Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) warned the federal government yesterday that a new university crisis would dwarf all previous ones.
The union, on the other hand, stated that members cannot and will not continue to do unpaid work.
Speaking to journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State, shortly after a protest by members of the union in the University of Ilorin branch, the former ASUU Chairman of the university and a council member of the union, Professor Rasheed Adeoye, and the Secretary of the union in the university, Dr. Olatunji Abdulganiyu, described half salaries reportedly paid by the government to members of the union for October as unacceptable, vowing to fight it.
“As a law-abiding union, we have heeded the court’s directive that we resume duty while the substantive matter is being heard,” the union leaders said.
“However, following the resumption of the strike, the government decided to pay half salaries to our members for the month of October 2022, much to our chagrin.” This is an unacceptable development that our union will oppose.
“The truth is that academics are not part-time employees. Only casual employees are paid on a per-hour basis. The law is also clear on this point. Indeed, in a landmark ruling in 2020, the National Industrial Court stated unequivocally that tenured employees cannot be paid pro-rata.
“It is very unfortunate that the Minister of Labour is unaware that academic staff engage in so many activities aside from teaching duties.” In fact, the primary responsibility of an academic staff is research, and other activities have continued to occupy their attention regardless of strike or whether school is in session or not.”
“Gentlemen of the press, let me assure you that our union is determined to continue calling the government’s attention to its responsibilities, despite the obnoxious treatment we are receiving from the government,” they added.
“To that end, despite the fact that we have resumed work at our university, the government’s ignoble stance of withholding our eight months’ salaries, based on its ill-advised policy of ‘No Work, No Pay,’ is set to spark new crises.” In the coming days, the union will consider invoking the ‘No Pay, No Work’ policy and abandoning the works that have accumulated for the period during which the government falsely claims that our members did not work.
“Members of the public are hereby alerted and reminded that a new crisis, which will eclipse all previous ones, is looming in Nigerian universities, as our members cannot and will not continue to do unpaid work.”
“With this notice, we hope that all relevant stakeholders who have the government’s ears will act quickly before the fragile peace restored on our campuses nationwide collapses.”
For the record, ASUU leaders stated that the union’s demands included: “Release of revitalisation fund to the country’s public institutions; release of White Paper of Visitation Panels to public universities, which our union forced the government to convene; Renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement and termination of the obnoxious, ineffective, and corrupt IPPIS as Nigeria’s payment platform
among other things, the public university system.”
