The National Coordinator of CONUA, Niyi Sunmonu, informed SaharaReporters on Monday that the viral claim that the government had paid the parallel academic union their withheld salaries and allowances after proving their members did not join the eight-month strike called by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), was false.
Congress of University Academics (CONUA), the breakaway faction of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has denied receiving their eight months’ salary backlog from the Nigerian government.
The National Coordinator of CONUA, Niyi Sunmonu, informed SaharaReporters on Monday that the viral claim that the government had paid the parallel academic union their withheld salaries and allowances after proving their members did not join the eight-month strike called by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), was false.
Meanwhile, the union urged the government to pay their members’ withheld salaries in a circular released on Sunday, describing the payment of half-salary for October as unfair.
The statement reads: “Congress of University Academics (CONUA) hereby calls on the Federal Government to, without delay, pay members of the union's withheld salaries.
“As a union, we have stated several times that we were not part of the strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
“We first made this fact clear in a letter we addressed to the Minister of Labour and Employment in April 2022. And, at a press conference we addressed in Abuja on August 19, 2022, we also stated it categorically that, as a union, we were not on strike, and, this being the case, the issue of ‘no work, no pay’ ought not apply to our members.
“Given the above, CONUA considers it unfair that the salaries paid to members of the union were done pro-rata. What ought actually to have been done, and which we now call on the government to do, is to pay the backlog of our salaries from March to September (2022), in addition to what was cut off from our October (2022) salaries. We expect the government to act on the demand immediately.”
In a related development, SaharaReporters earlier reported that there was the likelihood of another industrial action in Nigerian universities ASUU members were set to hold an emergency meeting following the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to pay the lecturers half salaries for October 2022.
This was made known by the union’s national president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, in an interview with SaharaReporters last Friday.
On Thursday, SaharaReporters reported how members of ASUU received alerts for 18 working days in the month of October.