ASUU KICKS, SUMMONS NEC MEETING AS FG PAYS HALF SALARIES

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may be heading for another showdown with the Federal Government over half salaries paid its members for October 2022.

The university lecturers suspended their eight months strike on October 14 and only work for 18 days last month.

The Federal government had insisted on implementing the ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy for the period the university teachers were away from their duty posts.

However, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, waded into the imbroglio between the union and the Federal Government after all negotiations had failed.

Gbajabiamila had assured the lecturers that government would look into the issue, adding that the lecturers would get whatever was due to them.

However, things took a new turn last Thursday when it was gathered that the government only paid half-month salaries to the university teachers.

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of the union described the development as “insensitive and disheartening”

The branch chairman, Dele Ashiru, in a statement said: “The leadership of the union at the national level has been duly informed about this unfortunate development and they are on top of the issue.”

At the Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDU), Sokoto, the union has accused the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, of attempts to create disharmony among its members.

There were reports of selective payment of lecturers’ salaries at the university, with some lecturers in the College of Public Health and Medicine allegedly receiving all their outstanding salaries.

Ngige had said those categories of workers didn’t participate in the union’s strike. ASUU National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, while confirming the development, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call the minister to order.

Osodeke said: “Half salaries were paid; no reasons were given whatsoever. We learnt that Ngige wrote the office of the Accountant General and Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and told them to only pay us for the period when we called off the strike.

“We heard there was a letter to that effect but we haven’t gotten it yet. We are going to summon a meeting.

“The minister just want to create more problems and Nigerians should take note. They are pushing us again to the point of taking drastic action. We have not been paid for eight months and we have resumed for about a month now.”

Those who impressed it upon us to suspend the strike should take note also,” he said. To address the issue and come up with a plan, ASUU has called a nationwide Congress in its various branches on Tuesday next week to take a decision on the matter.

When contacted on whether his members had been paid, the National Secretary of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), Dr. Henry Oripeloye, said no member of his union had been paid any salary.