There are two main issues arising from the Federal Government’s non-implementation of the 2009 agreement between the lecturers and the government that forced them (lecturers) to embark on their “total strike.” The first is the non-payment of “earned allowances”, or overtime pay. ASUU has a N92 billion figure for this. Out of this, the government, claiming that it would go bankrupt if it had to meet all of ASUU’s demands, has provided N30 billion. ASUU however insists that the money has to be fully paid before lecturers can return to their teaching posts.

Two, ASUU, seeing the degradation of hostel accommodation, libraries, laboratories and research in Nigerian universities, wants the government to fund infrastructure development with N400 billion. According to Nyesom Wike, the minister supervising the Education Ministry, the government has provided N100 billion, and has added another N100 billion sourced from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. This leaves a balance of N200 billion, which, again, ASUU insists must be given before it calls off its strike.

Since 1999, when Nigeria returned to civil rule, lecturers have been on strike for a total of “30 months out of 156 months, or 20 per cent of the total time in the past 13 years,” according to TheScoop, an online publication. “This is an equivalent of six semesters or three academic sessions,” the publication added. The worst of the strikes lasted for six months between 2003 and 2004 when lecturers demanded that professors had to retire at the age of 70.

However, last week, the federal government decided to invoke the no work no pay policy on the striking lecturers.

Many believe the no work no pay policy invoked by the federal government on the striking lecturers is intended to starve the lecturers and break them to submission. Meanwhile, others say the government is making an error. The FG is only complicating issues with their obnoxious mantra of “no work no pay.”

The Trade Union (Amendment) Act, 2005 empowers the government to invoke a no pay no work policy if it deems it necessary.

The federal government last Friday defended the implementation of its ‘no work-no pay’ policy against the striking university lecturers. The lecturers, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, have been on strike for over three months demanding that government implements the 2009 agreement it had with the union.

 ASUU confirmed the stoppage of their salary after a zonal meeting of the union in Abuja on Thursday. ”The Federal Government has through the National Universities Commission (NUC), directed universities to stop the payment of our salaries effective September this year and since then our salaries have not been paid,” Clement Chup, ASUU Zonal Chairman in Abuja, said.

The NUC, its spokesman defended the directive, saying the commission was only applying extant laws. The Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations of the NUC, Ibrahim Yakasai, said the directive was not a policy but a law that affects all sectors of the economy, adding that it had been in the constitution for a long time.

 “It’s a law in this country that if you don’t work you will not get paid. But the government was magnanimous enough to pay their salaries for a month or two when they started the strike. After everything that has been done, (the lecturers) don’t want to go back to work; so, the law must be applied,” he said. Mr. Yakasai lambasted the lecturers for collecting salaries in the first place while on strike.

 “Let’s watch and see how far they can go with this strike. In any case, why would anyone want to pay someone that is not working? Should they even have accepted the salaries in the first instance? In fact, what are salaries for? It’s for work to be done,”

But ASUU insists that no amount of threat through the implementation of no-work-no-pay rule applied by the federal government would force its members to suspend their four months old industrial action.

The body, who lashed out at those advising  the president to  apply the rule, which he described as ‘barbaric, obsolete and inhuman’, said no amount of pressure would dissuade the union from ensuring that the federal government implemented the agreements reached with the body in 2009.

“We will not succumb to blackmail. We will remain focused and insist that the 2009 agreements be implemented,” the Ilorin Zone coordinator of the union, Dr. Ayan Adeleke said.

 Source:http://leadership.ng/news/221013/ASUU-strike-fg-begins-no-work-no-pay-policy

Give what belongs to Cessar to Cessar and what belongs to God to God is d solution and wayfoward for this nation which is at the verge of cessation. Rescue the perishing nation and deliver us frm captivities and shackles of an arrested development....without which development for us wld bcom a mirage, a day dream and a fairy-tale.