Salary Arrears: ASUU threatens ‘No Pay, No Work’ after two weeks ultimatum
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to down tools after two weeks if the President Bola Tinubu administration fails to pay public university lecturers their withheld salaries.
ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke said it is unfair for the Federal Government to pay lecturers four months of their 2022 withheld salaries and hold on to that of three-and-half months.
“It’s not about paying four months out of the seven-and-half months’ withheld salaries,” a displeased Osodeke said on Thursday. He argued that public universities in the country have so far covered the work for the period that they were on strike in 2022 and should be duly paid.
“Every university in Nigeria today are in the 2023/2024 academic year which means that by September/October, they will be in the 2024/2025 academic year. The implication of this is that all the work for which we were not paid when we were on strike, we have covered them by making sacrifices.
“None of our members have gone on leave in the past three to four years, we have not gone on vacation so that we can cover the work that we didn’t do while we were on strike which we have covered. You can check, ask the students. But when you said you are paying four out of seven-and-half, I don’t think you are being fair to us,” the ASUU president stated, adding that the two-week ultimatum to the government began on May 13, 2024.
In 2022, academic and non-academic unions in Nigeria embarked on an eight-month strike to press home some of their demands including a better welfare package. The administration of then President Muhammadu Buhari subsequently invoked a ‘no work, no pay policy’ against the unions but President Bola Tinubu, in October 2023, approved the release of four of the about eight months withheld salaries.
ASUU members were paid four months of the withheld salaries while members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) were not paid at all. The two non-academic unions were on strike earlier in March while Education Minister Tahir Mamman said the government would consider half pay for them.
Osodeke said ASUU members must be 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.
