The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has delivered a stern ultimatum to the Bola Tinubu administration, threatening to embark on industrial action if the government fails to settle outstanding salary arrears and address governance irregularities within two weeks.
ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke decried the government’s handling of salary payments, emphasizing the unfairness of withholding salaries for three-and-a-half months while only partially settling arrears.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily program on Thursday, he said, “It’s not about paying four months out of the seven-and-half months’ withheld salaries. 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 added.
According to him, the two-week ultimatum to the government started on May 13, 2024.
Osodeke expressed frustration over the disparity in government spending, citing substantial road construction contracts while university staff remain undercompensated.
He urged the government to prioritize education funding, stressing that adequate remuneration is crucial to retaining skilled lecturers and ensuring the quality of higher education in Nigeria.
According to Osodeke, if the Federal Government can award road contracts worth trillions, billions for university workers should not be a problem
He said, “We don’t want to hear that ‘we don’t have money’ because if a government can award contract of N15 or N13 trillion naira to construct a road and we are asking for just N200bn for Nigerian universities, all of them. If they (the government) have that money (for road construction), they should have money for us.
“Pay the three-and-half months’ salaries that are still being withheld having completed the work. It’s ‘no work, no pay’, we have done the work, they should pay us if not we will also bring the theory of ‘no pay, no work’.”
Furthermore, Osodeke raised concerns regarding governance deficiencies in universities, particularly the prolonged absence of Governing Councils.
He condemned the government’s dissolution of these councils and highlighted the adverse implications, including illegal recruitment and contract awards. Osodeke underscored the necessity of reinstating Governing Councils and upholding due process in university governance.
“Nobody anticipated that we will have a university that will run for two weeks without a Governing Council but Nigerian universities, all of them, have been running for the past 11 months without Governing Councils, which means that all the actions taken in terms of employment, contract awards and what have you have passed through illegal process.
“People were recruited and we have evidence, contracts were awarded illegally, we have evidence. We should not be part of illegality and that is why we have given this two-week (ultimatum). After the two weeks, if this illegality does not stop, and all other issues…if these are not done, our union will meet, consider all the issues and think of what to do,” he said.
Drawing attention to the prolonged negotiation of the 2017 agreement, Osodeke called for its swift conclusion and reiterated ASUU’s demands for the payment of earned academic allowances. He emphasized the urgency of addressing these longstanding issues to avert a potential disruption of academic activities.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Osodeke lamented the absence of formal dialogue between ASUU and government representatives. He emphasized ASUU’s commitment to exhausting all avenues for resolution before considering further action.
Osodeke urged the government to act decisively to address ASUU’s grievances and uphold its obligations to university staff and the education sector as a whole. Failure to do so, he warned, could prompt ASUU to take additional measures to safeguard the interests of its members and ensure the integrity of Nigeria’s higher education system.
The ASUU president lamented that many lecturers are leaving the country because they are not well remunerated. “A lecturer still earns about $300. it was $1500 when we negotiated the agreement in 2009,” he lamented.
Noting that there has not been any formal meeting between ASUU and any of the organs of the current government so far. he said, “That is why we have to take this action having used all the other avenues.
“The negotiation of the agreement that started in 2017 should be concluded, reinstate the dissolve Governing Councils, owed earned academic allowances should be paid.”