Less than three weeks after calling off its eight-month old strike, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU may go back to the trenches for another strike as the Federal Government pays half salaries to lecturers for the month of October.
A senior lecturer in the Faulty of Law, University of Lagos confirmed this top Fedredsnews on Thursday evening.
”Yes, it is true that we were paid half salary for the month of October. I can confidently tell you that we are going back to the trenches again. This is very unfortunate, but you can’t blame us”, he said.
Though the national leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has not made an official rection to the development, it was gathered that the Union will meet soon to take appropriate steps on the matter.
The National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, also confirmed this on Thursday night.
“Yes, we were paid half salary for October and that is not what we expected. However, as an organised union, we are meeting soon to deliberate on the issue and take appropriate actions, ” he said.
They resumed work on October 14. Osodeke, who expressed disgust at the development, noted that the government was pushing his union to the wall.
Reports also indicate that non-teaching staff under the aegis of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, the National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Allied Institutions, NASU are also enraged by this development and are warming up for a showdown with the government.
ASUU suspended its eight-month strike on October 14, following an order by the Court of Appeal, which directed it to comply with an earlier pronouncement by the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, before appealing its judgement.
The strike began on February 14 following the failure of the Federal Government to renegotiate the agreement it signed with ASUU in 2009, demand by the teachers for the replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), as the payment platform in the university sector, among others.
The lecturers had insisted that IPPIS had never been implemented in any university system anywhere. Among its drawbacks, they say, is that it will shut the door against foreign scholars, contract officers and researchers needed to be poached from existing universities to stabilize new ones.
