Why govt must pay withheld university teachers' salaries - Owerri Zone ASUU

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By Madu Obi

Forty eight hours after members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, protested nationwide, the pitiable welfare situation of members in government- owned universities, the Owerri Zone of the union said government must pay the withheld three and half months salary because the labourer deserves his wage.

The ASUU Owerri Zone comprises Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Imo State University (IMSU) Owerri, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU) and Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU) Awka.

Addressing reporters in Awka, the coordinator of ASUU Owerri Zone, Professor Dennis Ariwodo said it was government that instigated the strike, adding that ASUU members should not be punished for it.

Ariwodo said: "You cannot beat a child and ask him or her not to cry. Government felt that the best way to punish our member was to cease our salary during the 2022 ASUU nationwide strike. But the question is: what led to the strike?

The strike was caused by the failure of government to honour various agreements reached with ASUU as evidence in many Memoranda of Understanding and Memoranda of Action. If government had implemented these agreements, would there be a strike? The answer is No.

So government has no moral authority to continue to withhold our three and half month salaries. The value of the money has grossly depreciated. We in ASUU Owerri Zone demand the immediate payment of all withheld salaries.

We equally call on government to immediately pay all arrears of third party deductions. Salary payment is not complete without remittance of 3rd party deductions, and this is a criminal offence."

Ariwodo also called for the release of revitalization fund and sustainable funding of universities set up by government in 2012 under the Needs Assessment Committee, aimed at determining the state of public universities and what will be required to revitalize them for national response and global competitiveness.

According to him, the report as at then (2012), stated that Nigeria public universities require about N1.3 trillion over a space of 6 years for revitalization, lamenting that apart from the N200 billion released to all public universities in 2014, virtually nothing has been released since then to address the rot in the institutions.

He added: "To tell you how bad it is, no Nigerian public university made the first 1000 universities in the world in global ranking, whereas our counterparts in some African countries made the list. Is this not a shame for the giant of Africa, who should provide leadership in the education sector.

Similar to this is the very poor budgetary allocation to education by government, which hovers around 8%, as against 15% stated in the APC manifesto and 26% recommended by UNESCO.

We plead with all well-meaning stakeholders to assist in urging the government to do the needful by signing our renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement, pay the withheld salary of three and half months, promotion arrears, remit 3rd party deductions, release the revitalization fund and significantly improve the education budget."

He said that ASUU has patiently tried in several ways to get government to resolve the issues in contention, regretting that nothing has been done.