ASUU Threatens To Shut Down NDU, RSU, Others Over Unpaid Salaries

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Port Harcourt zone, says it might be compelled to go on indefinite industrial action soon if government continues to implement what it called ‘policy of starvation’ by either paying fractional salaries or non payment of salaries, among others.

Briefing newsmen in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, after its zonal meeting, ASUU said academics have become the major recipients of government’s inhuman and abhorrent policy of starvation.

ASUU zonal coordinator, Professor Beke Sese, said the briefing was necessitated by the need to inform students, parents and Nigerians, about the provocative actions of government, which he said were threatening the peace in Nigerian universities.

Sese said: “Since last year, the Federal Government and some state governments as proprietors of universities have been implementing an implicit policy of starvation in our universities, by either paying fractional salaries or outright non-payment of salaries.”

He decried the situation, especially at Niger Delta University (NDU), Ammasoma, where lecturers were not paid cumulative six months salaries and the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where fractional salaries were been paid since last year.

“It is pertinent to point out that the Niger Delta University has not paid salaries for a cumulative period of six months since last year. With such imposed deficit in an already inadequate income, how are they expected to feed their families, pay children’s school fees and even meet transportation costs?” he queried.