Clinical lecturers threaten to withdraw services, issue 21-day ultimatum

The University of Ilorin’s Clinical Lecturers, under the aegis of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), on Tuesday threatened to withdraw from teaching services at the university.

They issued the threat through a communiqué jointly signed by the Chairman of the Association, Prof. Olatunde Ibrahim, and the Secretary, Dr. Nurudeen Abdulraheem.

The Association said its position was as a result of the non-approval of the payment of Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) by the University of Ilorin management.

The MDCAN members stated that a three-week ultimatum, starting from Monday, has been given to Unilorin within which to fully implement CONMESS for all clinical lecturers with arrears from 2018.

“If our members are not paid with CONMESS after the expiration of the three-week ultimatum, all clinical lecturers will withdraw from all clinical academic activities.

“This includes class teaching, practicals, bedside teaching, conducting examinations, accreditation exercises, meetings, and any other activity in the university,” they said.

The Association recalled that several meetings were held with the university’s vice chancellor with assurances given, including preparing May 2024 salaries with CONMESS, but the payment was not approved by the management.

It pointed out that only the University of Lagos, among all federal universities in the entire Northern Nigeria, was not paying its lecturers with CONMESS.

“At present, all clinical lecturers in all federal government-owned conventional universities with medical schools are paid salaries using the CONMESS, with the exception of the University of Llorin and universities in the south-west of the country,” the members lamented.

“The newly-employed clinical lecturers at the University of Ilorin are rightly placed on CONMESS, though, making them receive far more money than their seniors and even heads of their departments.

”But this is because their seniors were wrongly placed on a different salary scale.”

The Association stated that all South-East and South-South federal universities were also paying their clinical lecturers with CONMESS.

It was observed that the management bodies in all of the Northern Nigeria-based universities have been paying CONMESS to clinical lecturers, with some for more than five years now.

“Clinical lecturers in the University of Ilorin have been losing upward of N300,000 to N350,000 every month for years, and this will surely drastically reduce their pension after retirement.

“In view of the failure of the University of Ilorin to appreciate the collective patience and efforts of the clinical lecturers in the institution at resolving the long-standing injustices, we have therefore resolved as stated,” the Association said.

The clinical lecturers, however, stated that they would appreciate the efforts of the Vice-Chancellor and his management team at preventing the disruption of clinical academic activities in the college.

”This will be through a timely resolution of this issue, which is purely local one.

“We strongly believe that a resolution of the issue can come before the expiration of our ultimatum, because what we want is CONMESS implementation for all clinical lecturers and not a strike,” they said.

Supreme News reports that efforts to get a reaction from the university management yielded no result.