CONMESS: Unilorin clinical lecturers threaten to strike, issue 21 days ultimatum

By Fatima Mohammed-Lawal

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

The threat was contained in a Communique jointly signed by the Chairman of the Association Prof. Olatunde Ibrahim and the Secretary: Dr Nurudeen Abdulraheem.

The Association alleged that this is over 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 7 October, 2024, 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 expiration of the three weeks ultimatum, all clinical lecturers will withdraw from all clinical academic activities.

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

The clinical lecturers recalled that several meetings were held with the Vice Chancellor of the University with assurances, including preparing May, 2024 salaries with CONMESS but the payment was not approved by the University Management.

According to them, among all Federal Universities in the entire Northern Nigeria, only University of llorin is not paying her 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 University of llorin and universities in the Southwestern region of the country,” they lamented.

They alleged that “the same University is selectively, rightly paying some other lecturers in Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences on CONMESS for many years.

“The newly employed clinical lecturers in University of Ilorin are rightly placed on CONMESS making them receive far more money than their seniors and even head of their departments, because the seniors are wrongly placed on a different salary scale”.

The duo stated that all South-east and South-south federal universities are paying their clinical lecturers with CONMESS.

They observed that managements in all of the Northern universities have been paying CONMESS to clinical lecturers, some, for more than five years.

“Clinical lecturers in the University of Ilorin have been losing upward of three hundred thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand 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 follows,” they said.

“We will appreciate the efforts of the vice chancellor and his management team at preventing the disruption of clinical academic activities in the college through timely resolution of this issue which is purely a local one.

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

All attempt to get reaction from the University of Ilorin management proved unresponsive.
(NAN)

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