By Osamudiamen Oziegbe, PhD
There is perhaps no greater source of anguish to a worker than the uncertainty of receiving his or her legitimate salary. For staff of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, that anguish has once again become a painful reality.
As July salaries begin to reach some members of staff while others remain unpaid, anxiety, frustration and despair are spreading across the university community. Families are waiting. Children are waiting. Landlords are waiting. Banks are waiting. School fees are waiting. Medical bills are waiting. Food vendors are waiting.
Every unpaid worker carries an entire chain of obligations that cannot simply be suspended because an internal administrative, technological or banking process has failed.
The explanation being offered—that the delay is connected with an issue involving REMITA and the banks—may explain the immediate technical difficulty. But it does not answer the larger and more troubling question: Why does a system responsible for paying thousands of workers repeatedly find itself in this situation?
This is not the first time.
A similar salary crisis occurred in March, causing considerable hardship to members of staff and generating serious concerns about the University's financial and payroll administration under the current management led by Professor Eunice Omonzejie. The recurrence of substantially the same problem only a few months later should therefore not be dismissed as an ordinary technical glitch. It raises legitimate questions about the resilience, efficiency and accountability of the University's payroll system.
A university cannot operate on trial and error when the welfare of its workers and their families is at stake. Behind every salary figure on a payroll schedule is a human being.
There is a lecturer who borrowed money to feed his family, expecting to repay the debt from his salary.
There is a non-teaching staff member whose landlord is demanding rent.
There is a mother whose child's school fees are due.
There is a father whose child requires urgent medical attention.
There is a young employee struggling to survive in an economy where the cost of food, transportation and basic necessities has become painfully high.
There are elderly parents depending on their children.
There are families whose entire monthly survival depends on the arrival of that salary.
For such people, a salary delay is not merely an accounting inconvenience. It is a serious welfare crisis.
The situation becomes even more disturbing when one employee receives his or her salary while another employee performing equally legitimate duties remains unpaid. It creates uncertainty, suspicion and a profound sense of institutional helplessness.
Workers begin to ask:
When will my own salary come?
Why has another person been paid while I have not?
Who is responsible?
Can I still depend on my employer?
These are questions no responsible institution should allow its workforce to ask repeatedly.
If the problem is genuinely between the University's payroll system, REMITA and the banks, then the University must urgently establish where the failure occurred, who is responsible for resolving it and what safeguards are being put in place to prevent a recurrence.
Technology can fail.
Banks can experience difficulties.
Payment platforms can malfunction.
But the responsibility of Ambrose Alli University to its workforce must not malfunction.
A properly managed payroll system should have reconciliation mechanisms, verification procedures, contingency arrangements and early-warning systems capable of detecting payment failures before they become a crisis.
The University must therefore move beyond explanations and provide solutions.
Staff do not need another explanation of why their salaries have not arrived. They need their salaries.
THE RESURRECTION OF AN OLD PROBLEM
What makes the present situation particularly disturbing is its resemblance to the salary crisis experienced in March.
That earlier episode generated serious concerns about the University's financial administration and subsequently became part of a wider institutional controversy surrounding the office of the former Bursar, Dr. Sadiq Akor, and his eventual removal amid allegations of incompetence.
Whether or not the circumstances surrounding the two episodes are identical, the recurrence of a similar payroll breakdown suggests that whatever institutional weaknesses contributed to the earlier problem may not have been completely resolved.
It would therefore be dangerous to treat the present crisis as merely another isolated incident.
A recurring problem is no longer merely an incident. It becomes a system failure.
When a public university repeatedly fails to perform one of its most basic obligations—paying its workers—government and the University's governing authorities have a responsibility to take notice.
The Edo State Government and other relevant authorities cannot afford to watch the situation deteriorate.
Ambrose Alli University is a major public institution and an important component of the educational and economic life of Edo State. Government intervention in such circumstances does not necessarily amount to interference in the legitimate autonomy of the University. Rather, it can constitute responsible oversight aimed at protecting a public institution and preventing workers from being subjected to avoidable hardship arising from administrative failures.
The greatest danger is not merely that salaries are delayed. It is that repeated administrative failures gradually destroy the confidence of the people who keep the University alive.
A university is not its buildings.
It is not its gates.
It is not its convocation ceremonies.
It is not its official statements.
A university is its people.
When lecturers become demoralised, technologists become frustrated, administrative staff lose confidence, junior workers struggle to meet their family obligations and the entire workforce begins to wonder whether its employer can fulfil its most basic responsibilities, the institution itself becomes weakened.
This is how institutional decline begins—not necessarily with the closure of the gates, but with the gradual erosion of confidence.
And that erosion of confidence appears to be increasingly evident within Ambrose Alli University.
The University must not be allowed to descend into a cycle where salary crises become normal, explanations become routine and suffering becomes the price of employment.
INTERVENTION CANNOT WAIT
Ambrose Alli University needs intervention now—not tomorrow, not next month and certainly not after the damage has been done.
The salary crisis is not merely an accounting problem. It is a test of leadership, governance, institutional competence and humanity.
In March, when a similar crisis reared its head, the timing coincided with a religious festival, compounding the hardship faced by workers. Now, several months later, another salary crisis is unfolding, again with a major religious festival on the horizon.
The timing could hardly be more painful.
Candidly, this administrative failure is one too many.
For an institution that depends on the dedication of its lecturers, researchers, technologists, administrators, security personnel, cleaners and other categories of workers, the continued uncertainty surrounding salary payments is deeply unsettling.
There must be accountability.
There must be transparency.
There must be a credible explanation.
Above all, there must be a permanent solution.
The Edo State Government, the University's Governing Council and other relevant stakeholders must urgently examine the circumstances surrounding the recurring salary crises and determine what needs to be done to ensure that the payment of salaries is no longer subject to avoidable uncertainty.
Workers should not have to beg for what they have legitimately earned.
They should not have to guess when their salaries will arrive.
They should not have to borrow repeatedly to survive because the institution that employs them cannot guarantee the timely payment of their wages.
The question, therefore, is no longer simply “When will the salary be paid?”
The bigger question is:
“When will enough truly be enough?”
Ambrose Alli University deserves a payroll system that works, a leadership structure that inspires confidence and an institutional culture in which the welfare of its workers is treated not as a favour, but as a fundamental responsibility.
The time to fix the system is now.
*Osamudiamen John Oziegbe PHD is an Alumnus of AAU, EKPOMA based in Canada
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