NASU Confidence FG Will Pay 4-months- Unpaid Salaries

Despite the Federal Government insistence that it will not pay university workers salary within the period they were on strike, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, on Wednesday, expressed optimism that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige will facilitate the payment of the outstanding salaries.

Recall that Senator Ngige has invoked the ‘No work, no pay”, policy of the government when the four university based unions failed to call off the strike.

The four unions are NASU, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU and the National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT.

Speaking to journalists on the margins of NASU National Executive Council, NEC, meeting, in Abuja, the General Secretary of the union, Prince Peters Adeyemi said the Joint Action Committee of NASU and SSANU called of its strike to give room for implementation of agreement reached with the Federal Government.

Prince Adeyemi said the unions were mindful not to collapse the education sector through strikes.

He, however said the JAC of NASU and SSANU expect the Federal Government to make arrangements for payment of salary arrears for the four months their members went on strike.

He contended that since all parties within the university system had suspended their industrial actions, it behooves on the government to start reviewing those hard stances it took while the tertiary institutions were under lock and key.

He said a moratorium given to the Federal Government which elapses by November 2022, should serve as a veritable opportunity for the government to sit down and begin to address the existing demands by the unions, one of which is the salary arrears.

Adeyemi pointed out that under no circumstance would the government sweep the issue under the carpet, especially when the government obliged the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, similar gesture after they suspended their two months strike in 2020.

Asked if the Federal Government is still disposed to offsetting the salary arrears, going by its initial stance of ‘no work, no pay’, Adeyemi responded, “That is the next issue, you see they say that if there is fire in the house, you first of all have to make sure that you that want to put off the fire must be safe first, if you get consumed in the fire, you can’t save anybody.”

According to him, “Now the process of talking about unpaid salaries will start, nobody will say the schools are closed, this is the ideal time to begin to appeal to those who have taken those hard stances and we believe that those hard stance were as a result of the fact that the schools were under lock and key.

“I have confidence as a union person that those salaries will be paid, because it has been paid to the guys in the health sector, two months, this Minister of Labour and Employment facilitated the payment and he is still there, I am confident he will facilitate this payment.”