The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members’ salary for the length of their strike should not be paid, according to the House of Representatives.
Mr. Benjamin Kalu, the House’s spokesperson, claimed in a statement that the decision was in accordance with established guidelines.
“The law has already been decided on this issue. See S. 43(1)(a) Trade Disputes Act, Cap T8, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN). The government’s legitimate interest in eliminating moral hazard and discouraging disruptive industrial activities”, the House noted, “justifies the Executive’s decision not to pay professors’ salaries for the time they were on strike.”
Kalu said notwithstanding Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s interventions for an exemption of ASUU on the issue, he noted that at no point did the Speaker of the House of Representatives commit to offset the arrears of salaries owed to the union members for the time they were on strike.
The House was responding to Emmanuel Osodeke, the president of the ASUU, who alleged that Gbajabiamila had used deceit to get the union to end its strike.
According to a report, Osodeke said that the Speaker broke his written promise to immediately balance the arrears of salaries owing to union members for the time they were on strike.
While criticising Osodeke, the House nonetheless insisted that the prolonged strike by universities was mostly due to his lack of good faith in negotiations and fondness for political brinksmanship.
The House further charged Osodeke with endangering the efforts being undertaken to prevent potential future disruptions to the university academic schedule.
As a result, the House urged Osodeke to refrain from making any more false claims against the House of Representatives and its speaker, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila.
