The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is set to call an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council, raising the prospect of a resumption of academic activities in the country’s universities (NEC).
The decision to call the meeting follows the Federal Government’s alleged payment of half-pay to lecturers for the month of October 2022.
Following interventions from the Court of Appeal, which upheld an earlier decision from the National Industrial Court NIC, ASUU recently suspended its eight-month strike.
No date has been set, but sources say the decision to call a meeting was prompted by the surprise that some union members experienced when they received an alert of half salaries in their accounts for the month of October 2022.
“I was shocked when I received an alert from my bank and noticed it was half payment; they didn’t even talk about the backlog of the eight months of the strike,” one academic staff member who preferred anonymity said.
Another source confirmed the information, saying, “It is true, I received half; in fact, some professors received salaries of N121,000; we are waiting for the national body’s decision; we are very angry at the moment.”
Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, National President of ASUU, confirmed the development earlier in an interview.
“Half salaries were paid, with no explanation given,” he said. We learned that Ngige wrote to the Accountant General’s Office and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, instructing them to only pay us for the period when we called the strike off.
“We heard there was a letter in the works, but we haven’t received it yet.” We’re going to call a meeting.”
In response to the news, the Ministry of Education’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Ben Bem Goong, was quoted as saying, “We don’t pay salaries at the Ministry of Education.” Please direct your inquiry to the Accountant General’s office.”
Aside from ASUU’s latest grievances, members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of University and Allied Institutions NASU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities SSANU, and others have been putting pressure on the government to pay their salary arrears for the eight months the Nigerian university strike lasted.
