The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said it will boycott classes throughout the federation in protest against the half salary paid to its members.
According to the Union, it’s members will observe One Day Lecture-Free Protest over payment of half salaries tomorrow, Tuesday 15.
The one-day protest tomorrow in all the branches of the universities is sequel to the failure of the Federal Government to pay lecturers their full entitlements instead of insisting on a “no-work, no-pay” policy for lecturers in the country.
The chairperson of ASUU, University of Lagos branch, Dele Ashiru, stated in a letter that the branch would protest on Tuesday, 15 November, 2022.
According to him, the aim of the protest rally was to draw the attention of Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora to ASUU’s strong dissatisfaction with the Federal Government’s attempt at casualization of the academics in the country by using ‘no-work, no-pay policy’ to remunerate them.
Ashiru, stated that university lecturers are intellectuals and professionals and cannot be treated like casual labourers.
He stressed that just as other lecturers in other branches of ASUU would do, all members of ASUU, UNILAG branch, are also expected to attend the congress and participate fully in the protest rally.
He said that the Federal government’s attempt to introduce lecturers’s casualization was pure strange to the academic system anywhere globally.
He stated that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, wants to prove that he knows more than every other person in the world but the union would show him that his attempt to cage the lecturers, particularly from engaging in unionism would never come to pass as far as Nigeria is concerned.
The letter which was addressed to “all stakeholders” noted that the special congress/ protest rally against the casualization of intellectualism in Nigeria will hold on “Tuesday, November 15, 2022, at Julius Berger auditorium.”
It was learned that the protest would be organized at the branch level of the union across public university campuses nationwide and it would take place as a free-lecture day for all lecturers who are members.
Recall that ASUU embarked on an eight month strike that commenced on 14 February, and was suspended on 14 October, 2022.
