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[Nigeria] ASUU to hold NEC meeting over half-salary

Published

5 months ago

November 5, 2022

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is set to call an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council, raising the prospect of a resumption of academic activities in the country’s universities (NEC).

The decision to call the meeting follows the Federal Government’s alleged payment of half-pay to lecturers for the month of October 2022.

Following interventions from the Court of Appeal, which upheld a prior ruling from the National Industrial Court NIC, ASUU recently suspended its eight-month strike.

There is currently no set date for the meeting, but sources claim that it was decided to call one after some union members received a surprise alert that half their salaries would be paid for the month of October 2022.

“I was shocked when I received an alert from my bank and noticed it was half payment; they didn’t even talk about the backlog of the eight months of the strike,” one member of the academic staff who preferred anonymity said.

Another source who confirmed the information added, “It is true, I received half. In fact, some professors received salaries of N121,000; we are waiting for the national body’s decision, and we are very angry right now.

Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of ASUU, had earlier confirmed the development in an interview.

Half salaries were paid, with no explanations given at all, he had said. We discovered that Ngige instructed the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System in a letter to only pay us for the time when we ended the strike.

We haven’t received the letter, despite having heard there was one. A meeting will soon be called.

Ben Bem Goong, the Ministry of Education’s Director of Press and Public Relations, was quoted as saying, “We don’t pay salaries at the Ministry of Education,” in response to the development. Please address your query to the Accountant General’s office.

In addition to ASUU’s most recent complaints, members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of University and Allied Institutions (NASU) have been putting pressure on the government to pay their salary arrears for the eight months that the strike in Nigerian universities lasted.