The Benue State government may have made good its threat to
invoke the ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy on lecturers, who continue with the
110-day-old nationwide
strike, as salaries for the month of September remain
unpaid.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had on July
1 ordered its members nationwide to embark on an indefinite industrial action
after the federal government failed to implement a 2009 agreement signed with
them.
Following breakdown in talks and mediation between the union
and the government to resolve the crisis, Governor Gabriel Suswam had
threatened to invoke the ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy on lecturers of Benue State
University (BSU).
The lecturers, however, vowed to continue the action until
the 2009 agreement was fully implemented, insisting that their continued
participation in the strike was for the benefit of the BSU.
Bemoaning the non-payment of their September salary, Dr.
Samuel Ikoni, the Chairman of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in
BSU, said the development was worrisome.
“It is unclear if the non-payment of our salary is connected
to the no-work-no-pay threat issued by Governor Gabriel Suswam some weeks ago,”
he said.
Ikoni, however, noted that the non-payment of salary was not
peculiar to ASUU members alone, as members of the non-academic staff union too
had yet to receive their salary.
He regretted the delay, saying that it had caused the
lecturers some hardship.
He stressed that the lecturers’ salary payment schedule,
which was taken to the bank, did not have “a cash backing’’ to enable payment.
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