you to know that most of us outside Lagos participate in farming to live, while some of us in Lagos engage in kabukabu (tax driving) and other menial tasks because our wage no longer allows us to travel home."

"Regrettably, with nine days to the one-year anniversary of the suspension of our previous strike and the signing of the 2020 MoA (Memorandum of Actions), the government has fiercely and cruelly refused, failed, and forgotten to execute what we willingly committed to." "It is evident that the Federal Government, via its heinous deeds and heinous inactions, is pouring fire to an already flammable situation."

"How can Nigerian university lecturers participate in this process if they have to deal with the recurrent problem of pitiful remuneration, especially in times of hyperinflation?"

"It is alarming that the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye to the suffering of Nigerian university academics." The problem is exacerbated by a slew of brutal neoliberal policies that strive to turn public education from a public good into a commodity. "It is apparent that the Federal Government, via its heinous deeds and heinous inactions, is pouring fire to an already flammable situation."

"How can Nigerian university instructors participate in this process if they have to deal with the recurrent problem of low pay, especially in times of hyperinflation?"

"It is disturbing that the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye to the plight of Nigerian university professors." The problem is exacerbated by a slew of brutal neoliberal policies aimed at transforming public education from a public good into a commodity.

"One will be at a loss to understand the government's attitude toward education in the country in general, and the condition of service of lecturers in Nigerian public universities in particular, unless one comes to the ugly realization that there is an orchestrated, deliberate, and systemic grand design for the oppression, dehumanization, and impoverishment of Nigerian academics that is as old as Nigeria's post-independence statehood."

He chastised National Assembly members for receiving "jumbo" salary at the expense of academics' well-being, stating, "We have constantly argued that the cost of government in this country is too high, and nobody is doing anything about it." However, increasing professors' pay is now a concern for the government."

"This is happening against the backdrop of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, publicly admitting only yesterday that a Senator receives N1.5 million per month while a member of the House of Representatives earns N1.3 million."