The federal
government’s decision to stop paying the lecturers’ salaries was confirmed by
the university lecturers after their Thursday meeting. Rising from ASUU’s
zonal conference in Abuja on Thursday, the union responded to the ‘No Work No
Pay’ strategy by stating that it had resorted to other welfare strategies to
cope with the effects of the policy.
“The Federal
Government has through the National Universities Commission,
directed Universities to stop the payment of our salaries
effective September this year and since then our salaries have not been paid,”
Clement Chup, ASUU Zonal
Chairman in Abuja, said. “Part of (our) welfare strategy, involve distributing
food items, giving out soft loans and cash advances to members,” he added.
The union is currently
on an over three-month-old industrial action over the failure of the government
to implement the 2009 agreement it reached with the lecturers. Festus Iyayi, a
former ASUU President, said that the union remains resolute in
the face of the government’s latest strategy. “I can confirm that the federal
government has stopped payment of the salaries of academic staff,” Prof. Iyayi,
who led ASUU in 1986, told PREMIUM TIMES.
“This ‘get them to
capitulate by starving them’ policy has been employed by government in the
past. It did not work.
Our members are ready
to make whatever sacrifices are needed to make government honour agreements,”
he added. The federal government’s latest move may have pulled the plug on
negotiations between it and the striking lecturers.
The government toed a
similar path during the 2009 ASUU strike
but the lecturers stuck to their guns, with then ASUU President,
Ukachukwu Awuzie, stating that “they would not allow the issue of salaries to
dampen the desire of its members to seek fundamental changes in the Nigeria’s educational system.
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