Salary arrears: After two weeks, ASUU threatens to "no pay, no work."
The Federal Government should not be paying academics four months of their 2022 deferred salary and keeping the remaining three and a half months, according to ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke.
On Channels Television's Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday, an irate Osodeke declared, "It's not about paying four months out of the seven and a half months' withheld salaries." He maintained that the nation's public colleges need to be compensated for having so far paid for the work completed during their 2022 strike.
"At this time, all Nigerian universities are in the 2023–2024 academic year; by September/October, however, they will be in the 2024–2025 academic year. This implies that all of the labour for which we performed but were not compensated when we were on strike, we have covered them by making sacrifices.
"We have not taken a vacation or taken time off to make up for the work we missed during our strike, which we have completed over the last three to four years," the statement reads. You can ask the pupils to verify. However, I don't think you are treating us fairly when you say you are paying four out of seven and a half," the ASUU president remarked, adding that the government was given a two-week ultimatum that started on May 13, 2024.
Nigerian academic and non-academic unions went on an eight-month strike in 2022 to emphasise a few of their demands, such as an improved welfare package. Following the invocation of a "no work, no pay policy" against the unions by the administration of then-President Muhammadu Buhari, President Bola Tinubu authorised the payment of four of the approximately eight months' worth of salary that had been withheld in October 2023.
While members of the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) received no pay at all, ASUU members received four months' worth of the withheld payments. Earlier in March, when Education Minister Tahir Mamman announced that the government would consider paying for them half-way, the two non-academic unions went on strike.
ASUU members, according to Osodeke, must be totally fully paid for the entire period of the industrial action in 2022. He submitted that the Tinubu administration has not done lecturers any favours by clearing four of their about eight months’ withheld salaries.
"FG Gives Us ₦200 Billion in Road Contracts Worth Trillions But Doesn't Pay Us"
Osodeke stated that there should be no issue with billions for university employees if the federal government can grant road contracts for trillions of dollars.
We would like not to hear the excuse that "we don't have money," as if a government can contract for ₦15 or ₦13 trillion naira to build a road, then why are we only asking for ₦200 billion for Nigerian colleges, total? The government ought to have money for us if they have it for building roads.
"After the task is over, pay the three and a half months' salary that are still being withheld. We have done the work; they should pay us; if not, we will also present the theory. It's "no work, no pay."
The head of ASUU bemoaned the fact that many lecturers are fleeing the nation due to inadequate pay. A lecturer's salary is still roughly $300. When we negotiated the arrangement in 2009, it was $1500," he remarked.
"Illegal Hires and Contracts"
No one can envision a university without an operational Governing Council, according to the president of ASUU.
He added that since the National institutions Commission (NUC) disbanded the Governing Councils of all federal institutions in response to a mandate from President Tinubu, several unlawful contracts and recruitments have been carried out by universities during the previous 11 months.
"Nobody expected that we would have a university that operates without a governing council for two weeks, but all Nigerian universities have operated without one for the previous eleven months, meaning that all decisions made regarding hiring, contract awards, and other matters have gone through unlawful channels," said Osodeke.
No university in the world functions without a functioning Governing Council, he added, and it doesn't take 11 months to form one.
According to the professor, the councils at each university have four-year terms, with six representatives from the government and ten or eleven elected members from the university. He maintained that every university's membership is far more than that of government representatives hence the government cannot dissolve the councils arbitrarily.
"We have proof that people were recruited and that contracts were given out improperly. Because we shouldn't support illegal activity, we have granted this two-week ultimatum. Our union will meet, discuss all the issues, and decide what to do if after the two weeks the illegality and all other issues are not resolved.
According to Osodeke, ASUU and none of the current government's organs have held an official meeting as of yet. "We have exhausted all other options, which is why we must take this action," he stated.
"The agreement negotiations that began in 2017 should be completed, the Governing Councils should be dissolved and reinstated, and any unpaid academic allowances should be paid," he concluded.
