The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Ekiti, Dr Kayode Fayemi has said the federal salary structure should not be imposed on states.

He submitted this when he hosted the pro-chancellors of the state-owned universities on Thursday in Abuja, noting that the federal and state governments do not have similar economic or financial situations.

Fayemi in a statement issued by the Head of Media and Public Affairs of NGF Secretariat, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, said, ”I, for example, do not have the resources of Lagos State, so you won’t expect me to earn the same salary as the governor of Lagos.

He said it was true that no state had fulfilled the payment of salaries to states universities, but said states were not always solely responsible for this.

The people you appoint as vice-chancellors need to speak truth to power, they need to be able to bite the bullet, and not just be a YES person. We need to work together to confront these issues, we are running glorified secondary schools as universities by this system and you have to help us in insisting that the institutions too, do the right thing, ” he added.

Earlier, the pro-chancellors led by Mallam Yusuf Ali, the Pro-Chancellor of Osun State University, said that the seamless educational progression that the country should be experiencing was being hampered by lack of funds.

Ali called on the owners of state-owned universities to relegate politics to the backgrounds when considering their appointees.

The team, which represents all the 48 universities owned by states pleaded with governors to take over the burden of payment of salaries of state universities.

They also called for the reintroduction of scholarships for indigent students and assist the committee of pro-chancellors of states universities to erect a secretariat of their own to facilitate their activities.