ASUU vs FG: Why Federal Govt won’t pay lecturers full salaries

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has stated that the Federal Government may not pay full salaries to members of the Academic Staff Union for the period of time they were on strike.

Before it called off its lingering strike in October, ASUU declared a nationwide industrial action in February and shuttered all Federal universities in the country for eight months.

But following the suspension of the strike, the government paid the lecturers half their salary for the month of October.

The development sparked a reaction from the lecturers as ASUU called a National Executive Council meeting to look into the matter.

But Gbajabiamila in a statement on Monday, November 7, 2022, affirmed the position of the FG on the issue.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari is being awaited to approve the proposal of “partial” payment presented to him.

According to him, the decision to pay lecturers half of their salary was based “on the law and the government’s legitimate interest in preventing moral hazard and discouraging disruptive industrial actions.”

The statement reads in part: “The Executive position that it is not obligated to pay salaries to adoption of elements of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System. This effort is being supervised by the Chairman of the House Committee on Tertiary Education, Rep. Aminu Suleiman.

“The Executive position that it is not obligated to pay salaries to lecturers for the time spent on strike is premised on the law and the government’s legitimate interest in preventing moral hazard and discouraging disruptive industrial actions. Nonetheless, interventions have been made to explore the possibility of partial payments to the lecturers. We look forward to a favourable consideration by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, who has manifested his desire to what is prudent and necessary to resolve all outstanding issues.

“Implementing meaningful change takes time, especially when appropriations and modifications to systems such as IPPIS are required. Therefore, I urge all parties to be patient and grant each other the presumption of goodwill to the extent necessary to achieve our shared objectives. This is not a time for political brinkmanship. There is no more pressing objective than to preclude the possibility of further disruptions to the academic calendar of the universities. We must prevent this possibility by all means, as these disruptions risk the promise and potential of our nation’s youth.”

The Speaker also urged all citizens and stakeholders to participate in “this crucial effort to reinvent our public tertiary institutions into respected citadels of learning.”