The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed disappointment at President Bola Tinubu's failure to fulfil promises to release their withheld salaries and third-party deductions of Nigerian academics.
ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke , who stated this after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, said to continue to ignore ASUU's demand is to invite an avoidable industrial crisis in the system.
He said the union was alarmed, going by the reports it received, at the failed promises of the Tinubu-led administration toward addressing the lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February-October 2022.
He said the union's NEC was alarmed by reports of the increasing number of Nigerian academics who have died or are currently nursing life-threatening ailments as a result of work-related stress and chronic pauperisation arising from failed promises by the governments and the general macro-economic climate of the country.
Osodeke said the last administration, engineered by Senator Ngige, activated the obnoxious "No Work No Pay" policy by withholding lecturers' seven and half months salaries in federal universities and varying months in state universities.
Despite deploying the instrumentality of hunger and starvation against Nigerian academics, he said the Ngige-headed Ministry launched a full-scale war against ASUU, including obtaining an injunction at the National Industrial Court.
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"However, the strike was basically suspended as a result of patriotic interventions of some well-meaning Nigerians, including the then Speaker of the House of Representative, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. At several formal and informal meetings while the court proceedings were ongoing, promises were made towards meeting the demands of ASUU, including the release of the withheld salaries.
"Unfortunately, those promises were never kept, even with Rt. Hon Gbajabiamila as the Chief of Staff to the President and Commander-in-Chief. There is no justification for withholding lecturers' salaries if not for the grand design by the ruling class to emasculate and ridicule them.
"Nigerian academics have since made up for lost ground, covering two academic sessions in many universities within the period. And it is unimaginable that a government that raised lecturers' hopes a few months back will continue to deprive them of any modicum of comfort by withholding their entitlements.
ASUU, therefore, told the federal government to quickly release all the withheld salaries and third-party deductions of Nigerian academics to restore their fading hope in the Nigerian university system and Nigeria as a country.
"To continue to ignore ASUU's formal and informal demand in this respect is to invite an avoidable industrial crisis in the system," he said.
