Report reaching The News Chronicle indicates that the Federal Government has begun the payment of the withheld salaries of academics under the auspices of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
Confirming the development, the chairperson of the Union at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof. Gbolahan Bolarin, revealed that the “payment has started rolling in.”
Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had in October 2023 approved the release of four of the eight months’ ASUU withheld salaries of the workers. The salaries were withheld when the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari invoked a ‘No Work, No Pay policy’ against some university-based unions that embarked on a strike that lingered for eight months in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, recently noted that the government has increased the university workers’ salaries by 35 per cent.
Mamman, who equally said that the Tinubu-led administration has given autonomy to the universities by dismantling them from the Integrated Payment and Payroll Information System, added that the universities no longer need a waiver to recruit and fill their vacancies.
He maintained further; “These resolutions were reached through informal consultations with the unions based in the tertiary institutions”.
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