Osodeke said the union might embark on the
policy which means another round of strike, since the FG has refused to pay
their salaries.
He stated this while speaking in a chat
with Vanguard on Wednesday.
Osodeke retorted that the FG did not wait
for the final judgment of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria that ordered
the union to go back to work before deciding not to pay his members their
withheld salaries.
He said, “Yes, the matter still continues
before the National Industrial Court of Nigeria in Abuja. The court has not
given a final judgement on it. Remember that we were not the ones who dragged
the government to court. It was the government that took us to court. The order
that the court gave was that we should go back to our duty posts while the
matter is being heard.
“As law abiding people, we obeyed the order
of the court. Unfortunately, the FG that initiated the matter did not wait for
the final decision of the court before starting the ‘no work, no pay’ issue.
Even to a layman, when the court said go back and maintain the status quo, did
it say that the government should be the judge on the matter?
On the series of protests by members in
branches over the half salary paid them in October, the ASUU boss expressed
satisfaction with the response of members.
“We are going to hold our National
Executive Council meeting to appraise the situation and look at reports from
the branches. It was the NEC that mandated the branches to embark on the
protests. Whatever is going to be the next line of action, we are going to
decide at the NEC meeting, ” he stated.
ASUU called off its eight-month-old strike
on October 14, 2022 with lecturers encouraged to resume back to work on that
same day.
This publication reported that after the
month ended, the FG paid the lecturers 18-day salary which drew outrage from
the union.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu
Adamu and the Labour and Employment Minister, Senator Chris Ngige, said at
different fora that the government did not do anything wrong by what it paid
the lecturers.
Adamu and Ngige also noted that the
government would stick to the ‘no work, no pay’ policy.
Meanwhile, lecturers in federal
universities were on Wednesday paid their November 2022 salaries in full,
contrary to what happened the previous month when they got half salary.
However, the withheld eight months salaries
were not paid by the government.
The action of the government is in line
with its policy of not paying the workers for work not done.