The six months strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may have no end in sight, as the body has threatened to start a new session completely following the Federal government’s decision not to pay the lecturers’ arrears for the periods during the strike.
Newsonline reports that ASUU National President, Professor Emmanuel Osedeke said the statement from the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu if implemented would result in an end of the present session.
Professor Osedeke stated this on Thursday, after the failed Wednesday meeting between the Federal government and ASUU.
Recall that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, on Thursday said the Federal government would not pay the university lecturers for the six months they have been on strike.
The strike which started on February 14, has entered the sixth month with no end in sight following the deadlock of the Wednesday meeting between the Federal government and ASUU.
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But reacting to Adamu’s statement, Osodeke said, “He is joking. If they fail to pay, we will not teach those students; we won’t make up for that period. We will start a new session (2022/2023). We won’t conduct examinations; we will start a fresh session totally.”
Osedeke added that the “Lecturers are not doctors that once life is gone, it can’t be brought back. For lecturers, we can still resume where we stopped and still teach them and make up for lost time. But for us, if they fail to pay we won’t make up for the lost time. We won’t go back to fill backlogs; the schools will start a new session, 2022/2023. Examinations and the period lost won’t be taught.”
He said, ‘’If they want to do ‘no work no pay,’ we will also do ‘no pay no work.’ If they won’t pay the backlog, we won’t teach the backlog. We are not like other workers. He doesn’t know what he is saying.”
