The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to cancel the current academic session if President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration fails to pay striking lecturers their salaries withheld by the government during the strike’s six-month period.
The union’s national president, Prof. Emmanuel Osadeke, issued this threat in response to Adamu Adamu’s comments vowing that lecturers will not be paid their entitlement for the time they were on strike.
Prof Osadeke explained that lecturers could still resume the academic session from where it was abruptly halted when the strike began in February but vowed that they will only do so if their six months of salaries withheld by the government have been paid.
“He is joking. If they fail to pay, we will not teach those students; we won’t make up for that period. We will start a new session (2022/2023). We won’t conduct examinations; we will start a fresh session totally,” Prof Osadeke said.
“Lecturers are not doctors that once life is gone, it can’t be brought back. For lecturers, we can still resume where we stopped and still teach them and make up for lost time. But for us, if they fail to pay we won’t make up for the lost time. We won’t go back to fill backlogs; the schools will start a new session, 2022/2023. Examinations and the period lost won’t be taught,” he added.
The striking union’s president further vowed that it will not call off the strike until salaries arrears were paid
‘’If they want to do ‘no work no pay,’ we will also do ‘no pay no work.’ If they won’t pay the backlog, we won’t teach the backlog. We are not like other workers. He doesn’t know what he is saying,” he said.
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