The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) president has disclosed that no member of its university lecturers has been paid since the union embarked on its indefinite strike, which started on 14th February.
According to the President of the academic union, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who shared this information when he appeared on Channel Tv. The president of the Union went on to accuse the Nigerian federal government of using hunger as a tool to force the striking lecturers to return to the classroom without meeting any of their needs which made them go on strike in the first place.
Professor Emmanuel said that the Buhari-led government thinks that by depriving the lecturers of their salaries, the union will have revolving members, who will likely be forced to the classroom, thereby ending the strike so they can be paid their salaries.
“No doubt Nigerians are aware that this strike is in it’s sixth month, and till date, our salaries have been held. The Nigerian government had the mindset that if they hold our salaries and refuse paying us for two or three months, we will come begging and say ‘please allow us to go back to work. But we as a union of intellectuals, we have grown beyond that and want to see Nigeria educational sector prosper. You can’t use the force of hunger to pull our members back into the classroom, and this is the tactics the federal government are using. Sadly, it’s not working for them”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had on February 14, embarked on a warning strike to press home its demands for a better welfare package, revamping of the nation’s education sector among others, and this had driven millions of Nigerian students home without any tangible plan.
We should not forget that the President of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari on July 19th, directed the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to proffer a solution to the challenge and report back to him in two weeks.
The ultimatum given by the president to the Minister of Education has already elapsed, and ASUU remains adamant that they won’t call off the strike until its demands are met. The union had on Monday, August 1st, announced a 4-weeks extension of its strike.
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