There are signs that the nation's universities' ability to resume their academic programs may be cut short once more as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) plans to call an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC).
The Federal Government is believed to have paid half of the lecturers' salary for the month of October 2022, which prompted the decision to call for the meeting.
Following rulings from the Court of Appeal, which confirmed a prior ruling from the National Industrial Court NIC, ASUU recently suspended its eight-month strike.
There is currently no set date for the meeting, but sources claim that it was decided to call one when certain union members received a surprise alert that half their salary would be paid for the month of October 2022.
"I was astonished when I received an alert from my bank and noticed it was half payment; they didn't even talk about the backlog of the eight months of the strike," one member of the academic staff who chose anonymity stated.
Another person who confirmed the information added, "It is true, I received half. In reality, several academics received salaries of N121,000; we are waiting for the national body's judgment, and we are quite furious right now.
Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of ASUU, had earlier verified the development in an interview.
Half pay were paid, with no explanations offered at all, he had said. We discovered that Ngige instructed the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System in a letter to only pay us for the time when we ended the strike.
We haven't received the letter, although having heard there was one. A meeting will soon be called.
Ben Bem Goong, the Ministry of Education's Director of Press and Public Relations, was quoted as saying, "We don't pay salaries at the Ministry of Education," in response to the development. Please address your query to the Accountant General's office.
In addition to ASUU's most recent complaints, members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of University and Allied Institutions (NASU) have been putting pressure on the government to pay their salary arrears for the eight months that the strike in Nigerian universities lasted.