The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is set to embark on a one-day nationwide protest over President Muhammadu Buhari-led government’s decision to pay them half salary.
This followed the implementation of a “no-work, no-pay” policy for lecturers in the country after they called off the 8-month old strike.
Nigerian Tribune reported that the nationwide protest rally would hold at the branch level of the union across public university campuses nationwide, with lectures suspended for the one-day protest.
ASUU members across universities are expected to choose a day within the week to hold a special congress and also go on protest rallies within their campuses.
Recalls that the Buhari-led Government had paid only half salary for the month of October to the public university lecturers, who had been on industrial action for eight months and returned to work on October 14.
Confirming the new directive to Nigerian Tribune on Sunday, the chairman of ASUU, University of Lagos (UNILAG) branch, Dr. Dele Ashiru, said UNILAG-ASUU had fixed Tuesday, November 15, for its own rally.
According to him, the protest rally is to draw the attention of Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora to ASUU’s strong dissatisfaction with the Buhari Government’s attempt at casualization of the academics in the country by using ‘no-work, no-pay policy’ to remunerate them.
While insisting that university lecturers are intellectuals and professionals, Ashiru noted that just as other lecturers in other branches of ASUU would do, all members of ASUU, UNILAG branch, are also expected to attend the congress and participate fully in the protest rally.
He said casualization of academics is totally alien to the academic system globally, adding that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, wants to prove that he knows more than every other person in the world.
He stated that the Union would show Ngige that his attempt to cage the lecturers, particularly from engaging in unionism, would never come to pass as far as Nigeria is concerned.
