The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the Federal Government of withholding the salaries of their members for 6 months with the intention of blackmailing the university lecturers into begging to call off the strike.
This was made known on Tuesday by ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, while appearing on a Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily, where he slammed the government of using hunger as a tool to force the striking lecturers into returning to their classrooms.
Osodeke who said that none of its university lecturers has been paid since the union embarked on industrial action in February, insisted that the current administration cannot use the force of hunger to pull the striking union members.
Osodeke said the Federal Government thinks that depriving the lecturers of their salaries will force the university teachers to collapse and end the strike. He said:
“Our salaries have been held, this is the sixth month or salaries have been held. They thought that if they hold our salaries for two or three months we will come begging and say ‘pls allow us to go back to work.”
“But we as a union of intellectuals, we have grown beyond that. You can’t use the force of hunger to pull our members back which is exactly what the government is doing.”
ASUU had on February 14, 2022, embarked on a 4-week total and comprehensive strike to press home their unresolved demands on the federal government.
Some of the lecturers’ demands include funding for the revitalisation of public universities, payment of earned academic allowances, and adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a preferred payment option, instead of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and payment of promotion arrears.
Others are the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement and the resolution of inconsistencies in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS)
ASUU on May 9, further extended its ongoing strike by another 12 weeks to give the government enough time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues after an extension on March 14 due to an alleged lack of seriousness on the part of the federal government.
The Federal Government’s Briggs renegotiation committee, had since April 2022, been meeting with ASUU and other labour unions in the universities, who are all currently on strike due to its dispute with the government and non-resolution of demands of the 2009 agreements signed with the federal government.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had on July 26 and 27, embarked on a 2-day nationwide protest in solidarity with the ongoing strike action by ASUU aimed at pressurizing the Federal Government to conclude negotiations with striking universities unions and ensure that public universities resume for normal activities, among others.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on July 19 directed the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to proffer a solution to the challenge and report back to him in 2 weeks.
The presidential ultimatum will elapse today and ASUU remains adamant until its demands are met.
However, ASUU remained adamant in its resolve to press on with its demand as it once again on August 1 extended its ongoing strike by another 4 weeks to give the Federal Government more time to resolve outstanding issues in its dispute with it.
