Despite the resolution between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union Of Nigeria Universities (ASUU), some members are still being owed 16 months’ salaries, according to the President of the union, Emmanuel Osodeke.
He said that the government had reneged on the deal they had shaken hands over, depriving lecturers of their salaries and arrears.
Osodeke pointed out the “deliberate attempt” of the Federal Government t withhold the salaries of members.
He noted that the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation tried to deny the fact that some members were yet to receive their salaries.
“There are lecturers that are paid for few months, after one or two months, they stopped paying them, and all sorts of funny things. We have met with the minister of labour and employment; we even cascaded it to the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, but the office of the AGF seems to be adamant on punishing members.
“We have our principle of engagement with government. The agreement we reached in December was brokered by the Minister of Labour and Employment, and we also agreed to meet from time to time to look at the issues. We met in May and raised all these issues with the Accountant-General’s Office present at the meeting.
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“They tried to deny the fact that some of our members are being owed. And we were able to prove with available data that they were lying and they accepted and agreed to implement. If any of our members enroll in IPPIS today, officials from the office of the AGF will pay you the next day, which means that what they are doing is deliberate.
“We have sent data of our members to them more than four to five times – complete data. They will request for one today we will send, and the next month our members will still not be paid. But if any of our members decides to register, they will pay all their arrears. It is a deliberate attempt.
“They even came last month to request for data and we sent to them. As we speak, more than 1000 of our members are still being owed 16 months. Bursars of each university have sent their documentation and all corrections to the office of the Accountant-General, yet they are not paying our members.”
He added, “It is very unfortunate that they are trying to kill the university system because of personal reasons, and I think it is wrong. We will meet, get reports from all our branches, get all available data and the union will take the next action.”
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