ASUU Strike: No lecturer has been paid since February – Prof Osodeke

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday said none of its university lecturers has been paid since the union embarked on industrial action in February.

Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, accused the Federal Government of using hunger as a tool to force the striking lecturers into returning to their classrooms.

Noting that their salaries have been held for the past six months, Osodeke said the current administration cannot use the force of hunger to pull the striking union members.

According to him, the Federal Government thinks that depriving the lecturers of their salaries will force the university teachers to collapse and end the strike.

“Our salaries have been held, this is the sixth month or salaries have been held. They thought that if they hold our salaries for two or three months we will come begging and say ‘pls allow us to go back to work,” the ASUU President said.

“But we as a union of intellectuals, we have grown beyond that. You can’t use the force of hunger to pull our members back which is exactly what the government is doing.”