Two civil society organisations (CSOs) – the Nigerian Project Initiative (NPI) and the Initiative to Save Democracy (ISD) – have chided the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for demanding the payment of six months’ salaries while keeping students at during the union’s strike.
In a joint statement, the CSOs expressed outrage at the action of the lecturers who they said have kept university students at home while asking for salaries they did not work for.
“The demand by ASUU to be paid for the months its members were on strike is hollow, self-centred and vexatious,” NPI Chairman Mohammed Umar Salihu and ISD Chairman Akinloye James in the statement.
“It is particularly provoking that other unions in the academic community pursuing almost the same goals have decided to go back to work, but ASUU members, rather than follow suit, are demanding payment for work that they did not do.
“Which employer does that? If, for example, the government were to heed them, would that not be a recipe for disaster as the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), which have agreed to go back to work, would now resort to strike to demand the same salaries that they forfeited during the strike?
“It is a rule in industrial relations that unions keep a strike fund and ASUU, through its president, has admitted that they have been paying their union members. So, it is thus apparent that ASUU, by its demand, is now seeking double pay for its members for work not done.
“For the sake of our students, who have missed out on account of the strike, we expect ASUU to rush back to work at this time and look forward towards repairing the damage that has been done through the strike, instead of this resort to financial blackmail,” the CSOs said.
Promising to mobilise other CSOs for a showdown against ASUU, NPI and ISD said: “ASUU has lost it this time and we dare say that if, by this week that ASUU sticks on to its selfish demands we would be compelled to lay siege to ASUU offices across the country, given that all men of good conscience are against ASUU.”