The Benin zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has faulted a recent claim by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige that at his insistence, the salaries of university teachers have been paid up-to-date despite the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
In a statement in Benin yesterday by the Benin Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Fred Esumeh, he dismissed the minister’s claim elsewhere that goverment had made inroads on the problem with ASUU.
Prof. Esumeh urged Nigerians not to buy the false hope being sold to them by Dr Ngige that ASUU will soon call off its strike, insisting that there is no going back on the strike until the government does the needful to address the issues at stake.
He told Nigerians to disregard the comments of the minister that the strike action by the union will soon be called off, describing it as an essential part of Ngige’s grandstanding and deliberate ploy to misinform and deceive the public on the critical issues which informed the current strike by ASUU.
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The zonal coordinator said that it was not true that members have been paid salaries up to date, adding that consequent upon government’s insistence and implementation of IPPIS and its accompanying complications, the members are being owed three months salaries, while in some universities, they have not received a salary for six months.
In addition to non-payment of salaries, he alleged that the office of the Accountant General of the Federation has continually withheld more than five months check-off dues and other related deductions of the member’s salaries.
Prof. Esumeh said: “Nigerians will recall that the withholding of staff salaries is a clear violation of Mr President’s earlier directives. Indeed, somebody somewhere is playing God and pretending to be bigger than the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The coordinator further berated the minister for what he insisted is the misleading comments to the public laced with half-truth and deliberate falsehood on the current faceoff between Goverment and ASUU.
He stressed that until the government addresses the issues at stake in a comprehensive fashion, ASUU has resolved to continue with the strike.
Esumeh enumerated the unresolved issues to include matters of revitalization fund for public universities, arrears of earned academic allowances (EAA), visitation to universities proliferation of state universities and issues of governance in them and the conclusion of the re-negotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement.
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