365news gathered that the Federal Government has implemented a “no-work, no-pay” policy for professors in the nation, and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is planning a one-day nationwide protest rally in response.
The demonstration will be organized at the branch level of the union on all public university campuses across the country, and it will happen on a day when all lecturers who are members will receive free classes.
This was reported to the Nigerian Tribune on Sunday by Dr. Dele Ashiru, the branch chairman of ASUU at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).
He claims that every university where ASUU members are present has been ordered to pick a day during the week for a special congress and a protest rally on their campuses.
He said that UNILAG-ASUU had set November 15 as the date for their own rally.
According to him, the protest rally’s sole purpose is to draw attention to ASUU’s strong displeasure with the Federal Government’s attempt to casualize the academics in the nation by employing the “no-work, no-pay policy” to compensate them.
He emphasized that professors at universities are professionals and thinkers who cannot be treated like hourly employees.
Ashiru emphasized that all members of the ASUU, UNILAG branch, are required to attend the congress and take part fully in the protest rally, just like other lecturers in other branches of the union would.
He claimed that the casualization of academics—who are intellectuals for any reason—is completely foreign to the academic system anywhere in the world.
He claims that Chris Ngige, the minister of labor and employment, wants to demonstrate his superior knowledge, but we will show him that his attempt to restrain lecturers, in particular from engaging in unionism, would never succeed as far as Nigeria is concerned.
Meanwhile, in a memo to union members that newsmen were able to obtain, the union requested that all interested parties attend the rally on Tuesday because “A people united can never be defeated.”
The National Coordinator of the Education Rights Campaign, Hassan Soweto, the Secretary General of the Joint Front Action, Giwa Yisa Temitope, the Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), and Victor Odeyemi, among others, are among the rights activists scheduled to speak at the event.
Recalls that the Federal Government only paid the public university lecturers, who had been on strike for eight months and returned to work on October 14, 50% salary for the month of October.
The academics, according to Tribune, think that the Federal Government’s implementation of a “no-work, no-pay” policy for the lecturers back then is what led to the payment of half their salaries.