President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke has disclosed that since the ongoing strike which started in February, the government has held the salaries of lecturers.
He disclosed this while speaking on Channels TV this morning August 2. He accused the Federal Government of using hunger as a tool to force the striking lecturers into returning to their classrooms.
According to him, the Federal Government thinks that depriving the lecturers of their salaries will force the university teachers to collapse and end the strike.
“Our salaries have been held, this is the sixth month or salaries have been held. They thought that if they hold our salaries for two or three months we will come begging and say ‘pls allow us to go back to work. But we as a union of intellectuals, we have grown beyond that. You can’t use the force of hunger to pull our members back which is exactly what the government is doing.”
ASUU on February 14 embarked on strike to press home its demands for a better welfare package, revamping of the nation’s education sector among others, a situation that has forced many Nigerian students to be at home.
Worried by the lingering industrial dispute, President Muhammadu Buhari had on July 19 directed the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to proffer a solution to the challenge and report back to him in two weeks.
The presidential ultimatum will elapse today and ASUU remains adamant until its demands are met. The union had on Monday August 1, announced a 4-weeks extension of its strike.
