A labour advocacy group, Save Public Education Campaign, has warned the federal government to desist from the temptation to throw Nigerian universities into another cycle of strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), telling the government to withdraw the payment of half salary to university teachers. The group warned that Minister of Labour and Employment, including the Minister of Education that punitive and vindictive actions after the ASUU strike will only worsen the crisis in the higher education sector, noting that public University education in Nigeria is now endangered.
The group urged the NLC and TUC to rise to the defense of academic workers in the country.
The Save-Public-Education-Campaign berated the federal government for the payment of half-salary to ASUU members for the month of October 2022.
The Save-Public-Education Campaign in a statement by the Convener, Comrade Vivian Bello, chided the federal government that the action is in negation of the spirit of the several discussions, pleas, negotiations and dialogues that eventually saw to the suspension of the 8 months industrial action embarked upon by the academic body to press home legitimate demands bordering on both the welfare of its members as well as the overall good and development of the nation’s Universities.
The group argued that taking cognizance of the fact that the issues for which ASUU embarked on strike, in the first place, were not effectively addressed, the strike action was only suspended to give room for further dialogue and amicable resolution. The group, therefore, declared that “this resort to bizarre and anti-labour practice of paying half-salary is, therefore, very unfortunate and is bound to be counter-productive as the Save-Public-Education-Campaign and indeed many other teeming Nigerians are apprehensive that such action can veritably snap the precarious truce negotiated in place at the moment.”