ASUUSTRIKE: UNN Lecturers Protest Over Withheld Salaries

Pay university lecturers their withheld salaries or expect mother of all strikes, University Of Nigeria lecturers warn Federal Government

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The University of Nigeria, Nsukka chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, on Tuesday, protested against unpaid salaries and pro-rata payment by the federal government.

The university lecturers threatened to embark on another strike which they said would be the “mother of all strikes,” if they are not paid eight months’ salary arrears withheld by the government.

The protesting lecturers displayed placards with various inscriptions such as: “We say no to bad governance, ASUU members’ lives matter,” “Pay us our salary backlogs,” “No pay, no 2020/2021 academic session results,” “We say no to pro-rata; our government does not honour agreements,” “Get ready for mother of all strikes,” among others.

The ASUU members protested to the office of the school’s vice-chancellor and faculties on the UNN main campus.

Addressing journalists, the Chairman of the branch, Comrade Christian Opata, said members of the union embarked on a peaceful protest to demand the payment of their salary arrears.

Opata insisted that the university’s Senate or departmental board would not hold any meeting to approve students’ results until lecturers’ salaries have been paid.

According to Opata, “it raises a moral question” for the federal government to renege on honouring agreements it signed with members of the union in 2009.

He accused the government of tactically “unleashing anarchy on the nation,” by adopting a no-work, no-pay strategy and expecting members of the union to do all the arrears of academic work accumulated during the period of their eight months’ industrial actions.

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He said students who may not be able to graduate due to the action of the government may plunge the nation into anarchy.

The ASUU-UNN chairman, however, said that the members of the union are not in confrontation with the management of the university in their effort to seek redress from the federal government.

“The bone of contention has been that we have a government that refused to honour an agreement it willingly signed. This raises a moral question because this is an agreement the government signed willingly through collective bargaining, yet, it refused to honour it since 2009.

“To make matters worse, the same government which reneged on the agreement has turned to punish those it reached the agreement with and they held our children at home for eight months. We suspended the strike and the same government adopted pro-rata payment as if to say that we are labourers of casual work.

“We are still running the 2020/2021 academic session and students are being graduated, yet, the government is telling us no work, no pay. ASUU can accept that condition and decide not to graduate older students, except those admitted this year.

“Can government hold us culpable if we do this? Can they sustain the pressure which would be coming from students who may not be graduated? Would the government not be unleashing anarchy on the nation?

“ASUU has a lot of options before it but the union does not want to throw the nation into maximum anarchy,” he said.

Charity Reporters recalls that University students have been at home since February due to an industrial action, which was only called off in October, after eight months.