The Congress of University Academics (CONUA) has called on the Federal Government to pay outstanding salaries, promotion arrears, and other benefits owed its members.
The congress made the call in a communiqué read after its Second National Executive Council meeting yesterday in Benin.
The communiqué, read by the President, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, worried over the continued withholding of three and a half months’ salary due to the strike action embarked upon by ASUU.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that ASUU, in February 2022, declared an industrial action that lasted about eight months to press for proper funding of university education, among others.
Consequently, the Federal Government invoked a ‘no work no pay rule’, by withholding seven and a half month salary of all academic staff members in the universities.
ASUU, however, challenged the decision, but failed, as the National Industrial Court in 2023 upheld the government’s policy.
President Bola Tinubu, after dialogue, approved payment of four month salaries to the lecturers.
But CONUA, in its resolutions after the NEC meeting, said the union has consistently maintained that it never declared and was not part of the strike action.
The resolution said: “The continued withholding of the three and a half months salary of our members is rather unfair because we believed in industrial action as the best tool to enforce wishes and welfare. What the government did was to lump those who embarked on strike with those who did not! This is unjust, and is tantamount to punishing the innocent with the guilty.
“Through its unwarranted punishment of CONUA members, the government is inadvertently promoting the use of strikes as means of pursuing workers’ demands.
“CONUA-NEC, therefore, notes with apprehension that failure to process and pay these outstanding salaries could throw the universities into serious crises and jeopardize the peace currently being enjoyed.”
CONUA also demanded the release of third-party deductions for March, April, May, and June 2022 salaries, which it said, were withheld due to the strike action.
“We demand that the agencies of government involved be directed immediately to release these third-party remittances without further delay,” said the communique
The union called for the payment of promotion arrears spanning up to seven years in some cases, particularly in many state universities.
“This dispiriting state of affairs should be addressed expeditiously to enhance the diligence of the many academics affected by the counter-productive delay in the payment of promotion arrears,” it said.