Patience Leonard, PBA Journalism Mentee
National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke has accused the Nigerian Government of holding back members’ salaries for six months, so as to blackmail them into begging to call off the strike.
Prof Osodeke made the assertion while appearing on Channels Television, Sunrise Daily, programme on Tuesday.
He stated that by stopping their salaries, the Government wants to use hunger as a tool to coerce the lecturers on strike to return to classrooms.
Osodeke said that none of its members have been paid since the union embarked on the industrial action in February.
He insisted that the current administration cannot use such harsh measure to push the striking union members into stepping down their action.
He said, “Our salaries have been held, this is the sixth month our salaries have been held. They thought that if they hold our salaries for two or three months we will come begging and say ‘please allow us to go back to work.’
“But we as a union of intellectuals, we have grown beyond that. You can’t use the force of hunger to pull our members back which is exactly what the government is doing.”
Recall that the union extended the strike by another four weeks on Monday, Aug. 1st 2022 thereby dashing the hopes of affected Nigerian students.
