The lecturers, led by the UNIPORT ASUU chairman, Dr. Darlington Uzoma, marched from the union secretariat in Delta through the main gate of the university to the Senate building.
Academic activities at the University of Port Harcourt were on Monday paralysed following a protest by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) against what it termed maltreatment of lecturers.
The lecturers, led by the UNIPORT ASUU chairman, Dr. Darlington Uzoma, marched from the union secretariat in Delta through the main gate of the university to the Senate building.
Uzoma said, “About 20 of our members in UNIPORT are being owed 22 months’ salaries because of the carelessness of the Federal Government through the payment system it adopted.”
SaharaReporters had last week reported that the University of Jos chapter of ASUU also joined the University of Lagos chapter to protest against the payment of half salaries by President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.
Buhari’s administration had insisted on a “no-work, no-pay” policy against public university lecturers while they were on strike for eight months. Consequently, the lecturers were paid half of their salaries for October, the month the strike was called off.
The University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter last Tuesday declared a one-day nationwide protest against the policy.
The aggrieved lecturers were seen protesting on the streets of Lagos State in a video shared on Twitter.
“ASUU UNILAG chapter sing solidarity songs as they hold a one-day protest over the payment of half salaries to members in October,” the video was captioned.
However, the Chairperson of ASUU, University of Jos, Associate Professor Lazarus Maigoro in a statement said the chapter also rejected the ‘no work, no pay’ policy and the payment of half of their salaries to them.
He lamented that the government had yet to pay them salaries for eight months.
The statement had read, “ASUU University of Jos Branch says ‘No’ to the casualisation of Nigerian University Academics through the payment of pro rata salary as well as the withholding of our 8 months salaries.
“We condemn the mischievous IPPIS platform as a means of amputating our hard-earned wages as well as a tool for criminal diversion of part of our salaries to private pockets using unverified deductions.
“Our branch in the University of Jos calls on the Nigerian public to impress upon the government on the need to adhere and honour agreements it freely and willingly entered with our Union including the conclusion of the renegotiation of the ASUU -FG 2022 agreement chaired by Prof. Mimi Briggs.”